Mr. Speaker, we are here to discuss a very important issue, the security of our country Canada.
We as a country have been involved in every global conflict which has transpired since we became a country, for example, the Boer war, World War I, World War II, Korea, the gulf war, Kosovo and today the conflict in Afghanistan.
There has not been a conflict on our shores in North America since the day we became a nation. We have the longest undefended border in the world and we get along with our neighbours to the south. Unfortunately however, our friends in the United States had a knee-jerk reaction and automatically responded by wanting to have more security at our borders. Some of them even said to close the border after what happened on September 11.
Many politicians in the United States automatically blamed Canada for what happened in their country. To date, no terrorists who contributed to the events in the United States on September 11 have been linked to Canada. It was not our immigration system, our national security system nor our airline system which was to blame for what happened in New York on September 11, 2001. That is not to say we could not also be victims of such an event.