Madam Speaker, the hon. member is wrong in just about everything he has said, including his comments about Afghanistan.
There is a big difference. We have listened to people in the House and to Canadians. We took out the subsection which said that the government could declare virtually any area as a military security zone. We are back to the original purpose and intent which is to protect military equipment. If we have a ship visiting, we need to be able to give it police protection and military police are the appropriate means of protecting it.
Members will remember that when the USS Cole went into Yemen it was not properly protected. There was a terrorist attack and people lost their lives. We obviously do not want that to happen to either our troops or any visiting troops who might be here.
The military bases pretty well have that kind of protection but there are a lot of port visits that are done by ships or even by aircraft to civilian airports. We might need to put a little cordon around them and have military police patrol them. That is all we are talking about here.
Under the common law, civilian police already have all these authorities. We are just talking about the same authority in regard to the protection of military property. It has in fact been narrowed in scope substantially to what is reasonably necessary to serve the purpose and intent of the bill. The purpose and intent of the bill is to protect military equipment.
If a minister attempts to be unreasonable about it he can be taken to court. The government can be taken to court, just like in any other provision and just like in the common law relevant to the civilian police. They have been doing this for ages. What about the fact that they cordon off areas and have police patrol them? We can take them to court too if we think it is unreasonable. This provides for that as well.
The Bloc has made some issue about the question of claims here, because it does not provide for lawsuits on the basis of claims. It provides for claims however that can be made against the government and funds provided from the consolidated revenue account if anybody is injured or, for example, if the cordoned off area means that people cannot get into their businesses and they want to claim for loss of business revenue. That provision is the same as it is in civilian law. The bill just makes it consistent with civilian law.