Mr. Speaker, I do not qualify for the category my hon. colleague mentioned, but seeing none of the green foreheads standing I thought I would ask a question of my colleague from Elk Island.
Being the critic for industry, I want to say that the Reform Party is very supportive of Bill C-4 and the Canadian Space Agency. I know that my colleague had many good comments about the work that space station will do to help in the future.
My colleague is a keen follower of new technologies and the ability of the space station to monitor Earth. The good that it will do for crop monitoring for farmers and the monitoring of the ice pack to aid in the navigation of shipping in our Arctic are all things that I think my colleague from Elk Island would agree are important factors.
Some of the things that we take for granted in Canadian society, such as individual property rights, are not available under the constitution and yet we have fee simple use of our land. We have fee simple title to our land, whether it be a lot, a house or a farm.
Intellectual property rights and patent rights are being protected for Canadian companies and the Canadian government when doing research on the international space station. The fact that there are going to be eight different countries involved makes it important to protect intellectual property and patent rights. Yet we see in the Nisga'a agreement things that we take for granted in our Canadian law through intellectual property rights.
In the Nisga'a agreement property rights are not protected for Canadian Nisga'a women in terms of a marriage breakup. They are not protected in terms of fee simple land for the Nisga'a. Individuals will not be able to own a piece of property. They are going down that road of communal property which is a failed policy. Even the east bloc countries in eastern Europe finally had to admit that it does not work.
I would like my colleague's comments. What does he think of the comparison between the need for intellectual property rights on the space station and doing it here at home?