Mr. Speaker, an NDP colleague disagrees with what I am saying. She will have her chance to talk later.
Quebec has done enough, and everyone knows that. We need to continue working to protect the other provinces and put an end to this problem immediately.
We therefore have a choice to make as a society. We must choose to enforce our sovereignty, which is what Canadians expect, and especially the sovereignty of our borders. That is why we are calling on the government to adopt a plan, because right now all it is saying is that it will send money, millions of dollars. At the end of the day, the problem will persist. Even if we rehire thousands of border officers and hire hundreds of immigration officers, until the issue of border management is resolved by changing the safe third country agreement, the problem will persist. People will continue coming to Canada, because they know that they can cross into Canada without any problems through the back door.
The government therefore needs to step up, come up with a plan, issue a clear directive, and ask the United States to amend the safe third country agreement to fix the loophole. This message must be sent around the world. The Prime Minister could then tweet something intelligent, telling the world that Canada will continue welcoming them and we are still open, but people must cross our borders legally and stop using roundabout ways to come to our country, because it will not work.
A crisis is brewing. At least eight out of the 10 people arriving here currently do not meet the requirement to be deemed a refugee. These people will have to be deported. At some point in time we will have to track them down because they will try to run and hide. They do not want to be deported. We will be facing a crisis trying to deal with families that have to go back to their country of origin. That will be another problem with its own set of costs, including the human cost.
The Conservatives are accused of being heartless, but that is not so. We do think about things. That is why we want to fix the problem. We see the big picture. We think things through. We currently have a government that simply reacts to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars instead of saying that we have a problem on our hands and we need to address it. It is time to take action. That is all there is to it. If the government could take immediate action then we could come back here in a year and see that everything has changed. People will keep coming to Canada legally and we will gladly welcome them.