Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of the bill. I will restrict my comments primarily to the experience we have had in my home community, an experience which has been less than pleasant in spite of what we have heard from the government in the last few minutes.
I am quite interested in the approach that my friend from the Bloc has taken in terms of recommending that authority be given under this bill to transfer the management and control of these ports to the province. We ultimately would like to see them divulged down to the municipality because of the experience we have had in the city of Windsor.
However, as I have indicated, we are quite prepared to support the bill because I think inevitably, at least in Ontario, the result would be that the province would give the municipality the authority to manage and control these lands and the traffic that works its way through.
I strongly support the point my friend from the Bloc made about the need for an integrated policy around transport. However I would add that we also need an integrated program that would allow the municipalities to do the municipal planning they need to do in order for a large city to function.
There is another point that needs to be made. Because of the nature of some of the lands that the port authority has in the city of Windsor the issue of conservation raises its head.
The experience that we have had in Windsor has not been a pleasant one. There has been a great deal of conflict between the local and municipal authorities around the issues of how transport is handled and how some of the shipping is done, particularly around the issue of municipal planning, and some of the lands the port authority holds. The city has had specific designs for not only its land but for some of the land surrounding it. There has been quite severe friction in some cases over the role the municipal government has and the planning that it wishes to do for these lands in a macro way. It has been thwarted on a number of occasions by the local authority in that regard.
I filed a petition with the House a week or so ago concerning one specific piece of land that borders the Detroit River. It is a piece of land that would act as a bridge to a large conservation area that we have in Windsor but which is controlled by the port authority. It wishes to develop it in a commercial fashion that would in effect act as a barrier for wildfowl that uses the Detroit River as a base and moves through this other region. This particular piece of land acts as a bridge. There is a local environmental group in Windsor that has been trying to get the land designated as a park but it has received absolutely no support from the port authority in that regard.
There have been other times where there was development with which we wanted to go ahead within the city and it too has been thwarted in various ways by the port authority because of its own self-interest.
I want to make one additional point concerning the history of the legislation that we now have. My friend from the government talked about the review that went on in the mid-nineties that culminated in legislation in 1998. Windsor sent a delegation to Ottawa at that time to put forward some specific proposals as to how the legislation should deal with the land and the control of it and its proposals were totally ignored.
The amendments that are being proposed in the form of the private member's bill would be much more in keeping with the position that Windsor had taken at that time.
I am pleased to indicate that my party supports the private member's bill. Assuming that it is not successful in passing, and I assume that will be the case given the government's position, the issue will be raised again at the end of the five year review. I assure the government and my friend from the Bloc that at that time Windsor will be here once again to make proposals on how the land should be more properly dealt with.