Public Accounts committee  At the time that we were using it early on in the pandemic, no. Given what has come out, obviously I hear from members about the whole procurement process and the decision-making around that, but at the time, no.

Public Accounts committee  Our members have watched a lot of the testimony. They watched me give testimony here. We all really want to know what happened. It is concerning. One of the big things the union would like to see.... I appeared at another committee for Bill C-20, which is about the public compla

Public Accounts committee  Obviously, as you said, it's officers, technology that assists and doesn't replace officers, and training facilities. Currently, as I said earlier, we have one in Rigaud, Quebec, that can graduate a maximum of about 592 officers a year, which doesn't even cover attrition. With on

Public Accounts committee  I'm not aware of what the costs are. We have, essentially, a second satellite training facility in Chilliwack, which I think is usable. We've heard of places that are available in the Windsor area that could work. Different plans are floated, but they never seem to come to fruit

Public Accounts committee  I wish I had the answer to that question. I think over the years, an overreliance on technology has been built up. It started with the automated machines at the airport, as I said. The initial plan around that was for people to self-declare and for us to not interact with them a

Public Accounts committee  I wouldn't have those numbers. We can find out and provide that to you.

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely, our canine teams are vital to what we do. We're short of those as well, just like we're short of officers. Definitely, the money could have been put towards that, yes.

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely, the money needs to go toward border service officers. We can do absolutely the full gamut of what's needed at the border, including keeping our communities safe. The technologies we have, such as ArriveCAN, simply do not do that.

Public Accounts committee  I hope they are. It's certainly not for a lack of my repeating it over and over. I think there is a definite disconnect. I spoke to this earlier too. The upper levels of CBSA management rarely if ever have come from the front line. I'm often having to show or explain to people

Public Accounts committee  In terms of not having enough of us there, I would say there is a definite failure, yes.

Public Accounts committee  I'm the president of the union, and we support our workers in representing them—

Public Accounts committee  We ensure they're treated fairly and that the rights they have under our collective agreement are upheld.

Public Accounts committee  For grievances, health and safety representation.... Really, for any issue they have where they're not being treated as they should be, they come to the union.

Public Accounts committee  I'd be guessing. We can get those numbers for you and provide them. I don't have them.

Public Accounts committee  I would say that morale was low. People were frustrated. Again, we had very little ability to enforce anything, so we ended up spending the vast majority of our time at the border trying to get the app to work and trying to get people to complete the app as they needed to. Moral