Mr. Speaker, to summarize it, as we heard in Oral Question Period the federal government has commenced expropriation proceedings in British Columbia. It claims it has been in negotiations for two years. This is unprecedented. I submit it would set an extremely dangerous precedent in Canada to allow this without even having some discussion here.
To my knowledge none of the opposition parties received any information from the government. We have no idea what negotiations have gone on. This would allow us an opportunity to question the government and find out what has been going on. This would be an extremely dangerous precedent that would open the doors for expropriations in other parts of Canada in an area where we do not want to go.
The government sought ownership of this land through the Supreme Court of Canada in 1984. It was rejected then. The court ruled that it was under the ownership of British Columbia in the Constitution.
I would submit, given all that, that an emergency debate would be appropriate so we can have an opportunity to find out what in fact the government has been doing to avoid this expropriation and what discussions have gone on with the province of British Columbia. To date we have had zero information from the government with respect to that.