Mr. Speaker, I know the parliamentary secretary really dove in off the deep end with this new file and he is working hard, which is good to see.
I want to go back to when this report was tabled a couple of years ago just before the ministerial panel went out to talk about Trans Mountain in British Columbia and Alberta and before this added consultation was carried out. I point out recommendation 3 of the report, which says:
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada work to encourage the early engagement of indigenous peoples in resource development decisions, in full compliance with existing treaty and indigenous rights to land and resources. Furthermore, the Committee recommends that the government ensure that consultation processes consider the multidimensional impacts of resource development projects on indigenous peoples, including issues concerning education, health, economic development, infrastructure and the environment.
After this report was written in the spring of 2016, and then tabled as soon as we came back in September, the government sent out bureaucrats to consult with indigenous people, and they did none of this. They simply took down notes of the concerns of indigenous communities and claimed that they had no power to change the National Energy Board's recommendations regarding the conditions on the pipeline.
I wonder if the member could comment on that and, of course, since this was found by the Federal Court of Appeal to be completely inadequate consultations, why the government did not listen to this, why it did not do adequate consultation and whether it will in the future.