Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my good friend on the industry committee for his hard work on the committee as well.
He brought up airbags, a health and safety issue. Of course, when a car gets into an accident and airbags deploy, they keep people safe. This really does demonstrate the challenges that exist potentially for border officials to monitor and track what is coming into the country. Certainly any goods coming into Canada should be subject to potential inspection and seizure. We as a country do not want to be unwittingly contributing to problems in other countries because of counterfeit goods.
Not only does the public need education, but if we are giving these new powers to border officials in order to be able to seize these goods, they have to be able to identify them. They have to be able to run tests, for instance, on airbags and other products. We have heard some troubling stories in the United States where military procurement has been impacted by counterfeit goods that ended up in military planes and even in civilian planes and other areas. These counterfeit goods could have catastrophic impacts, including loss of human life.
Certainly we do not want to be receiving those goods, nor do we want to be receiving them and then shipping them elsewhere. We should certainly be looking at all the goods that cross our borders, whether they are leaving here or staying.