I have a proposal, Mr. Chair, that perhaps might be acceptable to the committee as a whole.
I just want to say to both the officials and Mr. Brown that I think the argument that we don't call municipalities, municipalities in some of the regions is a bit of a semantic argument. They all belong to the provincial-municipal associations. They belong to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
In fact, let me just propose this. If you look at paragraph 4(1)(f), we've used their wording already, which I assume is acceptable to the government and to the officials. If you look at the latter part, where we talk about coordination, this is ministerial responsibility as full governmental responsibility. We use the wording there: “and through the provinces, those of local authorities”. If we inserted the same wording after “with the provinces”--I'm proposing this as an amendment to the amendment that's been proposed by Mr. Holland--we would insert “and through the provinces, those of local authorities”, and then go on with the balance, “and other entities”, to cover the Red Cross and the other emergency care NGOs generally.
It would cover all those, but it would also take care of recognizing and respecting--acknowledging, really--the role the municipalities and the local authorities play as the first responders. It avoids Mr. Holland's concerns I think about a slap at them and being seen at the municipal level....
I'm proposing that. Mr. Holland has indicated that he's prepared to accept that as an amendment and to change his wording to what I'm proposing.
Thank you.