Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to this motion which, if we boil it down to its essentials, talks very clearly about the fact that the government has failed to maintain an effective relationship with the United States.
We used to be proud to say that we shared the longest unarmed border in the world, and indeed it was. We are well aware that things have changed over time. The new world terrorism has made us more careful, which is as it should be, but building and keeping a mutually beneficial and respectful relationship is an active process. Anyone who is married or has a good friend knows that; anyone who has colleagues knows that one has to keep working at a relationship.
My colleague spoke quite movingly of our historic relationship with the United States. I remember when former U.S. president Bill Clinton was visiting, Mr. Chrétien stood in the House and said quite jokingly, “You know we are best friends, we are neighbours and we are allies, but we are not lovers. We do not get into bed together”. Mr. Clinton thought that was funny. Essentially that is what our relationship is about. It is a mutually respectful relationship.
We have trusted each other in the past and maybe we have not gotten along so well at other times. We all know that relationships were stressful between Canada and the United States when Canada did not go to war in Iraq. We smoothed that out. Mr. Chrétien was prime minister at the time. He maintained solid relationships and continued to build on them.
Those who are as long in the tooth as I am will remember the days when, flowing from every street and large building in the United States were banners with the message, “We love Canada”, because Canada had protected some Americans for three months in the Canadian embassy in Tehran, Iran.
We have a history of close relations and strained relations. The point is there needs to be an active process in which we can maintain relationships and deal with the things we do not agree on.
The Conservative government has a tendency to sit passively, not merely with the relationship with the United States but with everything. Whether it is an economic crisis or a recession, the government likes to sit passively and wait and see what happens. When the house of cards falls down or when things get really bad, there is a huge panic and suddenly there is activity, but quite often it is too little too late.
We have had a very long relationship with the United States. Eighty per cent of our trade is done with the U.S. When we talk about borders, we talk about the smart border initiative that was brought in by Mr. Chrétien and strengthened by Mr. Martin, which the current government has failed to keep going. The smart border initiative recognized a few things. It actually survived 9/11. It brought about the NEXUS pass and quick passes. It also recognized that a porous border brings in good and bad.
We were very quick to deal with 9/11 and work with homeland security on a mutual basis. We worked together. Whenever congressmen or senators stood and said that all the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada, the Canadian government was quick to say that the facts did not actually prove that and, indeed, many of those people came from the United States. We have always been quick to ensure that misunderstandings do not occur.
When we say the government has failed, we talk about it failing to maintain the smart border initiative, but we also talk about it failing to maintain the western hemisphere travel initiative. The 2010 Olympics will be occurring soon. This is an important initiative. People are going to be coming across border, hopefully, to the 2010 Olympics and they are going to have problems because the government has failed to make sure that the western hemisphere travel initiative is maintained.
We saw the passport debacle in 2006. People were waiting in lineups that were 6 to 10 blocks long to get passports. One would have thought the government would have learned from that mistake and would have hastened to take steps to make sure that Canadians had easy access to passports. This has not happened. When there is a run on passports again, there is going to be the same problem all over again.
We talked about the failed ability to make a case of the thickening of the border for security also stops the movement of goods, trade, families and business. In my part of the world, British Columbia, there is an initiative that involves Alaska and the states along the Pacific coast all the way down to California. It is called Cascadia. The Pacific coast states have kept in touch with Canadian provinces. We have built a strong relationship. We know that Canada and U.S. trade interests are strong and the border needs to facilitate that.
We can look at the auto crisis and the country of origin labelling, the COOL legislation, the international trafficking in arms legislation. Canada cannot bid for aerospace industries any more because the government has failed to stand up for Canadian interests when it comes to relations with the U.S.
I have talked about the fact that only 30% of Americans have passports. When the western hemisphere travel initiative, WHTI, comes forward, many people will not be able to cross the border. It is not only trade and business. It is not only about security. When it comes to public health, I do not know how we can tell mosquitoes or viruses such as west Nile, SARS and the swine flu that they must recognize the border. Viruses cross borders. Insects cross borders. We need to talk about how to share strong public health information. We need to deal effectively and cooperatively when things such as the swine flu and SARS occur.
There is no strategy. There is no plan. There is no active working to stop bad rumours, to build strong relationships where important and to enable a secure and porous border.
I am really disappointed in the government. We thought it would have had a very good relationship with the U.S. We thought it would have understood especially since so many members of the government come from the west where there are very strong relationships with the U.S. The government should have taken the steps necessary to maintain that relationship in an appropriate manner and to work hard on it.
We only have to look at tourism and the drop in the number of United States tourists coming to Canada. One could argue that the dollar was a problem a long time ago, but we now have a real problem. Every single day 300,000 people cross the border. Over $1.6 billion in trade occurs every single day and 70% of that trade involves trucks going back and forth across the border. Our exports have dropped very much since February of last year. Tourism is falling month after month, year after year. We have to be concerned. It is not merely the dollar. The border has to be one in which people are able to cross.
The border is not just about tourism, not just about business, not just about public health, not just about trade. Families cross the border regularly to visit with each other. Many of us have children who are living in the U.S. Many people from the United States have family living here. There is a human relationship.
The government has failed to keep that relationship strong and alive and to take the steps necessary to make any relationship work. It is not only on this issue. This is just another example of the government's failure to take active steps, to have a plan, to have a strategy, to do what it must to prevent problems from arising. The government has been asleep at the switch. The government's passivity is extraordinary. I can name the things in which this passivity has occurred. The softwood lumber deal is one of them and Omar Khadr is another one. The government sat around and waited. I do not know what else to call it but incompetence, a lack of ability to look forward, to recognize that it has to stand up for Canada, which the Conservatives said they were going to do when they ran in the election in 2006. They said, “We stand up for Canada”.
Standing up for Canada means standing up for a relationship with the U.S., our strongest trading partner, and standing up when people say that Canada is a terrorist hotbed and that it is not as safe to come from Canada as it is from Mexico, where illegal migrants cross that border every day.
There are some facts that we need to tell the new administration, which may not understand the strong relationship. It is the government's duty to do that, and it is not doing it. I chalk up one more failure of the government to have any plan, to do any strategic thinking and to act in any way, shape or form.