Mr. Speaker, the enthusiasm is overwhelming. I am moved. Especially considering that we are coming to the midnight hour, the enthusiasm New Democrats have for the House of Commons, for democracy and even for debate is stirring and important, because there has been a certain lack of enthusiasm for debate coming from the Conservatives.
The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons will know the actual number. I think we are at 47 or so time allocation motions. On all of these bills, and this is one of those bills, we seek to find some comfort for the Conservatives, who are often looking for comfort, particularly when there is a lot of turmoil in their lives, much of it self-inflicted. They want these kinds of things to move at an orderly pace. We offer them an orderly calendar. A certain number of New Democrats will speak and allow the bill to go ahead, and they still shut down debate, even under those circumstances. One wonders what the motivation is sometimes. I think we are up to 47. Again, if the government House leader rises tonight, he will be able to remind us.
This bill is an important one. The Conservatives say that it is critically important. How critical it is in their minds begs the question, simply because it was first introduced on March 1 of this year, seven or eight years into their mandate and 27 years after the last time the bill was reviewed. My friend from the Conservatives earlier talked with some great expertise about the importance of this thing. If it were important, one would think it would be a priority, and if it were a priority, one would not think that the 11th hour of this particular sitting and session of the House of Commons would be the time they would move the bill. If this were devastating to the Canadian economy, to the intellectual property rights regime in Canada, our ability to trade with other nations and all of these things that have been talked about, it would be a priority, but it is not a priority. It is a panic. When things are panicked, mistakes are made.
It is important for my friends to realize that they cannot quite have it both ways. If they say that this is urgent and desperate and we need to move it through rapidly, then one says that there has been a majority government for two years. Other bills have been moved, some of certainly less consequence or even quality, some would argue. I am thinking of a few bills, such as Bill C-30. My friends will remember Bill C-30, the Internet snooping bill, which the Minister of Public Safety so eloquently justified by saying to the opposition and to all Canadians that one was either with the Conservatives or was with the child pornographers. Do members remember that classic? That was a good one. They got rid of that bill. It was a bigger priority than this piece of legislation.
However, let us talk about the bill, because it is important. We will take a look at Bill C-56 and see what it actually would do.
New Democrats have been aware of the importance of protecting intellectual property rights in Canada. It is important both for our own industry and our ability to innovate and design leading-edge technology, as Canada has so often done in the past, particularly when we used to have things like industrial development strategies, but not so much with these guys. We had export policies that said that adding value to our resources in Canada was a priority for the federal and provincial governments, but not so much with that side.
We agree with the merits of this bill and agree with sending it to committee. We believe that we need to hear from the experts. We have one or two experts in the House of Commons who maybe spent a previous life looking at the intellectual property regime in Canada and around the world. I do not claim that expertise, and I think most members of Parliament would not either. We need to rely on the experts, and not just the industry experts, and this is important for us as New Democrats. While those voices are critical to the design and implementation of legislation, we need to hear from the border guards, who are the folks who are going to be potentially seizing some of these products. We will have a very challenging time distinguishing between the bootlegged products people have talked about and other products that would offer serious harm or threats to Canadians' safety and health.
My friend talked about toothbrushes and toothpaste that caused people harm, but it gets even more serious than that. There is medical equipment that is improperly made. It is counterfeit, and Canadians are exposed to this, because they trust the label on the brand. It is not about buying a sweater for a child and hoping that it is the actual brand. Some of these things are quite important. When buying brake pads for one's car, one wants to ensure that they are actually brake pads that will stop the car.
The problem with counterfeit is that it can so often appear as something that is solid and consistent and legitimate. The reason it is so effective is that it looks good.
We have been having a bit of a debate. I do not want to say that it has been a nerd fight, but we have been arguing about the numbers. The numbers do not really help out the government's case in terms of providing help for the border officials who are meant to guard our borders, not just from counterfeit products, which is important, but even more important, from illegal contraband and weapons. They come into this country, some would argue, through our ports, where 2% to 3% of all containers are inspected. That is not a lot, and with those types of odds, some smugglers will just take the chance of getting caught, because the ability to make money is so great.
We have heard from the CBSA itself in this year's report. This is not a report produced by the official opposition. This report is produced by the border agency. We have heard that the government has cut $145 million from the border agency this year. Excuse me, I want to get the number right. It is $143 million. I exaggerated. It is not $145 million but $143 million. I want to make sure the number is right. I do not want to upset anyone on the other side.
The CBSA's report on plans and priorities indicates a loss, not a gain of 1,000 and a loss. It indicates a net loss of 549 full-time-equivalent positions. If the CBSA is not telling the truth or has its numbers wrong, I would encourage those on the government side to help it out a little. The Conservatives are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. The facts of the matter are that there are 549 fewer full-time-equivalent positions. If we are going to ask them to do more with fewer staff, is the law worth the paper it is written on?
We need two things, of course. We need the tools. This is an update of the legislation, and New Democrats support the updated legislation. Things have changed since the last time we looked at these intellectual property regimes that are so important for businesses that are looking to innovate and trade. If we do not look at legislation often, we want to get it right. To the Conservatives who say that one hour of debate is good enough, that we can zip it through committee and get it back out the door and then wait 30 years to correct the errors we make, I say that it is not right.
Nearly 100% of the amendments the opposition moved were based on testimony from experts, from border officials, from those in industry and those who deal with intellectual property. We hope that there is some sort of new openness, because the Conservatives have rejected virtually everything we have offered before, because they can, not because they have any counter-argument.
I have been at the committee hearings where we quote witnesses everybody agreed with when they testified. We move the change the witness suggested. There is no debate or counter-argument from the Conservatives. There is a vote, they kill it and they move on. We just do it over and over again.
A number of pieces of legislation have moved through the House completely unamended. Some of these bills are hundreds of pages in length. They are technical bills amending other acts. Sometimes as many as 60 other acts of Parliament are amended by one bill. The government does not change anything based on the testimony it hears. The testimony we hear, in very specific and technical ways, offers another viewpoint.
It raises the question of what is going on. Why would a government claim to have a keen interest in helping manufacturers and innovators in this country protect their intellectual property and a keen interest in helping consumers, yet not allow border officials to have the tools and services they need?
If we hear from border officials that we should change something in the legislation and New Democrats happen to be the party offering the amendment to the bill, for goodness sake, I hope the Conservatives change some of their patterns and hubris and say that it does not matter which political party moves it. What matters is whether it is a good amendment and whether it is a good improvement. Going through hundreds of pages of laws without any changes smacks of a certain unfortunate level of arrogance.
On this legislation, let us make sure that the tools we are offering our border officials also match up with the planning priorities—not the stated planning priorities of the government, not the stated spending priorities, but the real priorities, with real money and training.
We have talked about giving border security officers new powers to play a discerning and defining role in investigating the products to make sure that they are contraband, or not. That requires new training. We all admit it, but we do not see in any spending priorities from the government actual resources for training. CBSA has to take it from something else.
To the government, to all members of the House, let us do what the House of Commons is built to do: study legislation, look at it, take our time and get it right. If we are only going to do this once every generation, and if it is so important for our industry, then let us make sure we get it right.