While I can definitely agree that if you had provincial governments and first nations and the federal government as willing participants at the table to co-develop something when the intent was to ensure that first nations had clean water and the protection zones under this were covered, in Nova Scotia they poisoned water next to Pictou Landing and in that area for more than 40 years. The province refused to come to the table to talk about it because of the industry that was making money and creating jobs.
Now, if we're asking first nations to come to the table with a province that is putting industry and jobs ahead of clean water for that first nation, what we're doing in this legislation is that instead of having protected zones with consultation and co-operation with provinces, we're giving the provinces the ability to say that they won't co-develop this with first nations.
It seems to me that if we're trying to protect the protection zones that first nations are connected to, we're giving the provinces an ability to say, “No, we didn't co-develop that, so it's not something we're going to move forward on.”
If the NDP supports this, I want them to know that we're giving provinces the ability to continue to poison first nations communities' waters and to not come to the table at all. We've seen too many examples, in the history of first nations, of provinces putting jobs and industry ahead of first nations communities. By putting that in there, what we're doing, in a sense, is giving provinces the ability to say that they didn't co-develop that or that they refuse to co-develop it because it might impact jobs in their communities.
For that reason, I cannot accept this amendment. I would strongly encourage my colleagues to have conversations with first nations communities on what is about to transpire.
We're not giving first nations any increased rights with this amendment; we're giving provinces the ability to walk away from first nations protected zones, such as what happened in Pictou Landing, where their connected water was poisoned for decades, if not generations.
To the officials, I'm wondering if my concerns are valid on this.