Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his comments. I will say right off the bat that the Reform Party supports this bill, even if it does come from the Senate. Some worthwhile things come from there and we are debating one of them today.
Bill S-22 is an act to establish the reciprocal agreement between Canada and the United States allowing U.S. customs inspectors to operate in precleared designated areas as established by the minister. The goal is primarily to allow a freer flow of goods and travellers into the United States.
Coming from Vancouver where the test case was done, it is certainly a great benefit to any of those who have been travelling into the United States over the last few years. A lot of us remember getting off airplanes in San Francisco, Los Angeles or even Hawaii after five hours in an airplane and standing in long lineups waiting to be cleared. It was a disaster. Canadians in the west are very pleased that the test was there and that it will be going right across Canada.
One of the more exciting things in this bill, as the minister has just said, is that we are going to study in Anchorage and San Francisco preclearing Canadians or others coming into Canada. That is extremely important.
The minister mentioned the people in transit coming through Vancouver and that only one has asked for refugee status, which is a pretty good record. It is a commendable record and certainly has speeded the service up. It has helped Canadian and foreign airlines increase business in the Vancouver airport which is great. It means more money for Canada if those planes land here, fill up here and the crews stay here.
There is an interesting aspect of preclearing when coming into Canada. A large number of people who come into Canada ask for refugee status at airports at our own customs and immigration facilities. Certainly if we get into preclearance, those numbers will be greatly reduced.
I hope the government gets on with its study quickly and does preclearance for all major locations coming into Canada, especially some of those in Asia and the U.K. I think it would certainly benefit all Canadians if we had that type of preclearance coming into Canada. For anybody who arrives at Vancouver International Airport now at certain times of the day when there is between 500 to 800 people in lineups, it can take an hour and a half to get through the clearance after having spent 8 to 13 hours on an airplane.
The sooner we look at this preclearance ourselves the better. It will benefit the travellers who will not have to stand in long lineups when they arrive in our country. It will also benefit our immigration process. People who land in Canada and their passports are missing and they say they are refugees get to stay here and go through a process that takes five to seven years. That is not acceptable to most Canadians.
This bill is such a good one. We are talking about television and we hope that when this bill goes to committee the meeting can be televised. Then all Canadians could see the great benefits in dollars this bill is going to bring to Canadians by allowing them this freer access up and down. It certainly would be a great bill to start the televising of committees which we have been discussing in the House over the last few weeks.
Last year 8.5 million people were precleared from Canada going into the U.S. That is a significant amount of our population. Certainly with this bill it is likely to increase a little bit over the years.
There are a lot of Canadians who will be quite excited when they read today that their travel is going to be made easier. I know those in British Columbia, many of whom will go through San Francisco when coming back in, will be quite happy that they will be able to get off the airplane in Vancouver and go straight home because they will have been precleared at the other end.
I guess we will find out when we get into committee when we are going to start these test cases. I know it will be a very popular move in western Canada.
I said earlier that the minister has laid out pretty well what is in this bill. I could go on for a lot longer on some of these issues, but I will sit down right now and get this bill through and into committee and make sure it becomes law as quickly as possible.