Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for moving the amendment and trying to reach a consensus on this issue. We all want to improve rail safety.
I think it is important to provide a couple of examples to make sure that people understand the context of what could happen. On the border in my region, with 40% of Canada's daily trade, often there are people who are caught within legislation with unintended consequences. I do worry about the powers of the minister with regard to the screening process. Even now we are seeing some extreme behaviour by current ministers who are denying a British MP entry into Canada and other types of behaviour that have not really been effective in terms of the original intent of their discretionary power.
In Windsor often it is the issue of someone having a marijuana charge from back in the person's teens. There are people who drive trucks for just-in-time delivery for the auto industry who 25 or 30 years ago committed an offence that prohibits them from having access to different programs and screening. Not only that, it depends upon the interpretation and discretionary power of the people they encounter at the U.S. border.
I will give a particular example of a worker who worked at a major auto company for 25 years and had an outstanding employment record. The worker, who as a teenager had one charge of having a marijuana cigarette, was detained every time at the border for two to four hours. We had to work that through to stop that from happening. I commend the member for making sure that these types of situations could be resolved before they create a drag on the economy.