Madam Speaker, I have a question to do with the whole environmental aspect of the budget implementation bill. I am from British Columbia. We live in a very sensitive area. We are very concerned about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The Conservative government has not ensured that the kinds of regulations to protect our waters from oil and gas drilling and from oil tankers are in place. In fact, the government has said that the 1972 moratorium on tanker traffic and oil and gas drilling has ended.
The budget implementation bill, Bill C-9, is a move toward putting in place the kind of regulations that are far more industry friendly and are far less concerned about the health and well-being of our waters.
Could the member comment on whether he sees any problems with embedding the environmental regulation within a budget implementation bill, instead of stand-alone legislation that would see fulsome debate in the House of Commons? If the legislation passed, it would be referred to a committee where we would have witnesses come forward who could talk about the impact of those environmental regulations. Then it would come back to the House for appropriate reading and debate.