There you have it, Madam Speaker. The parliamentary secretary has just admitted that he is not aware of the standards that we aspire to attain. Our hon. colleague from Windsor West brought up a good point. Again, we are letting international parties outside of Canada influence our decision-making and policy. This is the argument that Conservatives have been presenting for some time now.
I previously asked my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, about the precautionary principle and he said that it is the reason the government may not be able to do the full consultation and may have to designate an area a marine protected area immediately. This is what we are arguing now. He did not answer the question about the precautionary principle and the criteria for invoking it.
Will he not agree with me that for true consultation, we have to make sure that local stakeholders are engaged at the very beginning and that we not have a top-down process?