Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member from the Canadian Alliance for bringing this bill forward. I know he has great intentions with this legislation.
I am a member of the transport committee, and it seems to me that all this legislation would be doing is ensuring that the airline industry becomes more responsible for doing things that the court system should be more involved with regarding getting people's consent.
I firmly believe that Bill C-314 would only make an already bad system worse. I believe the system is unmanageable. For some reason or another we would be putting liability back onto the airline industry. Workers would be adversely affected if something were to be missed in the system. It is never the bureaucrats who get the underhand but rather it is the workers. As a result of this it is difficult to support Bill C-314. It is a great bill which draws attention to the fact that something needs to be done.
There are many loopholes which people can use to escape from this country other than using the airline industry. For some reason or another people are taking children who are not their own, and they are taking these children to other countries where it is difficult for them to get out. Right now in Canada if we block one hole individuals will use another hole in the system.
I cannot see how the bill before us would come close to addressing the problem. I firmly believe the court system will have to become totally involved. Adults use their persuasive ideas and tricks on children to get them to go with them. As a result, children go missing. There are numerous cases in my province of Newfoundland and Labrador alone where people ended up taking the children and moving outside the province.
We must have resources available so law enforcement can do its job. When individuals take a child away from the person with custody, they are doing this with help from other people and they are doing it in a way to ensure they will not get caught. The biggest problem is that the RCMP is doing the best job it can to ensure this does not take place.
The last thing people will do is use the airline system and fly somewhere with these children. Most people will not fly because the airlines have a record on who travelled and when. They know who is travelling on their airline. As soon as people get an airline ticket their name is put in the system. Officials can check to see whether the individual did in fact travel on the plane and whether or not they had any children with them. However the children may have a different identity. The system is failing them because if they have a different identity officials will never know if they are the right children officials are looking for. As a result, I do not see the bill doing what the member is looking for.
I know the member is sincere and concerned as we all are about the fact that people are travelling with children who are not their own. With this legislation we would again be putting the burden back on a system that is unmanageable as it is. I firmly believe that we must have more enforcement. At the same time however, people in these situations will not do a lot of air travel. If they travel at all, they will travel by road or by sea. They will escape the airline system. As a result I cannot see why we are doing what we are doing right now.
I do understand that there is a major concern in Canada about this. We need to be putting more emphasis on our police forces. We can try to block loopholes in the system, but as soon as we block one, we open up another.
I have travelled by train. I can go to a train station with people who are not my own. It just opens the door further and further.
We need to look at enforcement through our police system. The court system needs to be involved. Most important, if we give the police the tools to do the job, I firmly believe we could do more for the country and for those children who have been taken without permission. We have these support groups. We know the concerns of people in these organizations. We should put emphasis on that.
We need to put more money into the system. This bill will not stop people from taking children who do not belong to them. They probably would not fly because they would be an easy target. Most times they would go by road or by sea. We need the enforcement there.
I commend the hon. member for bringing this forward because it is an area of concern. However, unless my colleagues tell me that we should looking at something differently, we will not support the bill as it is.
We are always open to new ideas, and it is important that he has brought these ideas forward. However right now we should be looking at putting money into enforcement to ensure the resources are there to do the job. We should stop this on the ground before it starts, identify it quickly and fast track it before it gets out of control. If we had more police forces, more undercover agents and more money, we could take action as soon as we suspected something was wrong.
We know at times one or the other parent becomes disgruntled and takes the children. Sometimes it is not because of a broken marriage but because people do not have a sense of what is right. They just want to make people's lives miserable and they take children who are not their own. If we had more police officers, we could combat this on the ground first. The world and the country would be better off for this.
Unless my colleagues tell me that I have missed something drastically with regard to the bill, we will not support it. I thank the hon. member for bringing it forward.