Madam Speaker, I am pleased to ask my colleague a question. He has spoken of a number of different issues.
I would like to zero in on one in particular. It is the legacy costs that have been supported by the government for certain border proponents for which their custom officials are paid. For example, in my region the Ambassador Bridge receives around $13 million a year for customs officers and the Windsor-Detroit tunnel receives around $11 million for customs officers.
The ferry service, which is a solution for the community, is frozen out of that since it was not part of the grandfathering which happened I believe in 1987. It has to add that cost on to the border. It has prohibited the service competing because it has to pay for the service, which is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sometimes it is not even granted access to paying for those officers, which is interesting as well because peculiarities develop. For example, during lunch hour the customs people leave for an hour and a half and the border literally shuts down for the ferry service.
I would like to ask the hon. member about those kinds of situations. I believe he has one in his riding related to an airport where an operator is trying to enter into the market but has to compete against a system that was grandfathered. It incurs extra costs which makes it more difficult for it to be a solution to the movement of people across the border, from Canada to the United States.