Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here. It's a pleasure to have you here.

I'm going to continue along the same lines, Mr. Brochet.

First of all, I want to thank you for the recommendations in your opening remarks. So far, I think you're the witness who has given us the most recommendations or solutions to this major issue.

You talked about the prospect of restructuring of the Canada Border Services Agency. I agree that the priority may have always been to check what's coming into the country rather than what's going out. To fix this crisis, this scourge of car theft, perhaps we need to change that way of doing things, at least in part.

You also talked about toughening the law. However, I'm particularly interested in reviewing security at the ports.

You talk about the need to stop organized crime from infiltrating the ports and to review the hiring process at the ports, how they select employees and the security clearance of those employees.

You're a police officer in Laval, so you must be very familiar with the situation at the Port of Montreal. Do you have any information to the effect that organized crime has fully infiltrated and is present at the Port of Montreal, and that's facilitating the export of stolen vehicles? Of course, I'm well aware of the fact that you can't comment on specific investigations. Be that as it may, the Port of Montreal needs a major boost. People don't dare say it, but we all know a little bit about it. According to the port authority, it's doing everything it can, it has security officers, but they can't open the sealed containers. That's part of the work of police officers, who must have a warrant to open them, for example.

What do you think needs to be done at the various Canadian ports, but specifically at the Port of Montreal, where obviously it seems easy to get a container in without anybody knowing what's in it? I'll come back to vehicle identification numbers later.

I'll let you explain to us further what solutions you think could be introduced at the ports.

Kristina Michaud

$653,848.00