Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a bit of a general comment and then I have a couple of specific questions.
My first comment is that, probably like a lot of Canadians, I feel a bit of frustration when we talk about the border with the United States because I believe the premise from which we begin is faulty. The greatest illustration of that is in Ms. Napolitano's comments recently. Since 9/11, when the Americans were understandably quite shaken, there really hasn't been any evidence-based circumstances, I think, that would justify the amount of attention we've seen on thickening the border. Other than the Ressam case a few years ago, I don't think there have been any examples of Canadians crossing the United States border for terrorist activity. There have been no high-profile situations in which there have been commercial problems crossing the border from Canada. Yet we have proceeded on the assumption that there's a problem there.
I must say for the record that I find that frustrating. I feel like we're engaging in a whole set of procedures and policies and taking a lot of people's time and energy and money to fix a problem that I have never been convinced is actually there. Nevertheless, I hear what you're saying, that the reality is such that we may not have the luxury of arguing the premise.
My two questions are focused on the following.
My first is on sovereignty. Mr. Beatty, I think you used the elegant phrase, “intersections of sovereignties”, which I quite like. My concern when we talk about the border and when we talk about words like harmonization or information sharing, particularly in the context of things like the security and prosperity partnership, is that in joining with the United States in common procedures, policies, practices, approaches, we risk losing our ability to set our own standards and our ability to gain control of affairs within our own country.
I'll give a couple of examples and then I'll ask you for your comments. I've read that there have been proposals to adopt the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval process on pharmaceuticals and drugs, that we'll simply adopt those in Canada.
Second, something I'm familiar with through my previous work is that the Americans have random drug testing for their workers--it's lawful in the United States, it's not lawful in Canada--and the tendency is for us to adopt that practice in Canada.
I'd like your comments. You've given a lot of thought about this, I can tell. Do you have any concerns about how we protect Canadian sovereignty in the context of dealing with the very real security issues we have?