Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-23 and honoured to follow the comments by the member for Lac-Saint-Louis who has put on record an impassioned, compassionate, and cogent argument for why this piece of legislation ought to be reviewed further.
I want to add my congratulations and thanks to the member for Lac-Saint-Louis for his years of service in this place. He leaves a legacy to be followed by all of us and I wish him well in his future pursuits.
The member for Lac-Saint-Louis gave us a strong and clearly articulated argument about pausing, taking a moment to reflect, and giving further consideration to the bill before us. That is very wise advice in the case of this particular legislation which deals directly with our relations to first nations communities.
I sense from the comments across the way that there are a good number of Liberals who are uneasy about Bill C-23. I would hope that the views of members from the Liberal backbenches are taken into serious consideration before the government makes the final decision to advance this bill through all of its stages.
It seems to me that this is a perfect example of how we deal with the democratic deficit in this place. If the Prime Minister is serious about giving more power to backbenchers and increasing the role of parliamentarians, and about ensuring that decisions are made in this place based on the best advice possible that takes into account external factors,--in this case, relations with our first nations communities--then we have all of the ingredients that we need today for the Prime Minister to say that he agrees that we should pull back on this piece of legislation.
My question to the Prime Minister is, is he listening to his backbenchers or does he have a three line whip on this bill? Is it a three line whip or a two line whip? How is the Prime Minister responding to concerns on Liberal benches about this piece of legislation? If he were true to his words about addressing the democratic deficit, we should see a response shortly vis-à-vis this bill and a decision to pull it off the agenda and send it back to committee.