Mr. Speaker, on the first question of consultation, that is a very important point. Court cases after court cases have indicated, and fairly so, that when we are impacting first nations, aboriginal, Inuit and Métis people, we have to consult. Obviously, in a law such as this that has such a dramatic effect on their whole way of life, on their whole world view of life, we need to consult. Was this in any of the documents and in any of the government's speeches that this had been done?
The people most affected, some of the biggest stakeholders, the Assembly of First Nations and the Native Women's Association of Canada both basically said that this law would be a disaster without that consultation. The reason is that they would bring up in their consultation many of the points I brought up in my speech.
It is inconceivable in this day and age, with what we have been through with first nations in the last decade in reviewing them on a government-to-government relationship, that such an important bill and concept would be brought forward without consultation, especially a bill like this where they are generally supportive of the principle.
In relation to the member's second question on the cost, the Government of Canada would not survive a day if we did not fund our prosecutors, if we did not fund our lawyers to defend it, if we did not fund our policemen, or if we did not train all of these people to implement laws.
People do not understand that first nations do not have any money. They do not have the revenue generation that we do. Many of them have higher levels of unemployment, but they do not even have the tax base that we do. They only have government grants for a specific function that the government has given them.
What are we going to do? Are we going to tell them to break the law and take away money from housing to defend themselves because there are going to be a lot of cases here? This would not have come up if there were not a lot of cases that are going to come forward. There have been many instances. As I said, there are already 40 a year, the Indian Act being very pervasive. Imagine the number of cases relating to employment or the provision of its services or the provision of housing.
Look at scarce housing resources. The first nations have to give those to someone. Are they going to be charged a number of times? They are going to need lawyers. They are going to need to train their staff. All this costs money. As I said, they would be acting illegally if they took it from some other purse. I ask the government to please look at this and come up with some resources to go with this act, so it can be successfully implemented.