Mr. Speaker, I agree that the study by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security will probably improve the bill and help us to understand it better. Witnesses will come and tell us what needs to be done differently. However, the question we need to ask is this: Why did it take so long before something was done? The government has been in power for 10 years. We have been complaining about this situation, about the government's lax approach at our borders, for years.
Every time we raised the issue and proposed measures like the ones now set out in this bill, the government called us every name in the book, claiming that we were being unwelcoming. However, Quebec currently takes in 40% of asylum seekers in Canada, even though it represents only 20% of the country's population. That amounts to twice its demographic weight. This is a serious problem.