Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I always find it interesting when I hear members talk about something needing to be done. When the previous government was elected in 1993 it took them until 2003 to actually look into an assessment of water and waste water, and then to somehow suggest that we're not moving too quickly...but I digress.
Vaughn, one of the things that you were talking about and seemed very focused on is incorporation by reference to provincial standards. You seem quite concerned about that, and I can understand those concerns. You gave a list of things, and if those were to be adopted, what the costs and the difficulties associated with that would be.
I'm sure you're aware that subclause 5(3) actually says, “Regulations made under section 4 may incorporate by reference laws of a province, as amended from time to time...”. The legislation actually doesn't say “shall” or “will”; it says “may”. That's a key distinction, because it's not actually saying that this is what's going to happen. The other thing that's important is that the preamble of the legislation states:
And whereas the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the Minister of Health have committed to working with First Nations to develop proposals for regulations to be made under this Act;
It appears to me that the concerns you're raising are very clearly set out in the legislation, both in the preamble, which says there will be a very good discussion on these regulations, and in the proposed subsection, which uses “may”.
Do you not agree that in terms of these concerns you have, there will be adequate time for all of them to be raised in the process going forward?