Mr. Chair, this is an issue of huge importance. With all respect to the parliamentary secretary, I did not feel the urgency in his speech that I think this issue commands. This is a big, big issue, and not just because some of my colleagues and I are from border communities. This has huge implications for this country and the economy of this country.
And this is not just on our side of the border. I have tried to make the point with my American colleagues that this has huge implications for the American economy as well. This is a shared border. This is the largest trading relationship in the world. A proposal like this is going to have devastating effects. I can tell members that it is having devastating effects right now. It is hurting our trade between these two countries. It is hurting the flow of goods and services.
The parliamentary secretary said that when this matter went through Congress, almost unanimously, “not enough attention was paid” to this provision. I have to ask him, why does he think that is? A number of us were quite alarmed earlier this year when this matter was first raised. The President of the United States appeared to squelch the issue at one point. He cast doubts on it so I took some encouragement from that, but nonetheless, it did go through.
If I understood the comments of the parliamentary secretary, he said that even at this point we have not made a formal response to this. He said it is being passed around through I think nine different departments. Would it not be more expeditious if the minister responsible for public security got on the phone to her counterparts in the United States and said this is a bad idea, it is something that is going to hurt everybody, so let us do something about it and kill this initiative? I hope the member will comment on that and I hope I hear from him that there is a little more urgency within the government because of this problem. That is number one.
Number two, would he and the government please consider one of the things that I have suggested to my American counterparts, which is that they exempt us altogether from this? I appreciate that the Americans have problems on their southern border. I appreciate that there are worldwide security concerns that the Americans share quite frankly with Canadians, but the Canada-U.S. border is not the problem. How about asking the Americans to completely exempt us from it and go with the way it is now? They can deal with the other parts of the world as they have to, but the problem is not the Canada-U.S. border.
Could I hear from the parliamentary secretary that this is going to have a little more urgency, that the government is a little more concerned about this than I have heard up to this point? Will it get on the phone and make the point to our American colleagues that we should be exempted from this altogether, because the pain is going to be felt not only on our side but the American side as well?