Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member for South Shore. He did not have the opportunity to be the representative for his coalition at the committee when it dealt with the clause by clause amendments, but he did hear the speech I made in which I pointed out some of the amendments that the NDP sought to achieve.
The hockey analogy that I used in my speech was the fact that under Bill C-33 the federal government still would retain the ability to charge a fee, a user fee, a licence fee or a permit fee, to any user of water in the territory of Nunavut. We sought to have an exemption to that rule which would state that the federal government could charge a user fee or licence fee to any user of water except in regard to waters that flow through Inuit owned land. In other words, the actual indigenous people of the territory should not be charged a fee for using their own water.
The witness who appeared before the committee used the example of wanting to pump water out of the river to flood the ice rink so his kids could play hockey. Under the bill, the government could charge him a fee for using his own water. We did not feel that was right.
Does the hon. member agree that is an amendment that should have been allowed at committee to give them true self-determination over their own water resources?