So our government hasn't chosen to think that there's a problem with checking information on flights overflying Canada, even though we've had an incident. Yet the United States, with no incidents of overflight, wants security information that we haven't shared in the past and haven't had any problem with.
So what we have here, I think, quite clearly, is that we're all around this table wondering what the U.S. is doing, and we're going to comply with them. We have an illogical situation occurring, and we're willing to comply with it. As good Canadians, we want to keep our businesses going, and we want to ensure that our people get to Mexico and the Caribbean. That's a good idea. So we have to come up with a solution that doesn't reward illogical behaviour and that can give us some redress in the future.
The U.S., in their final note on the Secure Flight, has the ability to completely exempt Canada from sharing information based on comparable systems. We have a situation where the U.S. government won't accept our system as comparable in security with theirs. I think what we have is a situation of time. We need time with this legislation.
The Conservative government chose to deal with it in this fashion. This has caused us all considerable grief. They brought it forward at the last moment in June, and then they brought if forward again without giving us enough time for a decision. So we're now stuck with the options that would appear to be there to amend the bill so that our legacy from working on this bill is something that will not impair Canadians forever.
That's my statement on it. I didn't want to draw any conclusions. I was following Mr. Jean's line, where he laid out what's going on here. I appreciate the parliamentary secretary's efforts as well.
So here we go. We would appreciate any suggestions you have about this bill and how it can be amended so that we can ensure that we're not moving in the wrong direction. We don't want to move in a direction that will permanently impair Canadians' privacy.