Mr. Speaker, I compliment my colleague on such an excellent speech. I know it is a bit of an oxymoron but I hope there was a thoughtful Liberal listening to what my colleague had to say.
The member for Wentworth—Burlington posed some questions with regard to lack of transparency being a concern. That certainly is a concern with this legislation and it is a concern in terms of all kinds of current Indian Act legislation and policy from the department.
Essentially many of the things that are done now are tantamount to giving a blank cheque not only in terms of money but in terms of issues. Bill C-49 gives essentially a blank cheque to these 14 band councils in terms of marital assets and marital splits.
This agreement creates no protocol. It leaves an absolute void in terms of how these local governments are to deal with municipal governments on servicing agreements and all those things. There needs to be protocol. That has been pointed out for the last two years. There is no change to the legislation.
There is thought about rushing this legislation to committee because somehow at committee it can be fixed. There has been about $10 million invested in this piece of legislation through government initiatives since the Tory years and it is still not right because of a philosophical problem. It has nothing to do with what should be here. It is philosophical. Committees will not fix it as long as they are Liberal dominated.
There is also no protocol for what happens when third party interests are affected as a consequence of this legislation, and there needs to be. Those are three obvious ones. The sixth month hoist is appropriate.