QUESTION PERIOD — Public Safety

My question is for the Government Representative. Late last month, the Parliamentary Budget Office, or PBO, released a report called “Establishing a Domestic Verified Travellers Program.” The PBO analysis found that creating a sovereign stand-alone verified traveller program would cost about $47 million over five years. But if we charged an application fee of $50 a person, that would come down to between $1 million and $2 million a year. At $55 a person, the program would pay for itself. And at $100 an application, we would be making bank.

Given the modest estimated cost of standing up such a program, is the government now open to such an idea?

Then I have a follow-up suggestion/question.

Currently, Canada has no independent verified traveller program. Instead, we piggyback on the U.S. NEXUS program, which is run by the U.S. Homeland Security.

Given the rising unease that Canadians feel about sharing their personal information with Trump’s security regime, and given that new NEXUS applications have plummeted by more than 50% since Trump’s second term began, is it time for Canada to liberate its domestic airport security program from its dependence on the U.S. Homeland Security?