Mr. Speaker, the member's words make me think of babies and bath water.
He talked about one of the most successful borders in the world. It has been in that position for decades and decades. It has been a remarkably successful border not because there is barbed wire, trenches, machine guns and minefields all along it, but because in a sense it has been open.
The member spent all his time talking about arming the police, meaning the customs officers, along the border. I do not want undesirables coming into Canada and I do not want us to send undesirables to the United States but to think of arming that wonderful productive border, it has been productive in economic terms.
Think of how the two economies have benefited from the border as it was. Think of how it has been in cultural terms, the exchanges, what the Americans have gained from us and what we have gained from the Americans culturally. Think what it would mean to a number of families. I would guess there would be some families in this room, including my own, who have relatives on the two sides of it. With reasonable security, over the years those families have been able to visit each other, to go back and forth for each other's Thanksgiving and that kind of thing.
I ask the member to think about this. These are very difficult times. People in Canada and in the United States are facing very difficult times. We are all upset. One of our jobs here is to show real leadership, which brings me back to babies and bath water. Does the member really want to throw the baby out with the bath water and make it a fortified border, ruining commerce, and social and cultural exchanges, or does he want us to proceed in some reasonable fashion? Let us by all means fill in the gaps, the problems that exist, but let us hope that in the end it will stay the largest unguarded frontier in the world.