Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs confirms what the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of National Defence has said. The satellites are not only being used for ecological or climate surveillance purposes. They are also used for military purposes.
The Bloc Quebecois has always been very prudent in matters of national defence. I remind the parliamentary secretary that the bill before us states, time and again, that the Minister of National Defence has a role to play, whether to control the satellites or to stop the signals where necessary.
We will want to encompass and especially limit the role of the Department of National Defence. We will have to hear from the experts in the field. It is important for us. It is unequivocally an area of federal jurisdiction. Of course, the federal government is under no obligation to consult with any province on military matters.
However, in our capacity as legislators in Ottawa coming from that part of the country known as Quebec, we are very glad that these benchmarks do not intrude too much on areas under Quebec jurisdiction. Whenever we talk about Quebec defence and jurisdictions, we do have the right to call in experts during committee study to ask them if they think that this is acceptable.
We have the same situation with the Privacy Commissioner. After the events of September 11, we are always concerned that the rights of citizens could be ignored in bills for the sake of collective interests or interests other than privacy. We have always been very prudent in that regard. We will continue to be prudent.
It will be an excellent thing to do when the bill is referred to committee.