Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. I have great respect for our police forces and our border services officers.
I am very happy to hear the member knows about the great work done by our men and women at the border. Absolutely, he is right that the bill and its companion, Bill C-23, do complicate their roles. They already have immense challenges at our border, particularly as we have seen in Quebec lately.
This is why, in many ways, we provided additional peace officer powers for CBSA agents in the last government. We armed agents at the border for the first time in our history. It is not that we do not like having the world's longest undefended border, and I think Canadians are very proud of that, but when we task CBSA agents to go after drugs, to go after illegal weapons brought in from the United States, which is where the problem is, and not the way the government has been suggesting lately, when we ask them to go after those organizations, we have to ensure they have the tools to do the job, the training to do the job, the numbers to do the job.
Bill C-21 and Bill C-23 are huge enhancements and not all of it can be done through computerization, particularly at the frequency.
Now we have a situation where border resources are stretched thin. There are additional requirements. There will be American ICE agents as part of Bill C-23 on our soil searching Canadians. We have an IRB process that the minister's own documents warn, due to the government's inaction, will go to 11-year wait times for IRB processing, which is remarkable. The social cost associated with that, mainly for the provinces, in four years alone, will be $2.9 billion.
I know my colleagues in Quebec, in the Conservative caucus and certainly in the NDP as well, have been looking at how they can ensure our CBSA agents have the tools they need to do the job and how they can ensure decisions related to the border, Bill C-21 and others, do not overstress the social costs on our provincial partners. That, too, will erode overall confidence in the system.
I am supportive of Bill C-21, but I want to see a much more serious approach taken with respect to travel across our borders.