Thanks, Chair.
I want to thank my colleague, Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné, for the amendments. Numbers (1) to (4) seem to be recommendations. Getting to recommendations ahead of the actual report...I certainly support taking those out.
As I mentioned, I'm very happy at the request to do the report. I'll put this out perhaps to my colleague who has joined us from the environment committee. It's whether “Canada's waterbodies” is an accurate enough description. In the general context, I understand it's about drinking water for first nations. Maybe my colleague from the NDP can chime in as well on this—whether “waterbodies” covers, specifically, drinking water.
I'm not sure if that needs to be a further amendment. I will rely on Mr. Leslie or Mr. Desjarlais to chime in afterwards.
The only other issue I have, and I mostly support the amendment, is that I guess we are keeping the fourth paragraph “in relation to the Follow-up Study on 'Report 3: Access to Safe Drinking Water'”, which is fine.
It then says, “following the evidence provided by witnesses at the Standing Committee on Environment”. I am hesitant to have this committee put forward suggestions based on the work of another committee that I haven't seen, and I am concerned about making recommendations. Certainly keep the first line in, and I'm just putting this out there for further discussion. Again, it's asking for us to put forward a statement based on witnesses at another committee that we haven't heard.
I bring this up because I brought this up with AG Hogan, and also AG Ferguson, before his passing, about the shipbuilding study. We were doing a study in OGGO, the only committee that matters, about shipbuilding and asked if they actually referred to the evidence, witnesses and testimony in that study. The AG commented that, no, they do not actually look at information that comes up in other studies. Therefore, the current AG and the previous AG both stated that they don't consider testimony, recommendations or anything else from other studies.
Again, I'm hesitant about putting forward something based on what was heard in another committee when I haven't heard it myself.
Mr. Desjarlais, I'll put this out to you as you were conferring with someone. On the last line about “Canada's waterbodies, especially those on Indigenous lands”, are you're satisfied that would actually cover drinking water as well?
There is water body access, but again, from the MLI report, there's also underground water access. I'm not sure if you're satisfied. I understand the intent, but I want to make sure we are clear that it's water bodies but also specifically drinking water. Could you just chime in on that?