I feel compelled to go back to the story Mr. Oliphant was talking about, because there was a comment about how this might be an inconvenience, but after a day or two you forget it. When these individuals were calling me on the phone as I was approaching that border, they didn't feel Canadian. They were there for nine hours. They had gone effortlessly into the United States and couldn't get back into their own country. That's something that lasts with them for a long time.
When you're talking about complaints, I talk to so many constituents, and I have scores of complaints about incidents that happened at the border. These people don't feel comfortable reporting them because they travel back and forth to the United States. If they have to complain directly to CBSA instead of an independent oversight body, their concern is retribution; that they're going to be marked as troublemakers, and when they go back through they're going to have trouble.
Whether that perception is right or wrong, they have it. It's one of the reasons why I think Justice O'Connor's recommendations about the necessity of having independent oversight is so critical. I think it's equally important for your agency, because it's very difficult for somebody to trust that if they write you and CBSA directly they're going to get resolution to this, or they won't become a target.
I just want to make the point that this stuff lasts with people. If there isn't an independent body to which they can appeal and feel, rightly or wrongly, they're not going to be subject to retribution, we won't have a way of really remedying this. The thousand people who were on those buses never complained, mostly for the reason I just stated, but also because they expected that when we had the opportunity at committee we would raise it.
I don't want this to be seen as some kind of minor inconvenience or something they forgot about. This is something they'll never forget. We need to have a way for them to be able to get answers on this without having to fear retribution.