Madam Speaker, I want to echo the appreciation that my colleague from Manitoba expressed to Manitobans in Emerson and across the province who have given of themselves in order to welcome refugees into Manitoba and help them adjust to life in a new place. I also want to offer a word of caution: the appropriate way to counter some of the virtue-signalling of the government on this issue is not by vice-signalling. I think that is what we see in the Tory motion with language that is needlessly alarmist.
We too believe that we need a secure border, but the way to do that is to suspend the safe third country agreement, which is causing these refugees to cross at irregular crossings. If the agreement were suspended, instead of causing the CBSA to have to monitor the 9,000-kilometre border between Canada and the United States, those migrants could come through the appropriate channels and be vetted properly. We know that somewhere in the neighbourhood of 60% of the refugees who are coming over the border are being denied, so it is not a case of open borders and everyone staying. There is an appropriate process. There is screening. It is working. Why would we not want those migrants to come through the appropriate border crossings?