I swear to God, Mr. Speaker, these questions just get easier and easier.
What was not allowed under the previous Liberal government up until 2006 was for communities to proceed with a legitimate strategy to address what at the time was an absolutely deplorable state of water and waste water treatment plants in first nations communities across the country. I happened to live in a couple of those regions at the time during the nineties, so I can speak to it.
This legislation is derived from one of the most extensive consultative exercises any government in my memory has every undertaken with respect to legislation that would apply with, to and for first nations communities. It deals with capacity, the ability to report, monitor and maintain facilities that have been rehabilitated or have been replaced and that are state of the art. It deals with infrastructure, objectivising the process, not in the discretionary, arbitrary way of governments past, and focuses on priorities. It deals with substantive issues like why one community would be at high risk in one province and not in another.
The legislation would deal with that legal vacuum. It would provide standards for both the government and the first nation to adhere to and it would facilitate the important role that provinces could play in establishing standards to which those parties could adhere.