Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Kildonan—St. Paul for bringing this motion forward for debate this evening and also the member for Selkirk--Interlake for the excellent job he is doing.
Tonight the timing of this motion certainly shows where the government has been over the last decade. This is the eleventh hour. This is the time when the pumps are going to be turned on.
The government has had over a decade to deal with this problem. I remember hearing about this problem before I was a member of Parliament. After becoming a member of Parliament, I remember hearing previous foreign ministers debating and talking about this.
Unfortunately, the government missed the opportunity to do something about the water. At a minimum, it could have had this referred to the International Joint Commission. I still remember going to a meeting where then foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy made a presentation to the Canada-U.S. friendship association, I believe, on this very topic. He was struggling at that time on having it referred to the International Joint Commission.
Here we are, at the eleventh hour, and the pumps are ready to be primed to dump water into the Sheyenne River and into this country's water courses. I have a question for the hon. member for Selkirk--Interlake. What went wrong? Why over the last 12 years did the Liberal government not do something about it and not get us to this point?