Mr. Speaker, I hope my hon. colleague was here for my whole speech because we would have talked about what happened in 2005-06 and how I worked with Jim Prentice. He recognized this. Unfortunately, the standard that was set for the department of Indian affairs under Jim Prentice has dropped drastically, I am sorry to say.
We are in a situation now where, under the first nations water systems assessment, done in April 2011, 39% of communities are at high risk and 34% at medium risk. When a community is said to be at high risk, that means life and death. That means threats from E. coli, sickness and people going to the hospital.
The issue before us here is, if we are going to talk about bringing these communities up to a standard, we have to ask where the money is. Where is the long-term commitment? We know that Minister Prentice, at the time, made water a priority issue in 2006, in the first Conservative budget, and started a process of consultation. However, we talk to the chiefs across the country who were part of that process—for example, the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, for which I have such great respect. It said that what is coming out of Bill S-8 is not part of the consultation process.
We have a long way to go, and we need to keep that front and centre on this issue.