Madam Speaker, first, I have to correct the hon. member, whom I appreciate dialoguing with and enjoy working with. I think everybody in the House supports the idea that there should be sustainable development, but that does not necessarily mean that we think the act is as it should be. To be absolutely correct, yes, there was hard work done by the committee, but in fact the government chose to ignore the majority of the recommendations made by the first review of the committee.
When we reviewed the bill, one of the strong recommendations came from the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. She supported a proposal that many of our witnesses heard, which is that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples should be specifically referenced in the bill. This was backed up by the justice minister, who said this last November:
With the direction and leadership of [the] Prime Minister...our government will support Bill C-262. The bill acknowledges the application of the UN declaration in Canada and calls for the alignment of the laws of Canada with the UN declaration.
However, here we have this environmental bill, and the government is refusing to incorporate UNDRIP. Could the member please explain why the government has refused to incorporate UNDRIP in the bill and respect indigenous rights?