Bill S-5 (Historical)

Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve Act

An Act to amend the Canada National Parks Act (Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve of Canada)

This enactment amends the Canada National Parks Act to establish Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve of Canada.

Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve Act

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing for her fine speech.

Out of the three options the government had for the park, why does my colleague think it chose the third option rather than the first, which was the best?

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague from Nickel Belt. I know that he often works on natural resources and he knows his portfolio well. I think he will understand my answer.

When it comes to this park, the government seemed more concerned with the interests of the mining companies. An NDP government would provide enough support and the necessary resources to properly ensure the conservation of this park.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of my constituents from Surrey North to speak to Bill S-5, an act to amend the Canada National Parks Act. I will be sharing my time with another member.

It has long been a recommendation by the Sahtu Dene and Métis that Nááts’ihch’oh national park reserve be used for conservation in the land use process and I am happy to see that this recommendation is finally coming to fruition. This proposed national park reserve is located in the Northwest Territories, in the northern one-sixth of the South Nahanni River watershed in the Northwest Territories.

My NDP colleagues and I support the creation of this national park and the contributions that our national parks make toward conservation of key ecosystems and habitats in Canada. However, I am concerned that this proposed site of the park will omit certain key ecosystems and habitats. Unfortunately this proposed 4,840-square-kilometre park will not include vital caribou breeding grounds, nor will it include protection for waters for the Nahanni River.

Governing is all about choices. Every day when we arrive in the House we are forced to make choices. At committee we are forced to make choices also. It is one of the responsibilities of this job. Our constituents elect us to make these choices on their behalf. The decisions that we make in the House and at committee will not always be in the best interests of every interested party. With this bill, the Conservative government is demonstrating yet again that it values the interests of corporations more than the interests of local communities.

This is a trend that I have seen from the government. I have spoken on numerous pieces of legislation over the last three years where the same theme emerges in every single bill. The Conservatives have shown their unwillingness to consider expert opinions, expert testimony and the suggestions that the experts present. In this bill, the Conservatives are demonstrating that they value the interests of the mining industry more than the opinions of the people in the region where the park will be established.

During the consultation process for the establishment of this national park, Parks Canada presented three options for the park's boundaries. Option one included a total area of 6,450 square kilometres and was developed to best protect conservation values, while providing an open area around the existing mineral interests. This option was the overall preferred choice, being picked by 92% of those who indicated a preference. Option two was incrementally smaller with a total area of 5,770 square kilometres. Option three was the smallest proposal, with a total area of 4,840 square kilometres.

Despite the overwhelming preference for option one, which was the bigger park, the government has proceeded with option three. Despite my concerns with the size of the park, after seven years of consultation and negotiations with the aboriginal people of the region, it is at least a step forward, a small step in the right direction toward the creation of the Nááts’ihch’oh national park reserve. However, I wonder if the government will be able to provide the funding and support needed for this national park to meet its conservation targets. We can create all the national parks we want, but this is truly an empty gesture without the funding necessary to maintain them.

What is the government's track record on funding for national parks?

Unfortunately, it is not very good. It is not good at all. For example, in December 2013, the Toronto Star reported that there is an almost $3 billion backlog in deferred maintenance at Parks Canada. This does not inspire confidence that our government will be able to maintain a new park in the Northwest Territories.

Furthermore, the commissioner for the environment identified a “wide and persistent gap between what the government commits to do and what it is achieving”. This gives us no reason to believe that the new park reserve would be any different. In fact, the commitment the government made in its 2013-14 budget announcement regarding the spending on infrastructure in the parks is laughable. The budget announcement was $391 million over five years to deal with crumbling roads, buildings, and dams. This comes nowhere close to covering the backlog that I mentioned, which is over $3 billion.

On top of that, the short-term spending projections are also very ridiculous. According to the government, this year, in 2014, it will spend $1 million. In 2015, it will spend $4 million. What about the remainder of the money that the government has committed? Out of the $391 million, $386 million will come after the election. How convenient is that?

However, the current government will not continue in government in year three because this sort of accounting does not wash well with Canadians. They expect better from the government. They expect the government to deliver on the promises that were made during the election about the protection of our environment that needs to take place in this country. To sum up, the creation of national parks and national park reserves should be a priority for the Canadian government. Empty promises are not the way forward.

An NDP government, in 2015, would provide adequate support to meet conservation targets, preserve biodiversity, and help local communities realize the economic and tourism potential our national parks can provide. Based upon the current government's track record, I do not think it is committed to doing the same.

In fact, we have heard from previous speakers that the the Premier of the Northwest Territories and other leaders are on record as to how the government has gone out of its way to keep very vital habitat for the caribou or the preservation of the river out of the park area. If we are thinking about preserving and enhancing the environment, we should be rejigging the boundaries in order to make national parks truly national parks rather than trying to cut corners where the effect of preserving and enhancing the environment and habitats is not taken into account.

Again, this is a very small step in the right direction. My colleagues on this side support the bill, at this point. We look forward to maybe some amendments and to listening to some of the concerns that the locals present. I hope the government will take the opportunity at committee to provide that forum so that we can look at the bill in detail.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The time for government orders has expired. Consequently, questions and comments for the member for Surrey North will take place after question period.

The House resumed from October 23 consideration of the motion that Bill S-5, An Act to amend the Canada National Parks Act (Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve of Canada), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to rise to speak to Bill S-5, the Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve Act.

New Democrats, in principle, support the creation of new national parks and the conservation of key ecosystems and habitat. We are glad to support the bill.

However, often politicians make their decisions based on politics. When we are looking at conservation issues, when we are looking at ecology, political boundaries do not always mesh with ecological boundaries. They are two different things. Perhaps a better way to look at planning parks and planning our ecological future would be to pay more attention to ecological boundaries.

My background is in landscape architecture. Before I was a politician, I was a professional landscape architect. We learned all scales of landscape planning, from the backyard of someone's house all the way to regions and regional planning. The bill is something that is very close to what I used to do, and I can see there are weaknesses in the bill. One of the things that we learned as landscape architects is that rather than a political unit for planning ecologically, the watershed should be the essential unit that is used for landscape planning.

What I am going to talk about is two great figures in the field of ecological planning. I am sure that when this was sent to Parks Canada, when the planners working with Parks Canada were looking at establishing this national park, they used some of the methods that are outlined by the two great figures in ecological planning.

One is Fritz Steiner, from the University of Texas. The second one would be Richard Forman from Harvard University. Steiner's planning method has 11 steps. The reason I am going to be talking about the 11 steps of Steiner's planning method is that I am going to go stage by stage through the planning process, and explain what went wrong during the planning of this park and how the government was not vigilant enough or perhaps, more skeptically, how the government might not have honoured the planning process properly in developing this park.

The first step of the planning method is to identify planning problems and opportunities. From looking at the end result in the bill, I suspect that the government identified the issue as mining versus the ecological system. It pitted these two things against each other, asking how it could promote mining in the area while balancing it with ecological protection.

The second step of the planning is that the stakeholder establishes goals. Again, the end result here shows that the government's objective was probably to maximize mining potential in the area rather than to have an equilibrium between the ecological systems and mining. I suspect that because what the government came up with at the end of the process was an area much smaller than what was asked for.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth steps are all scientific steps. A regional landscape analysis is done, a local landscape analysis is done, detailed studies are done, and planning area concepts are developed, all for the final step of preparing the landscape plan.

What the government did was that it presented three options: a large park that preserved key ecological areas, a more medium-sized park that sort of balanced the two, and then the smallest size, which maximized the mining potential. In coming up with the plan, the government came up with these three options, three plans.

The next step in Steiner's process is crucial. It is the step of citizen involvement.

The consultations revealed that the people supported the plan that was the most likely to protect the ecological heritage, and that was the largest park. They wanted the biggest park so that as much as possible would be protected. However, the Conservatives ignored what the people said. Counter to the facts, the Conservatives decided on a small zone and neglected to include some very important wildlife areas.

On Radio-Canada International, Stephen Kakfwi said that the government had taken the heart right out of the park, leaving the door open to mining exploration, a gaping hole in the middle of the national park.

Therefore, in ignoring the people of the area, the Conservative government has made a mockery of the whole planning process. Those scientific steps I mentioned take a lot of time. There is science that goes into it. There is a lot of consultation and analysis. In doing so, it is actually quite a costly process. It is costly for a reason. The people who are employed in the planning sector have to undergo a long education. They take, sometimes, 10 or 20 years to learn exactly how the landscape works. They develop an in-depth knowledge of the landscape and of the science of the systems of the landscape in order to preserve that landscape for future generations.

We often see, in all scales of landscape projects, that developers have an idea in mind. They have to go through the consultation and the analysis process out of policy requirements, yet their will is something else. They might actually go through all the steps of the planning process just to be able to implement the idea they always had in their heads.

I suspect that is the case today with this project and this national park, because it appears that the fix was in from the start. When it was at the first stage of planning, which was identifying planning problems and opportunities, and the second, which was establishing goals, the government had decided already that it was going to promote mining interests in this area. By promoting mining interests, it let the scientists and planners do their jobs and let them develop the three options to show that it was being responsible, but it always had in mind that it was going to choose the option with the least ecological protection and the most for mining interests.

I guess that would have been acceptable if when the government went to the actual consultation process it heard that people wanted the option that promotes mining interests the most. If it had said that, then it would have been acceptable. It would have gone through the steps and would have been able to convince the people of the area that this is what they wanted, for the mining companies to do their job there as much as possible. However, that was not the case. What happened was that people spoke out and said they did not want the smallest area preserved; they wanted the largest area preserved.

I would like to deliver this message to the people in the Arctic, in the Nahanni watershed. Under an NDP government they would not have to worry. We would consider expanding the park to the size that was desired.

My last point refers to the final steps in Steiner's planning process, which are implementation and administration. We could go through all the other steps of planning but if we do not implement the plan vigilantly and administer it vigilantly, then there really is no purpose to any of the planning process that goes on, because no one is watching what is actually being done in that area. I strongly suspect, looking at past budgets and the current budget, not enough capital has been put into these crucial steps in the protection of this area.

Although we will support the bill at second reading, we believe there is a lot lacking in the plan for this national park.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated my friend's comments with respect to the development of this proposed new national park. He raised a really important concept with respect to ecological boundaries. I would like him to expand on what was missing, which would have been of ecological significance in the larger park proposal that should have been included, and why the larger park boundary is of importance.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not get the time to discuss Forman's ideas, Forman from Harvard, who is also an ecological planner. He has the idea of connectivity of interior habitat, patches and mosaics. Basically, when a landscape is fragmented, disturbances are created in the systems that are there. When we talk about faunal systems such as caribou or other wildlife, by fragmenting the habitat, the connectivity is sometimes ruined, which ruins breeding grounds, feeding, different elements of the habitat of certain wildlife species.

In choosing the smallest plan and cutting out the heart and allowing mining interests, there will be much more fragmentation, and this will have a much greater impact on wildlife groups in the park.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague.

We have seen a pattern with the government where it seems to treat the environment as something that can be stripped and exploited at will, with absolutely little interest in the catastrophic issues that we deal with on climate change.

Of 1,600 submissions that were brought forward, only 2 asked for the option that was chosen by the government, which was to allow maximum mining activity in this pristine area. Could my hon. colleague tell me why he thinks the government completely ignored 93% of people who said that this area needed to be protected?

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

As I mentioned before in my speech, Mr. Speaker, the government obviously entered into the planning process in bad faith. At the beginning of the process, it already had in mind that it would maximize mining interests in the park and it held on to that idea in the face of scientific analysis and in the face of public consultation.

The government used the planning and public consultation process as a way to legitimize its bad decision of maximizing mining interests for the sole goal of short-term growth against long-term ecological planning for future generations.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear the NDP will be supporting the development of this park. It is great news to have an additional national park added to Canada's vast suite of national parks.

Opposition members are not being quite honest about the numbers they are presenting when they talk about 93% of the consultation process. Of the 1,600 consultations that occurred, under 60 people contributed an opinion one way or another about those park boundaries. In terms of picking an option, the numbers were very low.

The government had a decision to make and the government did that in consultation with the great people of the Northwest Territories. The business interests that were important in that region were included. The people of the Northwest Territories asked for those opportunities, and we responded.

It is important that NDP members at least acknowledge they are not being completely accurate when they throw out the percentages but do not acknowledge what those percentages represent in terms of the raw number of people consulted on a plan that would be good for that region both in terms of economic and environmental protection.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the government put energy into implementation and administration, and backed it up with people and firm numbers that actually made sense for the protection of these areas, then perhaps we could entertain the idea that this would be done responsibly. The government has not even put anything from the budget into the administration of these areas, which renders the whole planning process meaningless.

The government has ignored the people who have made boundary decisions. There is not a huge population up in the Arctic, so a figure like 1,600 people is significant and a figure of 65 people expressing a boundary interest is significant, and should be taken into account.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to represent the people of the great region of northern Ontario, which, latitudinally, is south of the Nahanni watershed, but still represents the great north of Canada.

In the beginning, we are talking about Senate Bill S-5, the Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve boundaries. They are adjacent to and north of the Nahanni National Park Reserve, a beautiful area of our country. My dear friend Jack Layton always spoke of the impact that the Nahanni left on him when he visited it a number of years ago. For him, seeing the great beauty of Canada was a transformative moment.

I think Canadians watching this are asking themselves about the government's appalling attitude toward the environment and the games that have been played again and again with the serious issues of catastrophic climate change facing us. For example, when we ask questions in the House about the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its findings, we generally hear laughter and ridicule from the Conservative backbenchers, as though this was made up or, as the Prime Minister once said, some kind of socialist plot. He might think it is a socialist plot but it is real, and we all live on this one planet.

When we talk about how the decision on this park reserve was made, we need to look at it in terms of this rip-and-ship philosophy of the Conservative government.

I represent vast mining regions, some of the largest gold and copper mines. The deepest copper based metal mine in the world is in my region. There are diamond mines. My region is used to resource development, but what we see from the government is akin to a gambler's addiction to resources with absolutely no interest in the future, whether it is value-added processing or the protection of the environment. It believes that what should be written into any development project is that our children and grandchildren carry the cost of the quickest way of getting resources out of the ground. Whether it is the bitumen in the tar sands or strip mining, the environment of our country should be pay the debt.

We are looking at the land reserve that was set aside. I will talk a bit about public process and the scam when we deal with very large interests that decide they would put their own financial interests above the interests of the public good. As we talk about this, I want to talk about this very important protected area and the need to have protected areas in Canada. That is not to say there will not be development, we are a development nation. We have enormous geography, but we have to choose to put value on the watersheds and the areas that need to be set aside so there can be protection.

The UN's fifth and final intergovernmental report on climate change released this past week was absolutely shocking. It says that we are now at the point of facing irreversible impacts on people, that these impacts are already being observed, including rising sea levels, more acidic oceans, melting glaciers, Arctic sea ice and increasing erratic weather. Again, the government is like a gambling addict. It does not seem to notice or care that we are mortgaging our future generations so we can get the quickest buck out of the ground without having a long-term sustainable economic plan.

We have the means to limit climate change. Chairman Rajendra Pachauri said, “The solutions are many and allow for continued economic and human development. All we need is the will to change”.

I am not one who is pessimistic about the future. I look at what our country did in the Second World War when a country of 10 million people raised the 4th largest navy and air force in the world, and fed Europe because we saw a threat. Yet I see this complete lazy disinterest in addressing the ultimate issue of our generation and our children's and grandchildren's generations, which is the march toward irreversible climate change.

Over the last six decades, Canada has become warmer. In any region of our country, erratic weather patterns have changed substantially. The temperature rose 1.5ºC between 1950 and 2010. This does not come from the New Democrats. This does not come from a socialist plot. It comes from a federal government report on the unique risk that Canadians face. The impacts of irreversible climate change will be felt first and foremost in Canada's far north.

Representing the great region of James Bay, Ontario, where the land is sitting about two feet above sea level, and we have huge issues of flooding at the best of times, the issue of not planning for the future of this region, if we are dealing with moving toward irreversible climate change, is going to be catastrophic.

Let us look at the government's commitment to the environment when it comes to this park. We are going to play a little game. I will give three options, door one, two and three, and ask the people back home to figure out what door the Conservatives opened.

Behind door one, we had a park reserve of 6,450 square kilometres focused on protecting the watershed values.

Behind door two, it was diminished. It was 5,770 square kilometres. It lessened the environmental protection and allowed for more mining options.

Behind door three is the smallest reserve. There are 4,840 square kilometres that were built around ensuring the mining companies would have what they needed and whatever interests they wanted. If we wanted, we could preserve the rest. Out of the 1,600 submissions, only 2 asked for door 3, the choice of ensuring maximum mining interests in this Nahanni region, with the minimum of conservation growth.

What does everyone think the Conservative government chose? The answer is obvious. It chose door three, the one that had no local support, that did not preserve the environment and that offered the maximum benefit to the mining interests. It speaks to the Conservative rip-and-ship philosophy that these incredible natural wonders we have been blessed with exist as a backdrop. If we want to strip mine it and dump it, why not there? It is as good a place as any.

The New Democratic Party does not believe in that. Again, representing a region that is heavily based on mining, we know our industries create an environmental impact. We want to work to ensure we have the highest environmental standards.

I talked to mining interests about the direction Canada was going in when, for example, the government cut the navigable waters act and the water protection to 99.97% of our lakes. I said to them that the mining sector must have thought it was really great, and they said no. That is not what they wanted. They want peace on the ground in terms of their ability to do their resource development. They want to be able to say to Canadians that they can do this right. If the government establishes the rules for the environment, they will live by them. That is in all of the conversations I have had with mining interests.

The other thing I hear from the mining sector is that if there is a role for the federal government, it is how does it ensures there is training for the large percentage of unemployed first nations youth who are in the territories, like the Ring of Fire, so they can become employed and part of the economy? That way, we can move together.

However, again and again, we see this myopic belief that the environment will pay whatever price to fast track development, even when the development is not sustainable because we will not get the long-term benefit from the jobs.

We represent a region where people fly in and out, and it is an open pit where there is no value added. Of the many mining families that I know, if we asked them, they would say to leave it in the ground. It is their capital for our future generations. If they are not going to mine it properly and are not going to get the maximum benefits so their communities can grow, then it should be left in the ground. However, that is not the attitude of the Conservative government. Its attitude is get it out as fast as it can and get it on a boat to China, where the value-added processing will happen in another jurisdiction, not here. We do not agree with that.

Going back to this national park reserve, the government presents us with the least favourable option. Are we going to vote against the least favourable option? No. We would rather have some of this protected than nothing.

The government needs to understand that if it is going to have credibility on the international stage when it comes to the issues of climate change, and we see what our European partners are doing, it has to start sending some signals that it does care about the environment.

Stephen Kakfwi, the former premier of the Northwest Territories, said that the way the boundaries were drawn the Prime Minister chose to put the mining interests above environmental interests and that the he had unfortunately let Canadians down. He said, “That is not a national park, that is a joke.”

Those are serious words from a former premier of the Northwest Territories.

He goes on to state:

[The Prime Minister] has taken the heart right out of it. The middle of [this reserve] is carved out so that mining can happen dead centre in the middle of the proposed national park.

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society stated:

...the park boundary proposed in Bill S-5 will not achieve this conservation goal because it leaves out much of the important habitat for woodland caribou, including critical calving and breeding grounds, as well as for grizzly bears and Dall's sheep. It leaves out a significant part of the Little Nahanni River, which is a major tributary of the South Nahanni River and includes some of the most important habitat in the area.

One of my favourite lines of the government is “record investments”. Whenever it is cutting money it speaks of record investments, such as record investments in first nation education and record investments in water. If we go to any of those communities they will just laugh and say, “What record investments?”

The Conservatives will say they have record investments in Parks Canada and that they value Parks Canada. They promised us $391 million in budget 2013. To the folks back home, $391 million is clearly an impressive number, but how much did they actually spend? They spent $1 million. That is not even close. Last year they spent $4 million. We are still not even near what they promised. We will have to wait until after the election for the rest of the more than $380 million and the next government will have to follow through on that. Therefore, we get the ribbon-cutting, we get the big announcements, we get the promise on a commitment to the environment, but none of the money comes forward.

In Parks Canada, we see the layoff of employees, the issue of crumbling infrastructure, and the need to maintain these important jewels, these watersheds, that are crucial to maintaining the biodiversity of this country.

However, there is also the sense of how people view us internationally. When I am in the far north of Canada I regularly meet Europeans who come here because they are fascinated by the immense beauty of regions such as the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. They come here because this is their view of Canada. There is an enormous economic power to these national parks because people see that Canada still has them in areas where the rest of the world does not. Therefore, we have to put some value back by saying that these should be protected watersheds. This is not to be anti-development, but development has to be done in a smart and sustainable fashion with a sense of balance. Right now, there is absolutely no balance with how the government is approaching resource development.

In terms of the three options that were laid out, only two submissions supported the weakest option, but that is the one the government chose. Anyone who has been involved in a public consultation process will say that more often than not it is a shell game. When there is a mega-project to be developed, the rules have changed. Now, one must prove why public comment is needed, but public comment is a box that is ticked off. When the government has decided that it will go ahead with a major development project or a first nation consultation it just has to tick off the box.

I remember the Conservatives were going to build a toxic waste incinerator in northern Ontario on the territory of the Algonquin Timiskaming First Nation. I worked with the Algonquin nation. The very last night before the consultation period ended the Conservatives showed up in the community with their dog and pony show. The Government of Ontario said it was excellent that they had done a consultation. The Algonquin said that they would see them in court and that was the end of that. That is not consultation.

We also see that the government is almost standing alone in the world in its opposition to the push by the UN on the issue of free, prior, informed consent for the development of projects. There are constitutional provisions that have to be protected.

The conservation plan could have made the government look so good. I know I am not a friend of theirs, but the Conservatives could use some loving now on the environment. They could use a bit of credibility, just a fig leaf. They could just give us something. I am not even going to beat on the Conservatives. They are just so over the top with their attitude. They could have done something. They could have said, “We are not going to go with door number one, which is maximum protection; and we are not going to go with door number three, minimum; we will go with door number two, we will just balance it”.

However, “balance” to the Conservatives is a word that sounds like weakness or socialism or extremism or radicalism. That is their idea of balance, so they are not going to choose balance. They are going to choose the weakest environmental protection with the maximum exploitation of resources.

We will be supporting the bill because we would rather have something than nothing at this point. However, in 2015 they will see a New Democratic government having to do so much work to fix the disaster that the Conservatives have left on our environment.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech. He represents a great northern riding in Ontario and I appreciate his concern for both the environment and our national park expansions.

It is important to note that when he talked about the least favourable option in this scenario, the least favourable option would clearly be no expansion at all. It was our government that took the existing Nahanni National Park Reserve, expanded it by 4,000 additional square kilometres and then expanded it again to be the third-largest park complex in all of Canada, to 35,000 square kilometres of wilderness protected in the Northwest Territories. That is courtesy of our government and our government's interest in investing in protection and preservation of the environment.

The hon. member talks about Europeans coming over here, and indeed they do to my territory, to the member for Northwest Territories' territory, to Nunavut and across all of Canada. They come here because we have areas protected. Our government has protected areas bigger than nations in Europe, bigger than the countries from which those visitors come. That is a great record.

The most favourable option is the option that finds balance between development and a strong investment climate. My comment for the member for Timmins—James Bay is this. He comes from an area where a stable investment climate is required for growth and development, and he must see that there is an absolute need for that balance and we have struck that balance.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague and say once again what beautiful country he represents. I left my heart in the Yukon. It is almost as nice as Timmins—James Bay and yes, as I have said, we are mining country.

I would warn the member to be wary of bringing in European states. We could probably fit Luxembourg and a few other areas right into the city of Timmins. Certainly, we can fit all of Great Britain into Timmins—James Bay. When we travel five hours, that is called “going to work”. When they travel five hours that is like going across Europe and back for weeks. We have to be careful here when we deal with the issue of size.

In case I misunderstood my colleague in saying that it was courtesy of the Conservatives who had this vision, the way I heard the story was this. I am from Timmins—James Bay and I did not get to university, but the way I heard the story was that it was first nations people who have been fighting for this for a long time, before even the present European tourists came over, and before our European tourists came over and actually never left.

The best option is the one that finds the balance. With the incredible beauty of the land of the North, we have enormous opportunity for a stable economic climate. That is why international miners have returned to Canada; because we are stable economy. Let us just protect the beautiful areas that we have.