Mr. Speaker, how can we avoid these situations in the future? I think we can avoid them if we stop trying to cut corners to move projects ahead.
People think projects are being frustrated by consultations that are taking a long time, but consultations take time. What we have seen time and again, whether it is this situation, the northern gateway situation, or the Trans Mountain situation, is that governments, both Liberal and Conservative, try to cut corners. Where does it end? It ends up in court, because those people who deserve proper consultation, the first nations, for one, stand up and say, “You didn't talk to us properly. You didn't consult with us. You heard our concerns and then just went away.”
For proper consultation to occur, the concerns have to be heard. They have to be heard early and they have to be heard with respect, and there has to be an attempt to accommodate them. It cannot just be, “Okay, we heard you, and now we're going to do what we planned to do in the first place.”
What I heard in this case was that the government had made up its mind. It wanted to streamline these boards into one board, yet it did not try to accommodate the first nations' concerns.