Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Windsor West raised some very valid concerns about consultation. The parliamentary secretary seems to be seized of this issue that too much consultation is a bad thing, and I do not think my colleague from Windsor West would agree with him.
I do agree with my colleague that some levels of government that he sees as being burdensome would not necessarily be bound by the amendment that my colleague is seeking. For instance, I personally do not consider chambers of commerce to be levels of government. Maybe in my hon. colleague's world chambers of commerce are considered levels of government, but not where I come from.
However, he is right when he says that consultation has a legal meaning. The term consultation means more than simply posting a notice on a telegraph pole telling people what the government intends to do. That is not genuine consultation. Consultation implies some meaningful exchange and some accommodation of what one has heard. A town hall meeting cannot simply be called, an announcement made about what is going to be done and then claim that consultation was done with the town of Windsor or the town of Niagara Falls about one's intentions for the international crossing. That, in and of itself, is not good enough.
Would my colleague agree that consultation is a good thing and that it is something we can never have too much of, short of grinding a project to a halt? However, nobody would take it to a ridiculous extreme. Would he also agree that the definition of consultation, in its broadest sense, must incorporate some meaningful exchange of information and accommodation of the other person's point of view?