Mr. Speaker, first I wish to compliment the minister for his fine speech. This is a significant departure from what has gone on before. Many parties in the House have actually tried to push the government in this direction.
The minister spoke about water. My first question deals with the Walkerton inquiry. There were a number of very constructive solutions in the Walkerton inquiry. If employed across the country, they would give clean, potable water to everybody. Will the minister pursue his colleagues' adoption of a national standard for drinking water modelled under the Walkerton inquiry findings?
Second, on the issue of governance he quite correctly said that the way to change the institutional apartheid we have actually fostered on aboriginal people is to separate them from the rest of the country. Therefore, I am asking the hon. minister if he will pursue a course of action of integration, not assimilation, whereby individual aboriginal people would have private property rights on reserves.