I'm going to ask my questions from the chair, if I might.
I have to say I'm disturbed. I'm very disturbed by this U.S. secure flight program and I'm not entirely sure what the answers are, but what I hear the witnesses saying is that we don't really have any clear basis for even having such a program. There's been no evidence that's really demonstrated that Canadians need to provide this information, that there's any valid security concern that will come from it.
We risk complete abdication of our sovereignty to a foreign government that will determine where Canadians travel pretty much anywhere. And Canadians have no real redress to challenge this. There's no democratic accountability of the U.S. regulatory authorities to Canadians. There's no way for Canadians to challenge the decisions. We have no idea in any way what criteria would be applied by the U.S. authorities to deny a Canadian an opportunity to travel to Mexico, South America, or Europe.
But I do think that my friend Mr. MacKenzie has made one valid point, which is that this is U.S. airspace and they control it. And even though that disturbs me, I'm wondering how we get around that. If the U.S. demands that we provide this information to them as a condition of flying through their airspace, do you have any suggestions for us as to how the Canadian government ought to proceed in the face of such a demand?