Mr. Speaker, the member asked an excellent question and has raised a couple of issues. Today we recognize that emergencies are not necessarily what we thought they were a number of years ago. We would not have contemplated 25 years ago that 14 aircraft landing in one community was an emergency, but we recognize today that is an emergency. There are a lot of people to be taken care of and a whole raft of issues. Being prepared for emergencies is obviously the first step and we have moved a long way, as he recognizes in his municipality.
He will also recognize that the federal government is in no position to impose its will on the other two levels of government. The provinces in most cases have requested and in some cases I expect demanded of the municipalities to prepare emergency plans, but the idea behind this bill is that the Government of Canada will be there as the senior level of government that will have a plan in place.
In fact, he is absolutely right that this is a bill that has been around and federally we have not had the umbrella that we have needed for some time. This is an updating of where we were, more importantly, to bring us into the current age with the current threats with respect to emergency preparedness. For the most part, we would welcome building with the provinces and municipalities in a total umbrella of emergency preparedness.