Mr. Speaker, I can quote the Liberal transport critic, who said, “Canadian sovereignty has gone right out the window with this bill. You're going to be subject to American law”.
In answer to my hon. colleague from St. John's, the practical answer is yes. Yes, it means that a Canadian could be prevented from boarding an aircraft because of what the Department of Homeland Security says.
If a person's name matches someone on an American no-fly list, the person may be questioned or barred from that flight. Even if the person's name does not match, Homeland Security tells the airline in Canada whether or not the person can be issued a boarding pass.
Talk about an abdication of sovereignty. We are letting the Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. decide who gets to board an aircraft in Canada to fly from Canada to a country other than the United States. The consequences of this could be devastating.
Canadians cross the border every day to the United States, and we are stating to experience more risk of being denied entry to the United States because of information we know nothing of, with no mechanisms of redress.
The United States is trying to reach into Canada and control our travel to countries other than the United States. This is wrong. It is a violation of our sovereignty. It is a violation of Canadians' privacy. It is a fundamental question of Canadian sovereignty, and I would hope that the government stands up for those principles, as it likes to claim.