Senator, first and foremost, we must consider the safety of Canadians. There are three ways of ensuring that Canadians are safe: outside our borders, at our borders and inside our borders. The police enforcement systems and agencies act on all three fronts to ensure that we thwart threats. We should disabuse ourselves of the notion that Canada’s borders are impermeable. That is a reality we must deal with. Otherwise, we would only have one way of enforcing entry into and exit from this country.

Police certificates are an important measure. They are not the be-all and end-all. They are, at times, required as part of the security screening that our officers do diligently when it comes to international students or anyone else who comes to this country, on a tourist visa or otherwise. Since 2018 — perhaps a bit earlier — we’ve implemented biometrics, which is critical. We cross-check them with several security agents, and if we look back and pose to ourselves the fundamental question of whether we are safer now than we were 10 years ago, I would say that we’re much safer now.