Mr. Speaker, surely the hon. member knows that how to get things done is to actually take action. What has been missing on this file is the Prime Minister himself, as he is missing tonight, missing in action, not taking action. It is all about photo ops as opposed to follow ups.
I visited the Windsor crossing this summer with my colleague from Essex. One of the most apparent things there is the issue of the Ambassador Bridge. People can drive onto the bridge from either side without being stopped until they are encountered on the other side. Reverse clearance would simply address this issue but yet again on such a critical issue, where $1 billion in trade a day takes place, the government is doing nothing.
My colleague talks about rhetoric. The air has been thick with rhetoric tonight from the government side and yet it was not until my colleague from New Brunswick Southwest, as was pointed out, the chair of the Canada-U.S. Parliamentary Association, took the initiative to bring this matter before Parliament. It was not the government that initiated this important debate.
Some of the other important groups, like Canadian-American Border Trade Alliance, have been talking about this issue. Members of the opposition have been talking about this issue, certainly those affected on both sides of the border. Businesses, individuals, Canadians and Americans both are concerned and yet where is the big, gaping, vacuous hole in the debate? It is the Prime Minister, as he is on so many important issues, until a poll might be done to tell him what to do.
This is not the time to dilly-dally any further or to dither away on such an important matter that is going to cause catastrophic results should this legislation proceed. As my colleague has pointed out, the BSE crisis and the softwood crisis do not even compare to the impact economically that this will have, as well as the security concerns.
I ask my colleague again, as my friend from Windsor did, why has the Prime Minister waited and dithered on such an important issue knowing full well the catastrophic impact it will have on the Canadian economy? Even tonight we have nobody from the government side prepared to come forward to state unequivocally that this will be addressed with Condoleezza Rice. He is right to say that members of the Congress and members of the Senate in the United States are pulling back on this. The President himself unequivocally stated reservations about this legislation.
Where is the Prime Minister? Where is a single, solitary, on the record public statement suggesting, as my colleague from Niagara said, that we are opposed to this and that we, in no uncertain terms, recognize that this will have a terrible impact on our economy? What we have heard time and time again is the provocative, objectionable language from the government directed toward the United States, including from the ambassador recently, I am quick to add.
The Canadian ambassador suggested--wait for it--that the American government is dysfunctional. I know the American system of government is not perfect but imagine those words coming from a government in a country where we have an unelected Senate, where we do not review judicial appointments and where we have all kinds of difficulties in the government with respect to corruption. It is like the Prime Minister going to the United Nations and lecturing on corruption and keeping one's word. Can anyone imagine? Talk about taking hypocrisy to catastrophic new heights.
The government has no lessons to give the Americans when it comes to dysfunctional government. Forceful, straightforward, diplomatic language is what is needed on this file, not provocative, insulting language about the President, not the type of language that we have heard coming from members of the government benches toward the American people. That kind of objectionable language does not get us anywhere. It does not move this file or any other file forward. What it does is suggest that somehow we are preaching from the pulpit. What it truly suggests and what we know is coming in the coming days in this election is, of course, domestic politics, which is bashing the Americans for the purposes of gaining electoral support.
I ask the hon. member opposite to tell us when the Prime Minister will show up on this file.