Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg talked about a lot of different issues and only a very few of those really refer to the bill itself.
The bill talks about increasing the cooperation between all jurisdictions in disasters. My hon. colleague made mention of the Red River flood in 1997. It was devastating for the province of Manitoba and for my riding. I was out sand bagging. I made sure I went along with our Canadian soldiers who were also sand bagging and helping the local residents and our province in protecting our assets. We are extremely grateful for that.
It is that type of cooperation among all jurisdictions, Manitoba, all provinces, the federal government and the municipalities, that made it happen.
In my riding just in the last two years we have had two disasters that required EMO services. We had a flash flood that went through Lester Beach, which was extremely devastating and completely unpredictable. There was no way we could have had any preventative measures in tact to prevent what happened. Cars were washed into the river and houses were lifted off their foundations and moved 20 feet or 30 feet.
This year a tornado went through Gull Lake and killed one lady. We had a lot of damage in the community. Houses were completely destroyed. Seasonal residences were completely demolished. We could not even make out what was there before.
Because of those situations we need to ensure that we strengthen the whole Emergency Measures Act. That is why I support the bill.
The member talked about the Red River floodway. The bill is also trying to address the whole issue of being preventative. He mentioned Duff Roblin, the Conservative premier of Manitoba. Back in the sixties he had the vision and the dream to build a giant ditch to divert water. I think only construction of the Panama Canal moved more earth than the Red River floodway in Manitoba to divert water around our capital region and protect the city.
There have been some problems with that, and we have an expansion going on right now. A lot of the negative impacts are happening in my riding. We might sacrifice the city of Selkirk and historic site of Lower Fort Garry because of not taking the extra preventive measures to ensure that we have riverbank stabilization down the entire river right out to the mouth of the Red River into Lake Winnipeg.
When he is talking with his NDP colleagues back at the provincial level in Manitoba, does he feel we need to ensure that we have preventative measures in place so we are not just dealing with mitigations and trying to address things after the fact, after the damage is done, like groundwater contamination, property damage and ongoing infrastructure damage, because of not having that foresightedness?