Fisheries committee  Yes, that's correct.

Fisheries committee  Two departments are involved: the Parks Canada Agency and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. In the case of Parks Canada, costs will be associated with the administration of the act, that is costs supporting a program, the appraisal of lighthouses, petitions and the evaluation of projects proposed once a lighthouse is designated.

Fisheries committee  This amendment would remove structures from the bill. The number of infrastructures that must be maintained would thus be reduced, not increased.

Fisheries committee  I'll start. The challenge here is that it depends on how the criteria are set. As Mr. Hegge alluded to earlier, when we look at the different programs we have, we get different answers to that question. The national historic sites program looked at lighthouses across the country, sort of as a group, and ended up designating very few of them, about a dozen.

Fisheries committee  Okay. The pointy buildings with the lights on top are what they're evaluating.

Fisheries committee  I'm sorry, my data are not divided that way. But based on the information I do have, about one-third of the lighthouses they looked at were designated as recognized, which is the lower level of recognition. About 20 of them were recognized as classified, which is the higher level of recognition.

Fisheries committee  Are any of the light stations isolated?

Fisheries committee  Certainly, yes.

Fisheries committee  Clearly, in some cases, their purpose is to make the light station accessible. Presumably, once you're at the station, everything that is there is accessible to you.

Fisheries committee  I think the important distinction from the heritage protection perspective is that at a particular light station you may have both things that are of heritage interest as well as other things, modern infrastructure that supports, for example, access to the things that are of heritage interest.

Fisheries committee  My understanding of the reason the bill was proposed in the first place was that there was a concern that lighthouses of heritage interest were not being cared for appropriately by the federal government, yes.

Fisheries committee  On a lighthouse site there may be a variety of different structures, including the main light tower. In many cases, there has been a lightkeeper's house associated with the site and in some cases also other support buildings, a fog alarm building or an oil shed in some cases. We have been drawing a distinction between things that are buildings—so sort of four walls and a roof—and things that are structures, which would include things like wharves or helipads or walkways, which would not qualify as buildings but which have been the point of some of the discussion related to the bill.

Fisheries committee  I'm Patricia Kell, and I'm the director of policy for national historic sites at Parks Canada.

Fisheries committee  I could maybe add a little bit of context. On two previous occasions the Speaker ruled that this was not a money bill, and I think that was partly because this bill was modelled on the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act, which itself was ruled as not being a money bill. It also was a private member's bill.

Fisheries committee  I have no opinion on those specific lighthouses. From a heritage perspective, the primary consideration in deciding which lighthouses would merit being designated would be their heritage value.