Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for her remarks. However, I think she has missed some of the most egregious parts of the bill.
I want to ask her why the government felt it was necessary to gut the 1882 Navigable Waters Protection Act, which was never mentioned in the March 2012 budget, by removing protection for navigation rights that Canadians have had for over 130 years? Why was it necessary to remove those? They have not been blocking jobs and growth in the economy. They have been ensuring that the millions of Canadian lakes and the thousands and thousands of Canadian rivers, now reduced to 62 rivers and 97 lakes, received some protection from our navigable waters constitutional jurisdiction of the federal government.