Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to our witnesses here this morning.
It's a bit of déjà vu, I think, for all of us. But at least we're at the committee stage, and I really feel quite positive that we have an opportunity here to pass this piece of legislation. I've talked to my colleagues opposite about this bill several times, and in a former incarnation, but I don't think we should underestimate a couple of issues. Maybe before I do that, I would echo Mr. Stoffer's comments on the great work that you folks have all done on the ground in pushing this and promoting it through its various incarnations, and of course the work of past Senators Mike Forestall, Carney, Murray, and others.
But I would implore my colleagues opposite not to miss this opportunity to get this bill in. To begin with, it's not as simple as saying it's a DFO responsibility because, quite frankly, when this goes to heritage status it will go through Environment Canada for any remediation and then it will become Parks Canada's responsibility. And, of all the lights, I expect some of the lights would stay under DFO responsibility after they get heritage status. Hopefully, some of them would be maintained as working light stations. Therefore, it will be incumbent upon the federal government to keep those up to heritage standards.
You had a very good point, Mr. Byrne, about public–private, but the idea of private is not excluded in this legislation. If there are no adjacent groups or community groups who are willing to take over a heritage light, it is divested and it is on the divestiture list. It can go to private individuals. And, quite frankly, that would be better than losing the light entirely. It's not a matter of just being able to cherry-pick. There are a number of issues here about which we do have to be reasonable and practical. We've got a great example of a private individual at the table, who has a lighthouse and has spent a lot of private money on it to keep it up to heritage standard.
I'd like to talk a bit more. I know there's a concern about no dollars being designated, and I think Mr. Stoffer had a good comparison there on the fact that the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act went through without dollars designated. But we also have a fair amount of time.
I'd like a comment from our witnesses. We don't know exactly how many lights are going to be designated at this time. We have a petition process that will be put into place. It's a minimum of two years before we're going to have any lights designated, and it could be a maximum of five to seven years before we're actually through this process—or four years.
So I'd like some comments on that process and how many lights you think there may be in total, from your points of view.