Thanks, Mr. Chair. This was a motion that was introduced at the committee clause-by-clause review of the bill. It was supported by committee, but the Minister did not concur for the reasons that he just provided, the need for flexibility and so on to allow for some commercial operations not to have security required of them. The wording of this would make it mandatory to some degree that for dispositions for commercial or industrial use, that financial security would be required subject to whatever the Minister sets out in regulations. There, again, is an opportunity for the Minister to set appropriate thresholds for when financial security would be required, even for commercial or industrial uses. At least, that is what I take away from what our clerk had indicated earlier on the original wording.
The Minister still would have authority here to set the thresholds, but there would be a requirement, whether it is commercial or industrial, to have in place what those thresholds would be. In the interest of transparency, openness, that would be a good thing to have those, as well.
All of this comes back to the experience from about five kilometres down the road where our government assumed $23 million of financial liability because earlier Ministers had discretion over whether financial security should be required. I think we will continue to see that practice unless we plug this gap. This is what this really does.
There are a lot of words in here to basically bring us back to the provisions that are already in place in the Commissioner's Land Act, have been there for seven years. The Minister has not provided any evidence that there is a problem with the way that those provisions have been operating for seven years. Why change it now and put taxpayers and the environment at risk? This is about bringing back a plan and stopping the rollback the Cabinet wants to do on mandatory financial security.
I look forward to my colleagues on this side of the House debating and discussing it. I will request their vote. When we are closed, I would request a recorded vote. Thanks, Mr. Chair.