Mr. Speaker, I heard my hon. colleague from the NDP speak very passionately about the role that the NGOs play. Having been to some of the places that he mentioned, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Indonesia, and seen firsthand the work that the local NGOs play and certainly how they are able to deliver for the first 24, 48, or 72 hours a need, his comments are appreciated. However, I am going to ask my colleague to go one more step.
Canada, being such a diverse country, has many citizens from many different places and many of them do travel. Does the hon. member not feel that we could extend this legislation one step further so that it also includes the response from this government should Canadians end up in a situation, such as a tsunami or an earthquake in Pakistan or an earthquake in Gujarat, India, or even what happened in Lebanon with 50,000 Canadians. Does he not feel that we need to have in place tested means so that we are able to evacuate our citizens and provide for them firsthand to ensure that they are returned to Canada safely?
We have citizens all over the world. In my constituency of Scarborough—Agincourt, I have close to 27,000 Chinese. Many of them have dual citizenship and many of them have family in Hong Kong, and some of them travel to Hong Kong. Should a disaster happen in that part of the world, should a disaster happen in any other part of the world, this legislation does not go far enough to address that issue.
I am just wondering if my colleague and my good friend across the way could summarize his own thoughts in his own words and certainly expand on what happened in Lebanon and the knee-jerk reaction of the Conservative government which botched it up. How can we ensure that this does not reoccur again?