Mr. Speaker, the fact is there is no rush. The rush is self-imposed in that we are going to ratify it apparently by Christmas, or else.
What is clear is that we are asking provincial governments to pay part of the costs for this. We can imagine in this place if a provincial government in particular, or if collectively the provincial governments, were to pass uniform individual laws which imposed a financial burden on the federal government, it would go to court in about 39 seconds. There would be a challenge.
We do have treaty making powers at the federal level. In my opinion, we are heaping abuse on that process by saying that we have this power, and because convention demands that we seek the consensus of provincial governments, and I stress not the unanimity, but the consensus, and because we do not have that consensus, we really do not have anything, but we are going to use our power in a way which was never contemplated. In fact most legal observers would deem it to be unconstitutional. It is unfair to abuse a given power and that is what we are doing.