This has been quite a journey in terms of addressing something the American Congress put in place; this wasn't from their administration. As members around the committee table will know, about four years ago there was a law passed that everybody going into the United States, by a certain time period, would have to have a passport. That included Americans returning to the United States. The timelines originally on the table suggested that by January 1 of 2007, all people flying in or coming in by ship or boat were going to have to have a passport and that by January 1, 2008, everybody coming in at a land border was going to have to have a passport.
We were very concerned. We've done a number of studies on this. Not only do we think this will discourage travel from Canada into the United States, but we are even more concerned that this will dampen the desire of people wanting to come from the United States into Canada. Americans appear to be more averse to getting passports than Canadians. Just over 20% of Americans have passports and almost 40% of Canadians. There's also the cost that goes with that.
From the time Prime Minister Harper first met with President Bush and his Mexican counterpart at the Cancun meeting, this was the first item on the agenda. As far as the Prime Minister is concerned, this will have a very negative effect on our economy. It's not just the economy, strictly speaking, but even the social economy: the number of people who travel across the border for family reasons, friendship reasons; sports teams, hockey teams, soccer teams. There's a host of things we believe will be unanticipated consequences of that legislation.
We've made achievements. We have an agreement from the Americans that alternative documents will be acceptable. We're just defining what those will be. We've also been successful in having the implementation date pushed back; so far, it's about a year and a half.
I just want to say to members here, and any Canadians who are listening, that by January 8 of this year, 2007, if you are flying into the United States or you're coming in by ship, you have to have a passport. With respect to ferry traffic at the normal points, they'll let you in with two pieces of ID. So if you're flying or coming in by ship, get your passport. With the land ports, you have about another year and a half. We're working on alternatives there.