44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 22, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, there are five CBSA crossings in my riding, and over my seven years as a member of Parliament, I have heard many times from my constituents about both positive and negative issues with the CBSA, and even more so lately with COVID and the shutdown of borders. In particular, the issue right now is when they are going to go back to their regular hours, but that is another conversation. It is not the conversation today.
The Liberals have been saying for the past seven years that this is going to happen, yet it has taken this long just to get here. Why has it taken so long to get the bill to this stage, and why is it being rushed at this point?
126 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, but I am going to split it into two and try to answer both parts quickly.
First, on the question of time, I realize that I did not answer sufficiently in my previous response. We can only denounce the fact that this bill is still not in place and that there have been delays in getting this common-sense bill passed. The Liberals, like the Conservatives, have been slow and have decreased investments so much in border crossings and services that we have ended up in a situation where staff are overworked, tired and exhausted, which does not help matters. I really want to emphasize those two aspects.
On the other point, one thing is certain. Migrants must be treated with dignity. I would like to emphasize once again the issue of the safe third country agreement. What should be at the heart of everything related to refugees is that behind the number of refugees arriving at our borders, there are people, there are faces. They are human beings who absolutely must be treated with dignity. Unfortunately, this is not happening under that agreement.
193 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, when we talk about borders, a whole range of topics or themes comes to mind. That has often been problematic. There is the issue of vaccination, the whole COVID period, what the Americans wanted and what we did not want, Roxham Road, third countries, wait times, trust between the two governments and so on. In short, the border is typically a problem or a source of conflict between the United States and Canada. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on this.
Why has the current government not succeeded in reducing border-related tensions over the past seven years?
103 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I would say that this lack of interest by federal governments goes back much further than seven years. From 2007 to 2011, I was an assistant to a member of Parliament who had border crossings in his riding, and even back then, there was tension. It was palpable.
As we saw during the pandemic, the government does not seem concerned about our border crossings and has failed to competently manage what happens there. It was clear that it did not pay enough attention to this issue. This is one of the criticisms that can be levelled at the government. We saw it during the pandemic, the borders were real—
112 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I want to follow up on a thread that I started with his colleague from Langley—Aldergrove, which is testing the theory that we can interdict our way out of dealing with drugs, guns or other things coming across our borders.
I have done some research and the U.S. border between Canada and the U.S., the longest undefended border in the world, has 12 million vehicles cross it every year. That includes Canadian vehicles going into the U.S. and coming back, and U.S. vehicles coming in. That is about a million vehicles per month. I have already pointed out that at the Port of Vancouver we have about 1,450,000 containers every year that the CBSA cannot inspect.
Does my colleague really think that interdiction at either the Canada-U.S. border or at ports is going to make a serious dent, or would a wise policy of trying to go after these goods that are coming across our borders, or do we need—
173 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
