Mr. Speaker, the member for Ajax—Pickering is correct. This is in fact something we were forewarned about. We were warned a long time in advance and the present government has done absolutely nothing to prepare for it. These are the last things in its initiative, when it could certainly have facilitated passport issuance or negotiated a less costly formula with the United States. It is quite unfortunate that it did not.
I am not the oldest member of this House, but I am still older than the average. I can still remember the day when relations between the two countries were so close that we could easily drive over the border in our parents’ car to go on holiday down south. Our parents did not have to have any documents.
Cities were built on the border. I recently travelled to Stanstead. One family, whose name I forget but who had become very wealthy, lived in the area near Stanstead at that time, in Rouses Point, in the United States. It was a community. They decided to build a municipal library on the border. It is still there, so that education can be encouraged equally on both sides.
In any event, I understand that we now have to have a passport to go there, but the government could have facilitated things well before it did take action.