Mr. Speaker, the government and the member simply rolled over for the Americans.
In any normal negotiation if the Americans were asking for us for information, it would be logical to say that reciprocity would be in order.
As the numbers indicate, there are 2,000 American flights over Canadian air space every day, but only 100 Canadian flights over the United States airspace every day. That would indicate the Americans have a lot to lose in this negotiation. I could see them backing off.
Imagine what the American airlines and public would do if they found out they had to provide that information to Canadian authorities in order to fly over Canadian airspace. It would have been dead in the water. The representatives of Congress in the United States would be getting calls from their constituents wanting to know exactly what our demands were and the exemption would have been given immediately. The government, as usual, rolled over for the Americans and said whatever they want, we will give it to them.
These are all secret agreements and we do not know exactly what is being required. We only know based on similar agreements with other jurisdictions, for example, the agreement between the European Union and the United States, there is a different set of requirements.
Clearly, if we are involved in transferring any information involving a PNR, it is information that goes beyond what we should be providing.
The Canadian requirements for use of the PNR in the Canada-E.U. agreement have specific time periods for the disposal of data, and it is not 40 years. It limits the use of the data, limits the individualization of the data and renders the information anonymous. Therefore, security services can do what they want. They can build the profiles they are looking for without attaching it to any one individual. That probably would be acceptable.
We have global standards for international treaties on PNR agreements and Canada is signatory to that. If the government is going to sign an agreement, those are the kinds of provisions to put in the agreement, but the government did not do that.
Why are the Conservatives so poor at negotiating on Canada's behalf?