Madam Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity to comment on Motion M-391 moved by the member for Abbotsford.
The Bloc Québécois will certainly support this motion. It is very clear to us that residents of the municipality support the idea of a name that more accurately reflects the reality of this border crossing that they think is more Abbotsford than Huntingdon. We support it because the municipal council seems to support it, as do the Abbotsford tourism centre and chambers of commerce. Residents probably all support it too.
However, I would like to repeat my question for the member from Abbotsford, who did not want to understand, or perhaps the translation was really bad. I did not say that changing the name was insignificant. I said that this motion was insignificant given the needs, I repeat, the needs of our border crossings. However, my colleague hears only what he wants to hear, unless the translation was really atrocious, which I doubt.
Even though we support the name change and the motion, the Bloc thinks it would have been nice if the Conservative Party, which claims to be tough on crime, had taken advantage of the opportunity to keep its 2006 election promise and put the nine RCMP detachments back where they used to be on the Canadian border.
These RCMP detachments were cut by the Liberals. The Conservatives cried foul. They said that it was terrible and rightly so. During the 2006 election campaign, the Conservatives said they would reinstate the detachments. It was during that election, in fact, that the hon. member for Abbotsford was elected. It was one of the Conservative Party's promises. We still do not have those detachments even though the mayors have been consulted and have expressed just how much they are needed.
My riding is on the border and I am well aware of the needs, which go beyond a name change. We need more security at our borders because criminals, specifically drug traffickers, are currently entering Canada with no trouble at all. The customs officers alert the RCMP that criminals are entering at Lacolle, which is one of the major entry points, at Frelighsburg or elsewhere, but the RCMP is in Montreal. Either it does not respond at all, or it arrives a few hours later. There might as well be no RCMP.
It is important for the Granby crossing and a nearby crossing, the Coaticook crossing, which is even closer to the border, to be able to react quickly when someone crosses the border. Year after year, the number of customs officers keeps going down at the respective crossings. When people arrive at the border, they see one customs officer and that is it.
The lack of customs officers and RCMP officers is not just felt at the land crossings, but also on the boundary waters between the United States and Canada. In my riding, with Baie Missisquoi and Lake Champlain, when you cross the border into Canada, all you see is a small sign that directs you to a beach much further away. Once you arrive, you are already in Canada, but you have to phone. A telephone is available, but not to call a nearby border crossing—to call Toronto. It is a direct line to Toronto. You are required to identify yourself and then you can enter.
It happens that people go straight through. There is no surveillance from the border crossing. It would be so easy to build a quay roughly 500 feet from the border crossing to allow the customs officers to keep an eye on what is happening on the water.
But this responsibility was taken away from them. There is no RCMP detachment in the area to ensure that the law is enforced. Thus, it is easy to imagine what goes on. This is also the case for Memphrémagog Lake, which borders the United States. There are really no patrols. People know very well that during certain hours there are no patrols. People can go by boat. We hear about this regularly in my riding.
Thus, it is surprising to see them putting forward a motion like this. It could have included security measures to reduce the number of criminals who freely enter Canada, particularly through Quebec. And yet, laws are enacted to punish them once they arrive here. It would be much easier to prevent them from entering our country. In that way, we would be focusing on the safety of communities and society and not just making a name change.
I would like to come back to the fact that it was the Conservatives who did not agree and were against the Martin government closing RCMP detachments. They were vehemently against it. And yet they closed them. We are not making this up. On January 17, 2005, a CBC investigation showed motorists driving through the Lacolle border crossing without stopping and without the RCMP being notified. If they were notified, as I was saying earlier, they would not be able to catch anyone because they were not there. They arrived much too late.
Even the customs union has stated that criminals, such as drug traffickers, must be prevented from entering Quebec, that the safety of Quebeckers has been compromised and that RCMP detachments are needed at border crossings. The Conservative government is following in the footsteps of the Liberals. In our advertising we state that the Conservatives now hold the same views as the Liberals; in this case, we are right again. In fact, they were against this and now that they are in power, they have completely forgotten about that. In any case, this changes nothing with regard to crime. We are talking about major criminals, people who are real traffickers. It is up to those responsible to decide if money will be freed up for this.
I remember that in April 2006, we had just returned to the House after the election. The government had made a promise in January. The minister responsible at the time, who is now the Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, had said this in the House:
It will be up to RCMP officials to decide where officers will be posted, but I think that when the mayors of these areas see where the detachments are, they will be happy.
The mayors met, and they all said that it was impossible to monitor the borders and provide a minimal level of security if the RCMP detachments were not near the borders. In any event, in my riding, it is clear that the minister at the time made a huge mistake when he moved the RCMP detachment from Granby to Montreal. But this motion does not say that we are going to come back to the fact that the RCMP detachments must be reopened.
As I said, the Bloc Québécois will certainly support this motion, even though it is only about changing a single name. But we are going to keep on fighting for RCMP detachments in our regions, even if it takes 10 years, because we feel these posts are necessary so that criminals from the United States, or even Canadian criminals who have gone the United States and are coming back with drugs, cannot cross the border into Quebec, at least.
Currently, the border posts, which are about 15 miles from where I live, are not equipped to stop criminals. The RCMP, which really was equipped to do so, is not doing so.
We will vote in favour of this motion, but we still demand that the RCMP return.