Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise to speak about an issue that is very important for this country. It is in regard to economics and also in regard to my constituency and many others that are dependent upon the tourism trade.
It is also important to Americans and concerns the western hemisphere travel initiative. The introduction of passports for entry to and exit from the United States, not only for Americans and Canadians, will have significant economic impacts on our economy and trade.
Currently, the government has failed to put forth a plan on how it is going to deal with tourism. When I rose in the House of Commons, I agreed with the government that the previous Liberal administration had done nothing on that file. We heard a number of comments from the government side from a series of ministers, blaming the previous administration. However, it is not enough to criticize the previous Liberal government. We must have a plan. That has not happened yet.
Interestingly enough, the first question that was answered by the Minister of Public Safety said this of the Liberals: “They broke faith with Canadians in not taking action on this file”.
Subsequent to that, in a supplementary question, I talked about the NDP being asked for ideas by the Prime Minister. We actually did table a tourism strategy, one that deals with requesting expectations from the United States in terms of amelioration and the effects of the implementation of the WHTI.
For example, the American ambassador continues to talk about the documents the Americans want to have at the end of the day as being a work in progress. With a looming deadline, not knowing what the documents are and having no money to fund that process is a serious problem.
Second, we called for the extension of Canadian passports from 5 to 10 years, reducing the fee for seniors, and having them free for veterans. We also spoke about a national tourism strategy with the provinces and the municipalities to clear the air about what is going on right now. We see from Statistics Canada a continued decline of American tourism in Canada.
Interestingly enough, the Minister of Industry responded. He is responsible for this file in terms of tourism. He had previously declined many opportunities to discuss this in this chamber. He responded by actually blaming the previous administration and said, “This is a lot more than what was allocated in the previous Liberal Party budget”.
The problem with this issue is that the member for Vancouver Kingsway was the previous industry minister responsible for this file. He sat with the Liberals at the time. He crossed the floor and now he sits with the Conservatives. Quite frankly, the Minister of Industry probably has breakfast with the Minister of International Trade, who now sits with him in caucus and blamed him for not doing enough.
We just cannot have the blame game any more. We must have a plan. Why can the Minister of Industry not extract what the Minister of International Trade was going to do on this file? Why did he do nothing? Why will he not table a plan in the House of Commons because people will lose their jobs this summer?