Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary has not dealt with some of the things in the budget that do not belong in a budget. I am talking about the Navigable Waters Protection Act, which strips environmental protection from some 30,000 lakes and rivers in the country. This follows hard on the heels of the government's elimination, or almost elimination, of any environmental assessments required by Bill C-38, which was also a budgetary bill.
Could the minister explain how a handful of small lakes in Muskoka, which do not have any navigation on them except for a few pleasure boats that belong to people with large and expensive cottages, are protected under the act, but other similarly large lakes in Quebec and other places in Canada lose their protection.