Mr. Speaker, I want to touch on another witness we heard, who was from Metro Vancouver.
Metro Vancouver is a provider of drinking water to a number of first nations communities. They outlined a whole series of problems and indicated very clearly that some of the service providers of water systems, municipalities in particular, were also not consulted on this.
They raised a number of issues around lack of consultation; transfer of responsibilities, which is unknown; changes with bylaw regulation and enforcement; legislative and jurisdictional uncertainties; regulatory authority over Indian reserves, which is unclear; and financial liabilities requiring clarification. They also went on to say that the adequate implementation plan is lacking. I referred to that earlier, that there are simply not enough details in this bill to actually assess a number of factors.
Based on that, New Democrats do not feel this bill should go forward until some of these very serious questions are answered. Liability is certainly one issue, whether it is metro Vancouver, or the first nations communities that are going to have absorb this liability.