Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to rise today on third reading of Bill C-38, an act to establish Tuktut Nogait National Park.
I begin my comments by repeating something I said in the House yesterday. I thank all members from all parties who worked diligently in committee and otherwise toward the passage of this piece of legislation and toward an important objective that we as Canadians all share, the establishment and continuing establishment of our national parks system and toward fulfilling what is a very important goal and objective for all Canadians, the protection of special places in the country.
This park will join the family of 38 national parks to date and will, as I said, work toward the completion of our national parks system to ensure that we have the representation of at least one park in each of the 39 natural regions designated across Canada.
These are indeed special places. In this case of Tuktut Nogait, the process that has been developed in this park is being put forward to protect the bluenose caribou herd, the core calving grounds of the caribou herd, and to protect the tundra landscape of the northern Arctic. It is one of the most beautiful and spectacular locations in Canada, particularly in Canada's north.
The establishment of this park has been a very long, extensive and public process in arriving at the place where we are today. The original idea for this national park was in 1989 when the community of Paulatuk undertook a study. It came to Parks Canada, to the federal government, and suggested that one way to protect the area was through the establishment of a national park.
From that point there was a period of some seven years of public hearings, negotiations and discussions so that in 1996 all parties were in a position to sign an agreement to establish the national park. What we are doing with the bill is taking that agreement and bringing it under the National Parks Act.
Since that agreement has been signed a management board committee has been established to oversee the park. It includes representatives of the local community as well as of Parks Canada. This is a full management procedure by which to manage the park. I am pleased that the board is up and running and providing us with timely advice on the operation of the park.
I will not speak too long to this issue but there are four key points I want to make briefly.
One is the importance of establishing this park to protect the important calving grounds of the bluenose caribou herd. This was one of the raisons d'etre for the establishment of the park. The science which we have seen shows clearly that the park is used by the caribou for their calving.
It helps us as a government and as Canadians to fulfil an international obligation which we have talked about. This government and Canadians have been very insistent with our American counterparts that they protect their caribou on the Alaskan side of the border. We have worked diligently within Canada to ensure that we have protected the calving grounds. We have asked that the Americans do this. To date their land in Alaska, commonly known as the 1002 land, still does not have full protection. I think we are sending a very clear message internationally that we are willing to stand behind our international statements by protecting the caribou here in Canada.
I touched on my second point in my introduction. This park establishment is going along in terms of an agreement that all parties came to in 1996. This agreement was made, and there has been some discussion about this, knowing that there was an anomaly in that area that would indicate there may be some mineral potential.
In 1994 the resource company itself was part of that decision by voluntarily, at the request of the Inuvialuit, relinquishing its mining claims to that area. We understand that this was not because it was not an area that there may be mineral exploration, we did not think that the area was not valuable, but a collective decision was made that we would protect this area despite the fact that it may have some mineral potential. That was the decision. It was not made in ignorance. It was a conscious decision made to protect a very special place in Canada and to do so knowing full well what the results of that may be.
I also want to touch very briefly on the status of Tuktut Nogait as it stands today. There have been some suggestions that this is not really a national park and that any concern over protecting the integrity of agreements is not a real concern.
Many of what we commonly call our national parks are in exactly the same status as Tuktut Nogait is prior to the passage of this legislation. Places like Pacific Rim in British Columbia, Grasslands in Saskatchewan, Pukaskwa in Ontario, Gros Morne in Newfoundland all are more or less in the same legal status as Tuktut Nogait is today.
It is important that we demonstrate clearly that we are going to protect the integrity of the boundaries of our national parks. If we were to move away from that and say we would entertain logging interests in one area, oil and gas interests in another area or mining interests in another area, then we would have great difficulties.
We decide collectively as Canadians to protect certain special places in this country. As the Secretary of State for Parks, I had the honour and the responsibility of ensuring the integrity of those decisions.
This last point is one which I spoke on briefly yesterday at report stage. We are committed as a government to work with the local community to ensure that it has an opportunity to develop economically in terms of the park. We have made a commitment that we will be spending some $10 million over the next several years with the establishment of the park.
We have also said clearly that we are going to work to ensure that the native community, the local community, has the first opportunity for the jobs that are being created in that area. We are also working with the Government of the Northwest Territories to ensure that we can proceed with the economic development. The fact is that some 80% of that mining potential I talked about earlier is outside the park and may present an opportunity as an event that may unfold in the future.
In conclusion, I am pleased that we are about to pass this legislation and see another important part of our national parks system come to fruition.