First, Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend and congratulate the hon. member on the good work he did in the north in helping to provide health care for our aboriginal brothers and sisters. No doubt he would agree with the quote I read from the 2005 report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.
In terms of legislation and regulations, we would have to see what that legislation is, what those regulations are. We would have to know if there is money to back up the legislation. We would have to know if first nations communities agree with the legislation, if they feel they have been properly consulted, and again, as a member of the Liberal opposition, I want to avoid any possibility that the federal government would wash its hands of its fiduciary responsibilities for first nations drinking water by having provincial standards apply to these communities.
We need to have the best federal standards apply to these communities. Not only that, our federal standards need to be brought up to EPA standards similar to those in the U.S.