Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon. member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake and the point of order he raised this morning about the government's lack of response to a report of the Standing Committee on the Environment, I understand that the report of the committee was a very lengthy one and involved 141 recommendations for change to the Environmental Protection Act. That act is currently under review in light of the committee's recommendations.
The government is preparing a response, but because of the length of the report and the very complete report that was tabled by the committee, it was unable to be completed for today. It is anticipated that a response should be forthcoming within the next couple of weeks.
I realize that the standing order requires tabling of a report within a limited time, but rather than table a short or incomplete report, which would not have answered all the committee's concerns, the government chose to take extra time to do this. I regret that this fact was not communicated to the House in advance to warn hon. members so that the hon. member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake would not be in the position of asking for this today.
I assure the House that the government will proceed with the matter with dispatch. I hope I will be in a position to have the Minister of the Environment here shortly, within a few weeks, to table the government's response to this report.