Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the opportunity to speak in the House today on this bill. I may be coming at this from a slightly different perspective than even some of my Reform colleagues, certainly a different perspective from many members of this House, but I come at it from this point of view for a very good reason.
I live in northwest British Columbia. The riding I represent, as members know, is Skeena. As they are probably aware, there has been a significant amount of debate in British Columbia over the whole issue of the creation of parks and so on, to the extent where many people, particularly in rural British Columbia, and I would imagine that it is similar in other rural parts of Canada, are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the whole notion of parks.
I imagine that I am not unlike most Canadians. I grew up with a great sense of pride in Canada's national parks system. We took the care and the foresight to preserve parts of our country in perpetuity. There was only going to be human activity in the sense of viewing the wildlife, camping and so on. There was to be no other human activity in those areas.
When I talk about human activity, I am of course referring to mining and industrial activity. I am referring to towns being created and so on.
The experience in British Columbia has been more and more negative. Let me explain.
The provincial government in British Columbia is committed to turning 12% of the province into parkland. Mr. Speaker, I know you are not from British Columbia, but I also know you have probably had the occasion to fly over the province. On a clear day it is readily available for anybody to see that most of the province is a park by virtue of the fact that our geography makes it impossible for anything to happen on about 40% of the land base in that province. It is glaciers. It is mountain tops. It is inaccessible areas that are rugged and difficult for human beings to access. For all intents and purposes it will be left alone for all times. That is almost half the province.
In its infinite wisdom the NDP government in British Columbia is intent on turning 12% of British Columbia into parkland. Is it talking about glaciers? Is it talking about mountain tops? Is it talking about areas which are already inaccessible? No. To some degree it is talking about the areas that will never be used by human beings anyway, but for the most part it is talking about the valley bottoms, the forest land and the land base that is productive or potentially productive. I have a great deal of difficulty with that.
For example, we are so wealthy as a province that we can afford to leave $10 billion worth of copper cobalt in the ground in Tulsequah to preserve it as a world heritage site, whatever that means, for all times and to forgo the economic prosperity and wealth creation that would have resulted from that mine development.
It is estimated by the business community in British Columbia that it would have resulted in about 2,000 full time, high paying jobs. We are talking about $25 an hour jobs on the ground at the mine site and with the standard multiplier effect probably another 4,000 jobs in the province in businesses and industries to support the mining industry. Those are gone.
CBC and CTV cannot go around with television cameras and their microphones to interview people who lost their jobs because nobody lost their jobs. It was not like Cassiar, a mining town that closed down in my riding. It had been there for a long time and the pain and suffering caused by this ridiculous decision could actually be seen. No. Those people cannot be interviewed because we do not know who they would have been, but we know for sure that those jobs would have been there. They are lost for all time.
I have another example to give, Moresby Island in the Queen Charlotte Islands. Back in the mid-eighties there was a lot of controversy concerning logging on South Moresby. We had the likes of the Sierra Foundation, the Earth First people, every environmental organization possible, along with significant parts of the aboriginal population decrying logging on South Moresby.
David Suzuki made a film about logging on South Moresby in which he showed his concern that the black bears may actually be forced off Lyell Island. Then it was pointed out to him that black bears did not live on Lyell Island and he had a difficult time explaining how he could have taken film footage and pawned it off on Canadians as representative of Lyell Island when in fact it was not the case. It was a blatant lie.
That is the kind of thing the environmental movement engages in all the time. It engages in lies and mistruths, scaremongering tactics, trying to convince Canadians that the sky is falling. It has been largely successful, particularly in large metropolitan areas of the country.
In any even the environmental movement persuaded both the provincial and federal governments to suspend all logging on South Moresby and to create a new national park. Is this going to be a wonderful thing? Is this going to be great? I hope there are people in Sandspit today watching this debate on television because I know how important the issue is for them.
This small but vibrant logging community that had existed for several decades was all but obliterated by this decision. The politicians of the day said that the economic focus for Sandspit and South Moresby would change from logging into tourism. What a joke. What a laugh.
We can go to Sandspit and ask the people there how much tourism they get. Parks Canada employees have built themselves a little fiefdom there at taxpayers' expense. They have a beautiful lodge. It is the only structure that is allowed within the park because it belongs to Parks Canada. Parks Canada employees are on what I liken to a year round vacation at taxpayers' expense. The only thing they do is limit the people that go into this so-called park.
They have made it difficult for anybody to access the park. They have a waiting list. They only allow 2,000 people a year or thereabouts into the park. One has to phone ahead to make a reservation a year in advance as if going to some high class hotel. I can see the parallel. One has to be a very wealthy person to afford the terms and conditions that Parks Canada has placed on anybody going into that park.
That is why I have a difficult time listening to the government talking about bringing in legislation to create new parks. I like the idea of conserving parts of our land basin for future generations and leaving it untouched. However I do not like the idea of creating little fiefdoms for Parks Canada bureaucrats to go around telling Canadians what they can and cannot do and to have my taxpayer's dollars and the hard earned taxpayers' dollars of other Canadians spent on building grand lodges, flying around on float planes and doing all the things most of us can only dream of doing. We would like to be able to enjoy the wilderness like Parks Canada people can.
That is why I have a difficult time supporting the legislation. That is why the people in my riding, the people in my province, have a difficult time with the whole notion of parks. It is not because we do not want to see a part of our heritage preserved and protected for our children and their children, for future generations. It is just that we are becoming increasingly sceptical and doubtful that it will happen under the guise of Parks Canada.
We see it as another giant boondoggle of the federal government consuming huge amounts of federal taxpayers' money and delivering no tangible benefits to the people of Canada and, more important, to the people in the residual communities where they are so much affected by Parks Canada dictates of the day.
I am looking forward to any questions members on the other side may have.