Madam Speaker, I do not think it would do much. It would provide the additional power and abilities to enforce in these customs controlled designated areas. However, this is not a statute that deals specifically with the border. There are other methods to do that, and I fully agree with my colleague that we do need to be focusing on this.
There are various problems that still remain, which the Conservative government has not dealt with. One example is the arming of border guards. I understand there are no studies to actually show this is necessary, nothing to show that it is cost-efficient. In fact the studies I did see, or at least that were referred to, indicate the RCMP should be doing this rather than arming border guards, some of whom will not be able to do it. In those cases we would have to pension them off or have buyout packages for them. We do not know what the costs would be. This could be some large monstrosity.
In terms of this particular statute, this does not really focus on it. However, I think the Conservatives should be focusing on the other problems that do exist and changing their policies in terms of some of the problems such as arming border guards.