Mr. Speaker, if I were back home and said, “If animal has four legs and a cow has four legs, well, you know that the animal must be a cow”. There is another animal that has four legs, and I will let people draw their own conclusion. That is probably what they would say to me back home.
The fact is that this is a government that regularly does not read its own legislation and believes its own press releases, such as when it came to spying on citizens, when all of a sudden government ministers had an epiphany. They did not know the legislation would allow the government to spy on Canadians and said that they would try to fix it.
Quite frankly, the government does not read its own legislation very often. I do not take a whole lot of comfort in the minister saying that I did not listen to his speech. I am not interested in his speech per se. I am more interested in the actual legislation, which will become law if the government allows it to do so.
The legislation would force band-owned first nations businesses to expose their financial dealings. I cannot make it any simpler or clear than that. The minister needs to read his own legislation.