Mr. Speaker, I was answering a question. I did not have an opportunity to answer it.
If we can think back to what the questions were, they were about public consultation. The parliamentary secretary had indicated that there had been enough public consultation. I am just going by the government officials that we heard who had said they had not consulted with the public on these amendments.
I also wanted to let him know that in talking to several lawyers, there were two international acts that they believed this bill would contravene. These were acts that the Canadian government had signed. He had indicated that it had been taken care of but obviously it had not.
He made reference to the fact that the million dollars would apply for a duck hunter who took two extra ducks. What a foolish thing to say. Obviously, had we been allowed to put amendments forward, we could have covered off the duck hunters and the person who takes an extra trout. We could have covered them off.
We are talking about companies, ship owners, and big ships dumping oil in the ocean. To introduce the concept of duck hunters being fined if we had a minimum fine, I really do not know what he might possibly have been smoking to come up with an answer like that. Not to impugn anything on him, but that is pretty ridiculous.
Finally, he said there were no concerns. Well, if we did not consult the public and we did not consult the constitutional lawyers and international law, there are questions.
We support the bill because it is really our legislation that we wanted two and a half years ago. It is great legislation, but why bring it in so late? Why bring it in when the Senate has been shut down and the Senate cannot approve it? Why would the government do this and let the Senate go home so that it cannot become law?
Those were the points to clarify the answers to those questions.