Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows that under that act there was a prohibition of expenditures for ports under certain exceptions. An exception would be emergencies. Certainly coming from the Maritimes, the member is most appreciative of how vital the ports are to the country's economy and if they were crippled, how difficult if would be for us. It would be the same for the land border crossings in my area if the infrastructure was taken out, such as one of the bridges crossing the Niagara River in the Niagara region.
The minister certainly is warranted in having powers to take extraordinary measures to protect the security of those facilities. Assuredly the cynic in us all could say that perhaps these unneeded non-emergency expenditures could be undertaken for a port under this guise, but I think not. If my memory serves me rightly, the fund is roughly $60 million and not an awful lot of money could be squandered, as the member is suggesting could happen.