Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak today on these motions.
As I have indicated on several occasions already, I am not a stranger to the parks issue. My first job was with Parks Canada. I was also working for Parks Canada in 1997 and had to quit after the election.
I am in a good position to talk about entrance fees. My job at the Kouchibouguac National Park was at the park entrance. I was the person who collected the fees from both tourists and locals who came to visit the park. These people used to live in the park.
We must look back at what was said to park residents who were expropriated to convince them to leave. We know it was not the money. My father was offered $6,600 to leave his 50 or so acres of land in Kouchibouguac park. Money clearly was not what would make people leave. We were told that it would create jobs, well paid jobs, protect this beautiful wilderness, this great land on which we lived, to ensure it would still be there hundreds of years from now for future generations to enjoy.
There are children today whose parents were expropriated from national parks across this country, including Kouchibouguac, from which I was expropriated. Those children have no chance to go to the beautiful beaches they were promised in 1969, nor to visit the historic sites, or to use the hiking and biking paths.
Today it costs a fortune to get into a park. One must wonder for whom the parks were created. The reason to have a park is to preserve and conserve nature. It must be realized also, however, that many national parks have been created in areas of very high unemployment. People were promised good jobs, and now we see the work being contracted out and people being paid less so they are forced to leave and give up their jobs.
When these people come to visit the parks, moreover, they have to turn around and go home. I have seen people doing just that when I worked at the entrance. Sometimes I paid their entrance fees out of my own pocket because I saw that there were little kids who were not going to be able to use the beach because their parents did not have enough money. I am not making this up—that is what I saw between 1981 and 1996, and the fees keep going up.
I must say as well that our parks are not as well maintained as they used to be, because the desire seems to be to make parks into industries, to make them revenue generated. Conservation is no longer the priority, making money is, because the government is cutting the funding allocated to the parks. Nature and conservation are therefore suffering.
We must step back and look at what is going on. Having an agency is not a bad idea, but what lies behind the idea of an agency is dangerous. Why are jobs guaranteed for only two years? The work has to be done, whether it is an agency or a department that is in charge. There is no reason to make our employees feel insecure.
The work has to be done. The park entry fees must not be raised any further and thought should be given to special fees for local residents. People expropriated to make room for the parks can no longer afford to go there. Others who were not expropriated when the park was created still live in the community and they have the same problem.
Tourism is all very well, it helps the economy, and I cannot dispute that. Hundreds of thousands of people come to visit our parks. This helps the economy and we want it to continue, but we must also look at the reality. Who has access to parks these days? As with just about any other government policy, the wealthy are the ones who continue to have access to services, whether we are talking about health care, education or national parks. For those who have money, things are just fine. Everything is there for them. But for people who have less money, it is harder to have access to health care, education, services for the elderly and parks.
I definitely support a motion that would look at the real situation in the villages located close to national parks. It is important that local people have access to the parks, and one of the agency's priorities should be to be fair to those who live close to the parks and those who lost their land to these parks. We must give back to these people the access that they enjoyed before. The problem is one of lost access. We must give to the communities that live close to national parks the access they used to enjoy.