During the vote someone raised the matter with me that I think needs to be addressed, Mr. Chair. The comment from my colleague from the New Democratic Party was that we don't submit to Parliament for approval plans of our national parks. I have to disagree somewhat with that, Mr. Chair.
I refer my colleagues to the Canada National Parks Act, section 33, where it talks about park communities. I understand that we differentiate in that act between parks that have communities within them, essentially Banff and Jasper, and the other parks. For those parks--and there's another one, but those are the two principal ones--that have communities there's a separate process delineated in the Canada National Parks Act, which does give to parliamentarians the ability to reject certain elements of it. So if I'm being told that one is not prepared to support the notion that parliamentarians would be called upon once a decade to approve a master plan for the nation's capital, in which 800,000-plus citizens live--over a million if you include the national capital region--where we do give that ability to parliamentarians for the community plans of national parks, then I would hope that those who believe otherwise would reconsider and indeed give parliamentarians the ability.
As an aside, we are actually giving parliamentarians the ability to approve this plan, but only those who happen to sit in cabinet. That's where I have a problem. If the legislatures in this country are to be effective they cannot carry on ceding all their authority to cabinet. Here's a chance, where we're asking parliamentarians once a decade to pronounce on the plan of the nation's capital. I would hope we would see our way to approving that.