Mr. Speaker, I think the confusion continues. We have the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs proudly going to the UN and proclaiming that the Liberals are going to implement the UN declaration without reservation. We have the justice minister who then says, “Sorry, it's a little bit unworkable and a little bit simplistic, and so it's not really going to work”.
Perhaps National Chief Bellegarde would not use the word “veto”, but we can imagine when we go into communities across this country that they have significant expectations about what this will mean. To be quite frank, they are not getting important messages from the government on how we are going to move forward and what the difference is going to be between consultation and accommodation, and on free, prior, and informed consent. Moreover, industry does not know either.
Therefore, I think the government has tremendous of work to do. I ask the parliamentary secretary again to please try to clarify right now what this difference is going to mean for communities across this country.