Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to where we left off before question period and return to the line of questioning of the parliamentary secretary about the whittling down of environmental assessment standards and the government's environmental enforcement bill.
His answer was that there was so much stimulus money to shovel out the door that it required that environmental assessment be weakened in the country.
Here is the problem. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities, as was referred to by at least one cabinet minister during answers in question period, has already approved $13 billion worth of shovel ready projects that have already been environmentally assessed, including through federal environmental assessment requirements.
How is it possible that there is a need to drop the standards for environmental assessment in order to shove out stimulus money when there are $13 billion of environmentally assessed projects ready to go?