Mr. Speaker, once again I will rise to say how surreal I find this discussion, coming from an area along the James Bay coast where I have 21 people living in houses on the first nations. We cannot make any kind of moves or any first nations development without tender process after tender process, capital study after capital study. It seems the federal government's main job in these communities is to block development, and it is always speaking of accountability.
We are talking about a real estate deal of $30 million that might be flipped to $300 million or $600 million. My God, that money spent on first nations across Canada would turn some of these terrible sinkholes of human misery into livable places. Yet we are gong to spend that on one building. To even talk about the issue is scandalous.
I came back from Kashechewan, just before the flood, for the funeral of four year old Trianna Martin who died in a house fire in a community for which the federal government will not pay any fire service, and it is its responsibility.
Why do we have this demand on all our isolated first nations for tendering processes for the smallest project and a project of this size can go through the system without any tendering at all?