We also heard in testimony that essentially the government has backed off any interventions with the new administration on the WHTI, so it will come into effect in June. This is eight months before the Vancouver Olympics. We essentially have this huge challenge now with only one-quarter of Americans having passports, and at the same time the WHTI being fully implemented at a time when in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia we're trying to attract as many American tourists as possible.
Do you feel the government should have done a lot more to avoid what is becoming a tourism calamity? As well, we heard evidence from the Canadian Tourism Commission that supplementary budgets haven't been allocated to ensure Americans are aware of what the new requirements will be going back into the United States.
I'll ask a further question and then turn things over to you, Mr. Bradley. Thank you for appearing before our committee.
You mentioned the SPP. Essentially you said, charitably, that it has underwhelming results. I'd like to attack it from another standpoint. The SPP was purportedly around border issues and then became this multi-headed monster that attacked a whole series of regulations, a lot of them that protect Canadians, and sought to bring in lower standards in areas that had nothing to do with the border. At the same time as you have the SPP, we have this thickening of the border, which, as you mentioned, has not been helpful at all.
Setting the SPP aside and refocusing on border issues and the thickening of the border through measures such as you mentioned, do you feel a cabinet committee on the border is the best way to go, that the SPP has been detrimental to the border in addition to being detrimental to a whole range of other areas? Thank you.