Mr. Speaker, I draw the attention of the Chair and members present to the fact that the latter part of the votable motion calls upon the government to reassert parliament's relevance in addressing these and other public policy matters. I would suggest that very much includes and encompasses the subject matter of parliamentary reform.
I want to follow the instructions of the Chair and I want to commend the member for Scarborough--Rouge River because I think he is a very talented and very gifted parliamentarian who has made a significant contribution to this place. I acknowledge his commitment not only to democratic reform but to security issues in particular, something he has taken a very sincere and very concerted effort to pursue.
I draw him back to some of the comments he referred to in the Senate report, in particular those surrounding the concerns expressed by the Senate over the number of containers which come into the country and the number of containers which are actually checked. I believe those statistics reveal that in Halifax, Vancouver and Montreal, the major ports of entry, they were somewhere between 1% and 3%.
There is an obvious problem that needs to be addressed with greater equipment. There is a problem that needs to be addressed with those doing the checking. The member referred to the disproportionate number of checkers and employees in the ports that have criminal records. That is a huge concern. I would also add the fact that the port authority is not the one that is doing the checking. In many cases it is private companies that hire security firms.
Would he not agree that we have to make a more concentrated effort either to improve the ability of current municipal police and the RCMP to address the situation or perhaps revisit the specialized role of the port authority or port police?