Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the concerns of my hon. friend and particularly to his last remarks with respect to increasing bureaucracy. There is no question at all about that. Members of the House should be concerned about this and should be looking out for it when new proposals come forward. In fact, I probably will be saying a few things about that myself later in this debate when I speak.
However, there is a question I would like to put to him. His party has frequently proposed that the ports police be reconstituted or has said that it was a mistake to disband the ports police. Yet bureaucracy was exactly why that relatively small police force, which had to work with the RCMP and with the port of Vancouver police, was disbanded: because in fact there was more bureaucracy and there were more police forces than necessary.
I believe I heard him mention in his comments this area of protection of the ports. I wonder if his party has now adopted the approach that in fact it does make sense to have the same police forces who handle the onshore security aspects, the same police forces who handle behind the port security, also work on that narrow band of actual waterfront where the docks, some of the warehouses and the ships are. Has his party now accepted the fact that it was a sensible decision or is it still advocating yet more bureaucracy in the ports police area?