Madam Speaker, we talked about that a bit this morning on the bill.
What I did not say at that time was that when the notice of the northern court was made, the people of Nunavut found out by reading the newspapers. They were not consulted as to where that particular Arctic initiative would be.
Therefore, the member is absolutely correct. As we are doing these things in the north, our party's philosophy has always been that our first and foremost asset for sovereignty are the people who will dedicate our sovereignty and who will build our resources. We must make people strong in the north and listen to their suggestions because they are the ones who found the incursion that I talked about earlier in my speech.
As well, I want to mention something that would be near and dear to the member's heart and it is kind of contradictory. Here we have a bill that in theory is protecting waters and at the same time the government is pushing through, in a sort of underhanded means, changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act and cancelling assessments on projects near water which would have obviously the opposite effect on the environment.
In talking about monitoring in the bill, the government has put in more environmental inspectors, but when we ask where they are going to be, they are going to be in Yellowknife.
If anyone knows the north, we can take a look at the map, it is not by the sea. The minister actually said the government is going to give us more boots on the ground. That is true. They are going to be on the ground but the bill does not apply until we are 100 miles offshore. That goes not make any sense in monitoring either.
I am hoping the government will review the monitoring aspect in the bill, the way it is going to be done, and as the member said, the input from the people of the north is important because they can certainly help. They are close to the situation and can perform a tremendous role in letting us know of an incident.
As I said, after 56 hours, we are sunk. It is over. It is a huge disaster to the Arctic ecosystem. However, the people who live there, as the member mentioned, can get back to us. They can see what is happening and play an important role in monitoring.