Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the importance of Canada-U.S. border relations, although I am a little disappointed by the motion in front of us. I cannot help but get the sense that the member for Ajax—Pickering is seeking to inflame some of those misconceptions on both sides of our border rather than generating a better understanding of our collective interests.
We, on the other hand, want to work closely with the new Obama administration. We believe that Canada has an opportunity right now to make positive progress on issues that are important to Canada, issues at the border and issues with American relations.
What is the way to achieve that progress? We believe the way to achieve that progress is through co-operation and working closely together, not through conflict and trying to get quick headlines by calling people names. People will not be hearing that from us. What they will be hearing from us is a tone of ongoing co-operation to advance Canada's interests.
We want to be working together to ensure that our border remains secure while facilitating rather than hindering legitimate trade.
What makes our government unique is the fact that it takes action and does more than just spout rhetoric. Our government is making things happen. It believes in a constructive relationship with its largest trading partner to ensure security as well as mutual prosperity. That is what distinguishes our government from the party opposite.
Our government walks the talk and obtains tangible results. Just one week ago, we all witnessed President Obama's announcement that NAFTA would remain in place and would not be subject to new negotiations. That is an important gain for all Canadians. That is one of many examples of the results obtained by our government.
The motion before us today deals with the importance of taking steps to ensure that the U.S. administration and the U.S. Congress fully understand the critical importance of our shared border to trade and to the economic security of both our countries. I, therefore, will address some of the many ways that our government has done exactly that, while also ensuring that we remain a trusted security partner.
Hon. members will well remember the recent visit of President Barack Obama. What happened during that visit? The Prime Minister spoke with the new U.S. President about the importance of trade between our two countries and how interconnected our two economies are. He emphasized that threats to the U.S. were also threats to Canada.
The Prime Minister spoke with President Obama about some of the steps that our two governments can take to secure our joint economic future and about how Canada is a trusted security partner to the U.S., a partnership that is critically important to ensuring that security measures do not impede trade unnecessarily.
Just a few weeks after this visit, I went to Washington to meet with members of the U.S. Senate and Congress as well as the Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, the Attorney General, Eric Holder, and the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John Brennan. I spoke to them about the importance of working together on tightening our security and improving our trade ties and ensuring that our border remains open to business people and legitimate travellers.
I spoke to them about the importance of ensuring that Canadian and U.S. citizens have valid travel documents given the imminent entry into force, in June 2009, of the western hemisphere travel initiative, or WHTI. I insisted on the need to find the means to facilitate the legitimate movement of people and goods, while protecting Canada's and our neighbours' legitimate and crucial security interests.
Our government has already managed to obtain important exemptions and delays for phasing in WHTI.
The delays in the implementation and adaptation, delays in the effective date of the western hemisphere travel initiative, are something that the previous Liberal government was unable to achieve. In fact, that government was asleep at the switch when that initiative was launched. Believe it or not, at that time there was not a single effort by that Liberal government to influence the decisions being made by the House of Representatives and by the Senate of the United States. That is why we have had to dig out of the problem that the previous government allowed to arise.
When I met with the Obama administration officials, we also spoke about how it is in everyone's best interest to keep business flowing and to keep our borders open to the movement of goods and people. Our shared border benefits both our economies, supporting an integrated supply chain and millions of Canadian and American jobs. This is a point I stressed in many of our meetings.
What was the end result of these meetings? One end result, among many, is that Secretary Napolitano and I have agreed that the Minister of Public Safety of Canada and the homeland security secretary of the United States should meet at least twice a year exclusively, outside all the other meetings that occur such as G8 and the like, to resolve Canada-U.S. border issues.
That is a mechanism that never existed before, a mechanism for us to resolve our issues and advance our interests to ensure that we are on the radar screen, front and centre. That is a positive gain for Canada. That means we are going to have better results in the years to come, something again that the previous government was unable to deliver.
We will continue to meet and to develop measures together to give us greater security and facilitate trade. We will also work to finalize details on initiatives that allow Canada and the U.S. to work more co-operatively on border issues.
One such initiative is the integrated cross-border maritime law enforcement initiative, commonly referred to as the shiprider initiative, which will enhance law enforcement and border integrity on our shared waterways. On that front, we spoke about the need to finalize the negotiations we launched last year on a framework agreement that will formalize the shiprider operations.
What our government has repeatedly emphasized, both in formal meetings and in other ways, is that Canada wants our border with the United States to be a true gateway to our mutual prosperity, not a cumbersome checkpoint that stifles our competitiveness. The government has stressed that Canada is America's closest friend, most trusted ally, and most important trading partner.
Most recently, I spoke to Secretary Napolitano, and we do speak on a fairly regular basis. She assured me that the U.S. shares our views on the border and continues to be committed to getting Canada-U.S. border issues right.
Ms. Napolitano confirmed to me that Canada will remain a trading partner with the full confidence of the United States and that our common goal is to strengthen our mutual security by ensuring that these security measures do not impede the significant trade relations of our two countries. I look forward to working with her again at our next meeting and presenting a border program that will protect the interests of Canada.
In sum, what we agreed upon were two principles: one of looking for opportunities to co-operate for mutual benefit, where we can eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies so that our border works well while we are achieving our security objectives; and secondly, we agreed to look at new approaches and new initiatives, ones that have been off the table under the previous administration. Those are, in my view, two major successful steps forward.
I believe we have with the new Obama administration a real opportunity to make progress for Canada. I continue to work with the Obama administration in seeking to do that.
In view of that, I simply cannot support the motion before us today. It is critically important that we maintain an open border. It is critically important that we have good relations with the Americans and that we make them aware of how important that border is.
One of the realities of the situation we are in is that because we are such good partners, because we are such trusted allies, we are not always on the radar screen. It is easy for North Korea and Iran to be the subject of a lot of talk in Washington. Canada is not.
In some ways, that is a good thing, but it also means that on those issues that are important to us we have to be there. We have to be there front and centre, making our views known, working on our concerns and getting those problems solved. The new Obama administration has shown a willingness to work with us to do that, a new opportunity for Canada, a new opportunity to work towards greater security and prosperity.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to continue working on that, and I would encourage all members of the House to support that kind of effort and reject this unnecessarily divisive motion really designed to embarrass the Obama administration.
