Mr. Speaker, for more than 30 years, every federal government and every prime minister, regardless of political stripe, has stood to defend the Canadian interests in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Trump administration, through a GOP budget bill, now proposes to reopen the issue with the threat of oil and gas development on the U.S. side of the shared territory of the Gwich'in peoples, where they depend on the porcupine caribou and the porcupine caribou depend on those calving grounds.
Could the Minister of Environment tell us what steps the government is taking to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?