Mr. Speaker, some of the things that could happen in fairly short order, given the situation with the surplus, is a return of personnel and budgets to agencies such as CSIS and national defence. We have to come up with a plan with respect to reservists and recruits in our armed forces.
I would suggest that airport security is an area where we can sharply focus our attention immediately. We know that because of the privatization of many airports, for example, there may be a need to put in place stricter guidelines for the hiring of security officers. There was a report yesterday of which all members of the House will be aware and which was alarming. There were dummy exercises in which people were asked to bring mock explosives through airport security. I am sure this caused incredible angst in the country, given the potential for disaster.
Those are short term solutions we should be looking at right away. We should be looking at the whole range of options and solutions, both short and long term. The information that is publicly available about terrorist organizations operating in our midst and a CSIS report indicates that the government has been advised.
In a newspaper account Chantale Lapalme, who is a spokesperson for CSIS, indicated that it was targeting 350 people, possible terrorists, within Canada today, plus 50 organizations. She stated quite rightly:
CSIS's role is to advise government. We advise government, so it would be up to government to take action
Those are certainly words I agree with. I would like to see the government now take the action that is necessary. We in this coalition and other opposition members are prepared to work with the government at the committee level and in the House, to address this pending crisis. If we do not, we do so at our collective peril and at our countrymen's peril.