Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's concern. He has raised a good point but the overall purpose of the bill is not accomplished at all. The specific claim process is not independent. The minister has every right to interfere with it. The minister will be making the patronage appointments, including the chief executive officer of the tribunal, the commission members and so on.
The cap for the claims is arbitrary; $7 million is not enough. We made an amendment in committee for $25 million, which would have been fairer. The backlog is already huge. The process will be quite slow and the backlog will continue. The minister still has 500 specific claims on his desk that need to be concluded as to whether they should go for negotiation. There is a huge backlog and 48% of those claims are from my province of British Columbia.
The government has not paid full attention to the issues and concerns and it did not look at the amendments in the way it should have. The flaws in the bill that we pointed out in previous debates were the same flaws that the Senate pointed out but the government still refuses to accommodate those concerns.
In a nutshell, this whole process is not independent, it is not fair and it will not resolve the claims in a timely fashion.