I thank the member from Brantford–Brant for the question. We did support that bill to expedite the development of the battery factory in St. Thomas. The big concern that we have is that governments in Ontario, governments in Alberta—Conservative governments in particular—do not have a good record of enforcing regulations so that mining companies leave the site clean and safe for local communities.

In Alberta, for example, they’ve got 170,000 abandoned oil wells that the taxpayer is now on the hook for cleaning up and sealing. We don’t want the communities to be left with a toxic mess and we don’t want the taxpayers to be left with millions or billions of dollars in cleanup costs. That should be part of the operation. That’s the concern we have.

The government has not created trust in their ability to be stewards of the environment for future generations.

I always find it really interesting. I know it’s a small town, small area, and I know how important the gold mine was to the industry as well, but I think about the Kam Kotia mine outside Timmins which operated for a short amount of time and left the cleanup bill for the community. That is one of the concerns we have with this bill: that it could allow an opportunity for an unscrupulous developer to leave the cleanup bill to a local community like the ones we represent. Is this something you’re concerned with as well?