Mr. Speaker, I am always amazed as I watch the government when it gets itself into a sticky political situation. To find its way out, it creates a scenario and then all members can unabashedly go out with a straight face and sell that story line.
What we have with this legislation is reflective of a very worrisome trend that we are seeing in legislation coming forward from this administration. Some words that come to mind are: responding to political events, balkanization, dividing the country, willy-nilly, knee-jerk, no vision, no principles, ad hoc.
The reason I say that is because this is not the only bill where the government is responding to a political situation, responding to a half-baked promise, responding to special interests that are promoting a particular point of view with the government.
I have been looking at two pieces of legislation that are going to be coming before the House. They have both been tabled. We have what has been called by some, Indian Act II. This is parallel legislation, if members have ever heard of such a thing, where people can opt in but they cannot opt out.