Public Safety committee  Yes. I think the quote is accurate. I think it's still apt today. Those cuts happened back in 2013-14, but our numbers have not really gone up since. We've not seen the college or the CBSA have the capacity to get our numbers back to what they need to be. Really, every time we

Public Safety committee  As far as I know, no jobs have been cut. Our numbers have not gone up, but none have been cut.

Public Safety committee  Any funding is welcome. Technologies are useful. Technologies are only useful if you have the officers there to use the technology. At the port of Montreal specifically, the issue right now is space. I'm hoping there will be some money allotted to looking at new facilities and gr

Public Safety committee  From my knowledge of the college right now as it's built—I visit there quite often and meet with all the new recruits—I don't really see where you would be expanding at that location. I'm not sure where a new location would go. Certainly, we need more capacity to be able to gradu

Public Safety committee  My understanding is that some of the money that's been earmarked is going toward collaborative groups, working with other police agencies. As to how that works specifically at the port of Montreal, my understanding is that for the most part there is great collaboration between th

Public Safety committee  I don't have exact numbers available. We could get those for you. Things are definitely getting busier. Anecdotally, I hear that from officers. As the numbers go down, obviously, the lineups get longer. We all saw what went on during the pandemic and what happened with ArriveCAN

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today as the national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, which represents personnel working for the CBSA, including frontline border services officers. For many of our members, or anyone famil

Public Accounts committee  Thank you—anytime.

Public Accounts committee  To answer the question at large, on the app and its development long-term, we believe the goal of the app is to replace officers. Specifically, the result of it is that it makes our borders less secure. It eliminates interactions that our officers have with travellers. We've see

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely. Our estimates are that they could have hired approximately 600 officers with that. Six hundred is above the number that we're able to graduate each year to become officers. Given that we're short between 2,000 and 3,000 nationwide, 600 officers would have been a big h

Public Accounts committee  Given that it was made mandatory, our officers spent almost all of their time helping people complete the app. We had ports with no Wi-Fi and had people coming into the office, having to print it out and do it. We had travellers who refused to do it and who didn't know how to do

Public Accounts committee  I think funding always has to go, first and foremost, to officers, especially with the deficit that we have in frontline staff. Again, we're not dinosaurs: We know that technology has its uses, but it has to be there to assist officers. If the idea is that technology replaces off

Public Accounts committee  In terms of the information that we needed for our purposes for our customs officers, really all we needed was to be able to verify that the person was vaccinated, which everyone was able to do by simply showing us their vaccination on their phone or a printed-out copy. All of th

Public Accounts committee  No. Again, the majority of our officers' time during COVID was helping people complete the app, making sure they completed the app. One bigger issue we had was that we're not considered peace officers under the Quarantine Act, either, which is something I'm hoping is looked into

Public Accounts committee  Do you mean specifically under the Quarantine Act or in general?