Madam Speaker, as I said, the communication strategy for this particular piece of legislation would be difficult without it being properly amended. The hon. member for Prince George is right. As a former Prince Georgian, I know that there is a heightened sense of insecurity with regard to trade with the United States, particularly because of the forestry sector in north and central British Columbia.
How is this going to be communicated? It is going to be very difficult in the sense of how this legislation has unfolded and whether or not we do get a signal from the United States about whether we will see reciprocal legislation. That is why the bill needs to be amended. We need to make sure that we have those sorts of safeguards in place.
Last night on ABC, after President Bush's speech, J.D. Hayworth, who is a republican member of congress, I believe from Tucson, Arizona, and on the international trade committees in the United States, spoke. He happens to believe, unlike the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, that some of these attacks may have been based from Canada. These are the sorts of questions he will be asking in the United States congress, and we need to address them.
Mr. Hayworth made a very interesting remark, especially coming from a leading member of the republican side which is the majority in the U.S. house of representatives. He said that he believed in free trade. Just as it was important for our borders to facilitate free trade, and we must encourage that, we also have a constitutional requirement to ensure America's security. He said that in these times we could not ignore that first obligation.
The United States first responsibility and need in these heightened times, which is appropriate given the polls in the United States and the insecurity that people feel, is to have a heightened sense of security at borders, not a heightened sense of trade efficiency. In that sense I believe the finance minister, the international minister and the Prime Minister should go to British Columbia, when the time is right and appropriate given the current national security preoccupations, to ensure that those fears are met.
The Prime Minister, while he cannot to it legislatively, needs to send a strong diplomatic signal to the United States that reciprocal legislation will be expected. If it does not happen, then I believe that down the line we may have to look at rescinding Bill S-23, amending it and moving motions forward. This is another reason why in these times the appropriate committees of the House of Commons should be reconstituted as soon as possible.