Mr. Speaker, I met with members of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and with firefighters who were on the Hill recently, talking about this very specific issue. The federation continues to be very concerned about the issue of disclosure. Firefighters, in particular, are also concerned. They are not getting advance disclosure; the reason being there is some sort of proprietary interest, there is some sort of national security interest at play here. The firefighters need this information for two reasons. One is that established firefighters inside cities with full-time firefighting forces need to know ahead of time what kinds of disasters they are confronting and need the information in a timely way. In rural municipalities, where they have volunteer firefighters, there is no capacity for training, there is no capacity for advance warning. Assembling the firefighting crew when a disaster occurs is the priority, not finding out exactly what the nature of the fire is.
Why will the government not provide advance disclosure of dangerous goods being shipped through urban and rural areas? Why is it relying upon notification after the fact or in real time when real time is not necessarily effective?