Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his work in Sault Ste. Marie. There is actually a project that needs to get going and some support there would be very important. One of the best things the government could do is actually move the project's facility there.
My colleague is exactly right. I had to recently go to Washington as I was presenting to a number of different trade organizations. We were only three cars deep in the lanes and it took over one-half hour to get through the process. I have no problem with checking out the documentation, my vehicle and everything else. They were fine with me, but it would be good if there was some overnight scrutiny. If they are going to detain vehicles for long periods of time, they should move them to secondary inspection.
That is one of the reasons I believe we need to start advocating for an overall border position. In my region we do not even have a border authority. Despite the fact that we have a key part of Canada's land border trade, we do not actually have any border authority for the region. That is different than Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Sault Ste. Marie, Fort Erie. All those places have that. I would actually advocate to monitor that. People are getting discouraged and turning away.
It is interesting when we look at what is happening on our north-south border. It is totally different in terms of inspection versus cargo coming into the country from the ports. I think it is 5% of cargo that is actually inspected. Meanwhile, we could have auto parts for say the mini-van in Windsor that will go across the border six times before it is actually in its final compact form. I would encourage people to use their stimulus and buy a mini-van from Windsor right now. They are good deals.
At any rate, that will have a lot more scrutiny than some of the cargo coming from overseas in containers which is really incredible because we have an integrated industry.