Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, we have not seized, that I'm aware of--I'm sure I would be--missiles or those kinds of weapons. We've seized firearms and knives, and there is a whole category of weapons that I would call knives, in general, but they have all kinds of weird shapes. In terms of our results, you're right, illegal use of weapons in this country is a big concern.

Public Accounts committee  There are different initiatives that are occurring. The most important one for us is the framework being put into place by the World Customs Organization. That would allow us to have a list of authorized operators or organizations in the business that are safer. We're doing that with the U.S.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, the question of advance information has been at the centre of our organization since we created it. What we essentially put in place, with the help of partner organizations from within Canada and from other countries, is a multi-layered approach. We basically try to stop the threat before it comes to the continent.

Public Accounts committee  Regarding the discussions with the minister, first, they would normally be in the context of the portfolio and how we work together. I mean the Canadian agency involved with security. Regarding the work with others, the minister is involved in our discussions with the U.S. and the different systems we have in place to share information.

Public Accounts committee  I don't agree with you, but I agree that we need to measure. What I'm saying is you need a bit of time to be able to do that measurement. Maybe we can disagree on when exactly it should have been started, but I have already reported to the committee on the result of that risk analysis.

Public Accounts committee  No. I believe we have developed it in the proper way, but I believe we are at a step now—

Public Accounts committee  As I said in my opening statement, Mr. Chair, when we were created, we were created out of pieces of three organizations. There was absolutely no overhead, no corporation, no organization for a chair, no communication, audit, or planning. There was nothing. So for the first six months I had to create some sort of a SWAT team to keep us basically changing the wires in our house while the power was on.

Public Accounts committee  The comment made by the Auditor General makes reference to how it is done by our sister organization, CBP in the United States, which goes to that additional step we have not put in place. Our program was developed in pre-9/11 mode. We admit that we could have a tighter program.

Public Accounts committee  Certainly. The introduction of new technology like that, a new system to manage risk, is something that needs to be planned very, very specifically. In this case, it is true that in the first couple of years we were not good at collecting information in two areas. One of them was the specific results obtained by the machine; the other was creating a sample or another parallel area where, say, containers would have been opened randomly or people referred randomly, and we measured the extent to which we were doing this better than a random result.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, Chair. We do have a system we call AMPS, the administrative monetary penalty system, that we can use to apply pressure. We will need to do that. I can only say we are progressing. It's not as easy as it sounds. In some cases it's not necessarily only a problem with airlines, because formatting questions need to be resolved.

Public Accounts committee  I think, and I may be wrong, you are referring to small airports and private planes, ensuring we can reconcile the information we have of planes arriving in Canada with some areas where we don't get the information. We have developed an arrangement with Nav Canada that will be put in place this year that will allow us to make that reconciliation, if that is what you're asking.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, and at some point I'll ask for help from my colleague, Madam Munroe. It is a difficult area. We've been discussing these programs with the United States CBP, our equivalent organization in the U.S., in the Department of Homeland Security. The drive for the marine NEXUS program, the main thing here, has really been coming from the U.S., which believes it's a proper way to risk manage these situations.

Public Accounts committee  No, it's much higher.

Public Accounts committee  In a ratio of five to one, if I consider the 21%—

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, we had a meeting in Canada about two months ago of the most advanced countries; there were five. Of the five, only three already had in place a system similar to ours—and I would say again, not quite as good as our latest version—and they were New Zealand, which has copied our system, and the United States.