Mr. Speaker, I listened with great attentiveness to my hon. colleague's speech on this important piece of legislation. I know that the hon. member represents an area of the country where there are a lot of factories, both large and small, that are very reliant upon north-south trade with our U.S. neighbour.
Certainly one of the great concerns that I have heard expressed since the tragedy of September 11 is how this is impacting on and threatening the huge trade relationship we have with the United States. I have heard a number expressed by one of the hon. member's colleagues in the Liberal Party indicating that nowadays there is upward of $1.4 billion a day in trade between our nations.
Obviously one of the concerns being expressed by people whose livelihoods are contingent upon the free flow of goods between our nations is the whole idea that we can either work with the United States in negotiating a comparable system of securing our borders so that we continue to enjoy that trade or we can see it increasingly put at risk by not reassuring the Americans that we have the willingness to basically wed our systems so that they can feel comfortable that our standards, if you will, of securing our borders from any would-be terrorists are as high as the standards employed in the United States.
With that as a backdrop I will put a question to the hon. member. I know it is of great concern to him because, as I have said, of the huge economic impact that the fallout from this despicable action of September 11 has had on his riding in particular. I would ask for his comments about securing this perimeter of North America rather than looking at us as individual nations in that sense.