Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam for his comments and for the New Democratic Party's support of this legislation.
I take the member's comments that he and his party do not think the bill is perfect. We do not pretend that it is; however, we think it is a significant improvement, and we would be happy to work with him and other colleagues in the House of Commons in the committee process, obviously, on ways to strengthen it.
I took note of the member's comments with respect to the issue of environmental flow. He is right that the West Coast Environmental Law group has done terrific work on this. It inspired some of our thinking on this important issue. I would work happily with him and other colleagues on that important issue and on ways to strengthen it.
I take his comments with respect to regulations as well. It is something that has to be done in a rigorous and transparent way. We would again welcome suggestions to make sure that we get that part right.
My colleague referred to this in a question following my remarks. He is from the province of British Columbia, and I think he may have an interesting insight into how policies like owner-operator and fleet separation could in fact improve the economic security of the harvesters on the west coast. I wonder if he has suggestions on how we could take some of the benefit of these policies and see an improvement in the economic circumstances of people he and my colleagues would represent on the west coast.