Madam Speaker, there have absolutely been a series of political advancements that have been used against Canadian trading elements for a long period of time, with no real significant push-back from the Canadian government. As I mentioned in my remarks, the former Conservative government cut 1,100 officers and also got rid of some of the teams that worked specifically on gun and drug smuggling, so that affected the border in two ways. On top of that, there is an order in council that would allow our border officers to help the RCMP. The government has been sitting on that since 1932 without acting on it.
When I was in Parliament before, during another House session, we worked to get our officers armed, equivalent to those in the United States in many respects. We wanted to avoid practices that could be used against us as a weapon in saying that were weak on our border.
Lastly, we still have deficient marine resources in the Great Lakes. We have deficient supports, as we need 2,000 to 3,000 officers. That is the bottom line. Having those would deflect some of this unfair criticism.