Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
As for consulting, I know that several attempts were made to meet with the opposition critic. The director of the Parks Canada Agency had also offered to meet him to discuss the project and give him some information. There might have been some shortcomings in that regard and we apologize for that.
However, this bill is in no way partisan. All this is done in order to solve a longstanding problem. Of course, it took a while for the whole consultation process with the communities to help us solve the problem. It was more a humanitarian and logic gesture that had to be made by the government in this regard.
As for the surrounding communities, everybody agreed. There is no land taken away from those people. Nobody lost anything. We are giving part of the park back to an Indian community who is suffering from a major demographic problem, in order to help that community expand a little.
I was listening to my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot yesterday when he was talking about the housing problem in the aboriginal communities. This is a good example. This bill will help them go forward with the construction of new housing units. It will also allow an aboriginal community to enjoy a better quality of life.