I would be glad to, Mr. Dykstra, and you being a member from the Niagara area, with four border crossings, are particularly attuned to all issues in terms of identity documents and passports in light of the western hemisphere initiative south of the border.
That being said, Canada, unlike the United States, Britain, and a number of countries, has continued for many years to issue passports for a period of five years. It creates a number of challenges. It creates a number of opportunities. By having passports that will expire fairly quickly, it allows the government to get new technology into the system a little quicker than if they had to wait 10 years to get rid of an older passport. So that indeed is what the government has done.
With the five-year passport, while there were some advantages in the sense of the technology changes, it was challenging for some individuals. It takes you a while to get the passport issued. You really don't have it for five years; it's four years plus. Even in my own constituency of Niagara Falls, I've had a number of senior citizens who have indicated to me that they'd like to have had that for 10 years. They're away; they're travelling, and to be constantly having to update it presents some challenges to them.
That being said, this is a security measure, and you'll see that the provisions recently announced in Parliament make specific reference to increasing the security provisions of those passports. That goes hand in hand with increasing the period of time from five years to 10 years. I'm sure you advise your constituents, as we all do, that whether we like it or not, this is becoming an important document that people have to have. People who travel by planes know this, but increasingly now those who cross international borders by car are coming to the realization that they have to have this. This has been something that's been in process for quite some time, and it's an important document.
There are specific provisions within this legislation that I was very pleased to have in it. There are different provisions that call upon you to come up with an explanation for what you're doing with other people's passports or other government-issued documentation. And why shouldn't the onus be on you? We're careful. In fact, in the example I gave in my opening remarks, I said, as we all have done, a parent might be handling three or four or five passports if they have all their children with them. Well, they have a legitimate reason to be crossing an international border with a number of passports in their possession because of course they have their family with them. But quite apart from something obvious like that, we do want to put an onus on you to explain what you're doing with government-issued identification. So as I say, there are slightly different provisions and tests with respect to government documentation than with other information. But I think that is as it should be.
So I appreciate your comments and your question on that. I hope my comments underscore how important that document is for a number of reasons.