Mr. Chair, I note with some interest that the governing parties always complain about opposition parties bringing forward concurrence debates.
I would ask Mr. Bachrach to go back.... I know he wasn't elected in the time of Jack Layton and Tom Mulcair when they were the official opposition. I can assure him that this tool to bring forward issues was utilized with great frequency. That's the same for Mr. Bittle, who wasn't here when they were the third party.
Concurrence motions are a valid tool of Parliament. They are very much one way to bring attention to a serious matter, as is a report to the House where the chair actually stands in the chamber and tables a report during routine proceedings.
Mr. Bachrach may want a strongly worded letter, a moderately worded letter or a letter with no emotions attached to it whatsoever. We think that the report was the way to go, which is why we moved it that way.
I can appreciate the theatre here of pretending that Conservatives don't want to actually address this issue. Of course we do, which is why we brought it forward. We believe it should have been treated substantially, with a report to express our concern about the parts of this that relate to the mandate of this committee, which is oversight and holding the government to account on issues that are within our purview. That includes ports and railways, both of which are implicated in the organized crime scheme that steals vehicles from the driveways of law-abiding Canadians and ships them via the port of Montreal.
We simply thought our concern and our desire for additional resources to be provided should be reported to the House.
We know that there's a budget coming up. We know that the government is evaluating its priorities. We believe that a priority, as indicated by this committee, should be to give CBSA more resources, so it can do its job of preventing the property of Canadians from being shipped abroad through the port of Montreal to be used by organized crime.
We don't apologize for wanting that to be done in a formal way where it could be discussed in the House and where the seriousness of this matter would be registered with the House, as opposed to through a simple motion here, which will go no further, or a letter from the clerk or the chair, which requires no response from the minister or the government.
It's disappointing that this has been watered down. It seems that the direction the committee wants to go is to not have the force of a report, but to simply take note of something. We believe that the report would have put some more significant weight behind it to express that concern.
It's disappointing that this is where this is going.