Mr. Speaker, Christian Island and Georgina Island are home to the Beausoleil and Georgina Chippewa Bands. The islands are the location of cottages belonging to hundreds of non-natives and they are the destination of thousands of visitors.
In 1995, the Governments of Canada and Ontario agreed to jointly fund the replacement of the ferries that provide service to the islands, an improvement essential to economic development. The Government of Ontario, a Conservative government, now refuses to honour its commitments in spite of the fact that transportation is a provincial jurisdiction.
This is not unlike the unilateral and arbitrary decision made by the Government of Ontario to renege on the agreement reached with the First Nations on the distribution of the Casinorama's revenues.
An agreement is an agreement. It is sad enough that our history is littered with agreements we did not honour but it is an outrage that agreements with the ink barely dry are being unilaterally and summarily dismissed.