Thanks, Mr. Chair. I support this motion. I have made statements in the House already about Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and how I believe our government should adopt this as a number of other governments around the world have. I have made statements in the House about how some of the mining companies that operate here have already accepted this initiative and the kind of reporting that would be required.

The federal government already has in place something called the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act. The problem with that act is that it is based on self-reporting by companies. They have different reporting entities. They use different financial years. There seems to be some confusion between what constitutes a royalty versus a fee versus taxes. There is no quality assurance/quality control that I can detect in terms of the reporting that is done via the Natural Resources Canada website.

We had discussions with the department, the Minister about that. I think there is even some wording in the bill around this. This does not constitute a proper reporting transparency measure of the federal legislation. I think our citizens deserve to know how much royalty each mine pays. That is just a very simple fact. Yet, our government has refused to disclose this to our citizens.

This motion is an effort to try to move us a little bit more towards greater transparency and accountability. I support it. Thanks, Mr. Chair.