Mr. Speaker, this independent claims body that is being set up under the government's bill is anything but independent and the minister knows that. There is token involvement from first nations after the fact, after the appointments are already made. The minister is quite aware of that.
It will not do anything to help breed trust among the parties involved. As well, who is standing up for the taxpayer in the process? The bill before us discourages the use of the less costly alternative dispute mechanisms. We are going the route of more costly court cases time and again, wasting taxpayers' money and those resources that could be applied to first nations.
We have been urging the Liberal government to go back and seriously look at the 1998 joint task force report which had some reasonable recommendations that would address what we perceive to be the major flaws and defects of this bill. His own Liberal senators have acknowledged that. Why does he not seriously consider and adopt into Bill C-6 the reasonable recommendations of the 1998 joint task force report?