Mr. Speaker, I will not be very long.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues from all parties who are members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for the excellent work they have done.
I believe that we had a good discussion on Bill C-27. We heard many witnesses and, on the whole—I suppose that everyone is not satisfied in terms of the measures they wanted—the committee met the concerns expressed during the hearings.
For example, for the aboriginals, we included a notwithstanding clause and made other amendments in reply to certain concerns that were expressed. We did the same thing for ecological integrity. Each opposition party wanted a definition of this concept. The government suggested one, which was amended and which obtained the unanimous assent of committee. The same thing happened in terms of the concerns expressed by the communities living in the parks.
We tried, in clauses 10 and 12, to partly follow their recommendations, by ensuring that they will be consulted and that the minister can conclude agreements with a variety of groups, including business interests, among others.
I believe we really met the concerns of those who made that presentation. For the benefit of my colleague from Portneuf, I must make a small correction concerning the Mingan Archipelago.
This is not a big deal, but I want to mention that the reason the government fully endorsed and followed through with the proposals of this community is mainly the quality of the delegation we received and of its presentation. The members of the delegation were very warm in the way they convinced us of the legitimacy of their proposals. I believe they convinced everybody.
True enough, their MP made representations, but the quality of this group had a lot to do with the government's decision. I wanted to make sure the people from Mingan knew that it is in great part due to their work that they will be satisfied if the bill is passed. I do not want to guess what the House will decide. I wanted to make sure they knew it.
Finally, I want to mention that in the first group we will support Amendment No. 4, but none of the others. Again, overall, the concerns raised by the opposition parties and by the groups that appeared before the committee were listened to. We amended the bill to reflect them in a positive way.