Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member opposite for his thoughtful presentation.
I want to address one of the areas of misunderstanding which he has about the bill. He believes quite honestly that students will have the first response powers. That is definitely not the case. I have stated that a number of times in this House today.
I want to assure him that the decision has been made to give these extra powers to full time and permanent part time employees but they will not be given to the student officers who we utilize in customs, and utilize quite well I might add, having been one in 1974 at one of the busiest border points in Canada, the Niagara border point.
He can be assured that the decision has been made and that his concerns are unfounded in this regard.
I believe that we have a smart border in Canada. I do not say that just because it sounds nice. We have designed our customs administration to protect Canadian society, and not only against contraband. We have set up a system which facilitates legitimate travel and legitimate trade. We use our intelligence networks to target high risk situations.
Canadians have to understand the volume we are dealing with. It is a very large border. We are processing approximately 109 million travellers a year at our border points. We expedite our trade. We all know that one out of three jobs in this nation is dependent on trade. It is a growing area. It has grown from the time we took power in 1993. At that time it was one in five jobs and now it is one in three.
We are dealing with 158,000 large importers and exporters. There is a huge responsibility at our border crossing points to expedite and professionally deal with trade. However, we must always be on the lookout for the other element of society which tries to get through our screens. It is a big responsibility.
It is important to understand that the first line people are going to be assisted by this legislation. That is really important to understand.
The numbers are phenomenal and they are growing. In 1996-97 Revenue Canada processed $248 billion in trade, representing more than 28 million transactions, resulting from 10 million commercial entries.
This is very important for the hon. member to understand. He raises many different areas in his speech in which he has an interest but which are not truly the subject matter of this bill. However, I am glad to hear that the hon. member is in agreement with the subject matter of this bill.
I will let him comment on my comments, but I did want to correct the misunderstanding involving the students.