Madam Speaker, I did not intend to rise because I support the bill, as I know the member does although he qualified his support, but he commented on a couple of items on which I really need clarification.
One of the points he made was that there should be better co-ordination between Canada and the U.S. in terms of our border efforts. If his concern, his objective, is that we have better controls with regard to people coming into Canada, then what he is basically saying is that we should co-ordinate our efforts with the Americans who let people into their country under their standards. He wants us to apply the same standards but he is trying to fix a problem where we are letting people into Canada whom he feels are undesirable but who have met the U.S. standards.
It is actually a contradiction to say that if we co-ordinate with the U.S., which is to go to their standards, that somehow we will fix the problem. The problem is that the people who come into Canada from the U.S. got through its system just by the fact that they were residents and legally in the United States.
The member threw out the comment about undocumented refugees. I do not want to get into all that but the member knows that 50% of the applicants for refugee status present themselves at the Canada-U.S. border. In other words, those people have entered the United States, have been accepted as legitimate applicants and have been released on their own recognizance. They are not in detention.
If we co-ordinate our efforts does he not believe there is a contradiction simply from the standpoint that the U.S. does not provide housing, social assistance, legal assistance or anything Canada that provides? Naturally a significant portion of those who claim refugee status in the United States will present themselves at the Canada-U.S. border for refugee status here simply because we do provide support to those who we believe are legitimate refugees and we do give them an opportunity to establish that.
The point I am trying to make is that it appears there is a contradiction. If the problems are being imported from the United States why would we want to change our standards to those of the United States?