Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for drawing to the attention of members opposite and to the public that the U.S. ambassador, David Wilkins, will be addressing the border caucus this Wednesday.
This will not be the first time he has heard about this issue. I met with him about two weeks past and raised the concerns we have. He has heard them from his own government in fact. We know that this past spring the President of the United States expressed some concern about the impact this would have.
My understanding is that the Americans are so focused on security issues that they perhaps in this instance have had a lack of foresight to contemplate the consequences of the legislation. I know that Justice Sensenbrenner, the member of Congress who brought forward the real ID bill, which was the precursor to the western hemisphere travel initiative, did so because of his concerns about illegal aliens in the United States. He was doing that to address that particular issue and that bill got transferred into the WHTI and before we knew it we were facing a crisis.
Mr. Wilkins, I am sure, is very well aware of this and he certainly will be apprised of our concerns on Wednesday when members of the border caucus speak with him, largely about this issue and perhaps other issues such as softwood and so on. Thankfully, I understand that we have some support in the United States, that members of the Congress and the Senate are with us on this issue, so hopefully working together we can draw the attention of the American Congress to revisit this question.