Mr. Speaker, shiprider is an interesting program that actually came through the Senate, the unelected chamber, in terms of its analysis, and now it has been altered significantly in the budget bill. There was a lot of evidence of problems with the shiprider program and the problems it creates for tourism and trade.
I want to focus on why the government is cutting the Canada Border Services Agency inspections officers down to 1,100 officers. In fact the government is getting rid of one-quarter of the sniffer dog teams that are directly linked to eliminating gang operations as well as drug smuggling and gun operations. It is eliminating them through the budget. How does the government square the circle that the shiprider program can do those things?
I would invite my colleague to talk about the fact that in the United States there were a couple of interesting cases where U.S. customs officers actually killed American citizens. There was also the case in Niagara Falls four years ago where an American law enforcement agent pursued an American vehicle into Canada, killing a single mother on the streets of Niagara Falls.
Maybe my colleague could talk about those cases. It would be interesting to square the circle as to how the government will have accountability for those issues in this agreement.