Mr. Speaker, it would be speculation indeed, because it does not seem to make a lot of sense to have commissioned that work, have it done, and then largely ignore it.
We saw something similar with the Special Committee on Electoral Reform. There was a budget for that committee too. It did a lot of travel, heard from a number of witnesses, and produced a really great report. Everybody put a bit of water in their wine to clear the path for the government to move forward and make good on its election commitment. Without really even taking time to consider that report, the government decided to throw it in the wastepaper bin. It is a theme, but the motivation behind that theme is not exactly clear.
On the issue of electoral reform, by way of analogy to Bill C-69, one could imagine the government creating a really good proportional representation voting system that actually satisfied Canadians who voted for change, but putting in a caveat in the bill that the government of the day could decide in advance of an election whether it would use that process or the old process. I do not think anybody would say that made sense. Right?
Effectively, the ministerial discretion to decide whether to apply this framework to a project and then to ignore it afterwards would be a further caveat. We would be saying, “If we had the election and we do not like the results, we will actually just rescind it and then will redo the election under the old process”. Nobody would think that was a good idea and effectively that is what is happening here.
There may be virtues in the change to the process, but the real problem is whether the process will be applied and whether it has to be respected once it is seen through.