Mr. Speaker, like the member, I had the opportunity to be in Sri Lanka and I have seen the devastation that it caused to that particular country and how important it was for the NGOs and for the immediate response we had from the military.
To pick up on the member's point about us being prepared to evacuate people, it is not just in wartime that we are faced with that. We are faced with it right across Asia with the impacts of tsunamis. Those are not nearly the numbers that we are faced with in Lebanon but still substantial numbers. We must be able to provide assistance and get our citizens and residents out of the area.
I do not want to downplay the importance of how poorly I saw the Lebanese war situation handled, having a very large population in my riding and in my community. I agree with the member's assessment that it was handled very poorly. We were clearly not prepared. In that regard I draw to the member's attention paragraph 4(1)(k) in the bill whereby the minister's responsibilities include:
(k) participating, in accordance with Canada’s foreign relations policies, in international emergency management activities;
Therefore, there is an actual direct mandate. It is not as broad as I thought it should be, but quite frankly this legislation clearly was designed to deal with the domestic public disasters, particularly in other emergencies. I should not say public disasters because of course one of the issues could be, for instance, a melt down in one of our nuclear reactors, or an attack on one of them, or on some of our other public utilities. It may not just be a public disaster. It could be an act of terrorism as well.
The proposed legislation is really not designed, as I see it, other than in a very general way, to equip us as a country to deal with international public disasters or incidents that would call for that kind of expertise. Hopefully, as we build that expertise more extensively in this country, it will also teach us how we should be responding in other countries.