Mr. Speaker, what is interesting about Bill S-22 is that there is unanimity on it here in the House. A very good job was done on it in the other place, particularly the amendments by two honourable senators, one of which was to put in a 5-year limit after it takes effect, after which the minister can undertake a review. This is a very wise move, and we thank the senators and the government members for having accepted the change, which I feel is a very important one. Any concerns there might be will be verified and verifiable after the legislation has been in place for five years.
I will not go back over everything other members have said this morning on Bill SS-22. Essentially, it is a very solid bill, and one that modernizes what has been done for some years in the way of airport preclearance.
There are some concerns, however. Looking at a bill like this one, one can conclude that there is not really any preclearance in the U.S. for Canada and elsewhere. As someone put it to me, “With the Canadian preclearance areas for the U.S., it is as if the Americans were trying to protect themselves, by controlling arrivals into their country from outside their country”. How reassuring.
This leads them to say “If ever there are any problems, they are not on our territory, so this will make it easier to handle arrivals of people in the United States”. This is true. One can put a negative slant on it, that is to say that the Americans are using Canadian airports to have control over what enters the United States, be it men, women, children or goods. If there is a problem, at least they are not on American soil. The law is very clear. Canadian law and the Charter prevail.
True, we are helping the U.S. authorities, but we are helping even more Canadians and Quebeckers who travel to the United States. A number of us travel to the United States on a regular basis. Preclearance and intransit areas greatly speed up entry into the United States upon arrival on U.S. soil on the other side of the border. One does not have to wait for hours.
If there is a problem, at least with preclearance one is still on Canadian soil. The minister referred earlier to this whole issue of sovereignty.
Canadian travellers have a certain guarantee. But, as I said before, there is also a guarantee for the U.S. that, should there be a problem, it will be dealt with outside of their territory. This legislation helps people living in Quebec and Canada, while also helping U.S. authorities control the movement of men, women and goods.
To sum up, as I mentioned before, Bill S-22 updates and implements a system that already exists in the context of the global economy. There is a desire to facilitate passenger travel. However, extreme caution must be exercised. Many very interesting questions were raised during the proceedings of the Senate committee. I hope that the House committee will also review the bill fully. The Americans must ensure reciprocity with respect to their legislation on preclearance and intransit areas.
But the bill is clearly a step in the right direction. We will see this in the future. Although the minister told us that very few refugee applications were made at Vancouver Airport during the preclearance and intransit areas pilot project, only one in fact, all parliamentarians must realize that other applications will follow.
There could be an increase in such applications in the future. Depending on the international context, or preclearance and intransit areas, many refugee applications will be made right here in Canada. Will Bill S-22 be blamed? That is always a possibility, but I think such applications could be attributed to the situations people face in their own country.
I would therefore like to pay tribute once again to the work done in the other Chamber. There are some exceptionally talented individuals there who are responsible for seeing that a bill as important as this one can begin or end its journey here.