Thanks, Mr. Chair. I am kind of in this awkward situation where I wanted to get some clarification about what the intent of the registry was and so on and why the list of intended work, at least in the Minister's and the Minister's staff's view, could not be put on the registry. This motion would require that it be put on the public registry, subject to the confidentiality requirements in the act. There are confidentiality requirements even in this section of the bill. There are other provisions further down in part 8 of the bill. I have heard concerns around that industry might be worried about what's in here, but the Minister already has the authority to define through regulation what this notice of intended work is going to look like, so the Minister already has that authority.

The Minister has an obligation to protect confidentiality in other parts of the bill. If this bill is about doing some of the things that the Minister talked about in his opening remarks, about encouraging good relationships and transparency, all of those good things, why shouldn't people know in general terms what's happening in their back yard? I believe that Indigenous governments should be entitled to that information, but I do not see where the problem is in sharing that information more broadly. Maybe even it's different kinds of information. The Minister could define that through regulations. This is what happens now in places like Ontario and Quebec, so why can't we get with it and do the same things here? You know, all of this is going to be at the discretion of the Minister, anyways, because the Minister is going to have the authority to define what this notice of intended work is going to be in regulations, so I think this is perfectly reasonable.

I haven't heard any reason why this can't be done. I am sorry we had to walk everybody through this, but I think people get a small taste of some of the frustration the committee had in trying to work with the Minister and his staff on what we felt were some reasonable things to bring us up to best practices in other parts of Canada, so I don't see what the problem is in doing this. All of this is going to be up to the Minister's discretion at any event in the future, so I hope that Members would support this. Thank you, Mr. Chair.