Mr. Speaker, again I am honoured to stand in my place and enter into what I believe is a very important debate on Bill C-10.
This is an environmental bill. As people who have been paying attention all day know, it has to do with marine areas. We are speaking of water and the land underneath water bodies. The purpose of the bill is to establish some of these areas as being protected in a similar way to our national parks on land.
I begin my intervention today by expressing a bit of sadness at the stereotyping which has occurred in many instances regarding members of our party. We have been characterized in various ways. The generalizations that have been made from time to time by various members of the governing party are very offensive. I think particularly of during the election campaign when the minister of immigration made very scurrilous remarks regarding all and any members of our party, attributes and characteristics that just were not true. It was done very flippantly and was designed to have an electoral effect. I was very offended by that.
The same thing has happened with respect to environmentalism. There is a myth that if one is a fiscal conservative, if one is a social conservative, then by definition one does not give a hoot about other people or about the environment. Both of those statements are patently false.
I did not run as a member of parliament for any reason other than the fact that I care about people. I care about our country. I care about our future. I care about our environment. To be characterized, as we are from time to time, as being opposite to this is very unfair, inaccurate and does not give proper respect to members of parliament on this side of the House who have deep concerns in these areas.
I have mentioned before that I have taken the opportunity to do what I could to preserve the environment. Some members may have heard me relate some of these things before. I used to ride a bicycle to work. Members may think that would be quite a sight, a guy my size riding a bicycle, but I did it before it was fashionable to do so. When I first started riding my bicycle to work a number of years ago, there were no bike racks on the campus where I worked. I had to park my bicycle up against a power pole and lock it with a chain so that some vandal would not take my method of transportation.
I always felt very good about that. I was saving money. With the huge taxes we were paying I had to do everything I could in order to provide for my family. But I was also reducing the amount of pollution and the use of the non-renewable resources in our country.
That is one example which shows that I am an environmentalist. I believe in preserving a healthy and safe environment for future generations and for our present generation, not only for Canadians but for inhabitants right around the world.
All my life I have driven energy efficient vehicles. I should not say that; I had a few vehicles that were guzzlers way back. I have driven the little econoboxes that yield much less pollution and are very preservative of the non-renewable resources because they are very small and practical. I drove a motorcycle for a while which gave me 100 miles per gallon for the same reason.
I say that in preamble simply to say that I do believe very much in conservation and in the care of our environment.
Bill C-10 proposes to preserve both the cultural and the environmental attributes of some of our water resources. It is a marine conservation bill and the bill is designed to actually set up and enforce rules governing that. The preamble states:
to provide opportunities for the people of Canada and of the world to appreciate and enjoy Canada's natural and cultural marine heritage,
I accept that as a purpose. I sometimes wonder why the bill has been sponsored by the Minister of Canadian Heritage, whose record in this regard is less than stellar. I think of some of the land parks in Canada where many attempts have been made not to educate and help people enjoy the environment there, but actually to exclude them from it.
Believe it or not, the government has used the club of high entrance fees to prevent ordinary citizens from enjoying our parks. Some of the entrance fees in our national parks are at the point where ordinary citizens, single earner families with three or four children and a tent in the back of the vehicle cannot afford to even go into the parks.
There is this phenomenon in Alberta where increasingly families are camping outside Banff National Park and Jasper National Park. Why? They cannot afford to enter the parks. It is too expensive. The costs per day are excessive. It is the government and its mismanagement and sometimes its misguided priorities that have driven the costs up in such an exorbitant fashion.
When I was a young man with a young family, we took vacation trips into the parks. It was affordable. We could not afford to stay in a hotel, but we could afford to camp and we did it. Now I look at similar families, including our own children who now have their children, our wonderful grandchildren, and they are finding it very challenging and difficult to stay in the park for more than a day or two at a time, simply because of the increase in fees.
Even though the preamble says that the reason is to provide these areas for the enjoyment of Canadians and people from around the world, it seems to me that hidden behind that wonderful sounding statement is the true objective of the government, which is to fleece Canadians who go into these areas and make it impossible for those with average or low incomes to enjoy them.
I will also say on the whole issue of establishing these parks that in principle it has merit. There are some people and perhaps even some businesses that would abuse our environment in pursuit of profit or other objectives. I have a problem when instead of sticking to that theme, the legislation before us differentiates between the groups of people who might want to make use of the designated area. We ought to make very sure that things are done equally and fairly for all Canadians.
I am speaking particularly of clause 2(2) in which there is special emphasis made that:
--nothing in this act shall be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from the protection provided for existing aboriginal or treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada by the recognition and affirmation of those rights in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
I appreciate that we are trying to be fair to the natives of our land, but we ought to be very careful, when we have rules and regulations which protect our environment and the enjoyment of these areas for future generations, that we not put into bills and acts clauses which would allow one portion of our population for whatever reason to be exempt from part of those regulations and laws which are passed for the benefit of us all.
Furthermore, I hope that our aboriginals would wish not to be excluded. I hope they too, and in general I believe they do, participate fully in conservation efforts. From time to time we hear, read and see on television examples of total disregard for true scientifically based conservation principles being applied by aboriginals.
I would ask the government that: first, it not make rules that exempt aboriginals; and, second, it appeal to the natives to willingly, forcefully and fully participate in the protection of our environment for the future. This means that they have to not only respect their culture, heritage and history, but they also must respect the scientific data which occasionally shows it is necessary to comply with certain prescribed behaviour to achieve that result.
I am looking at other parts of the act. When I scanned it, I saw some things that were rather significant to me. I took great interest in the administration section which begins at section 8. I will read the first few words of a few subsections in sections 8 to 11. They goes like this: subsection (1) says “The Minister is responsible”; subsection (2) says “The Minister has the administration”; subsection 3 says “The Minister may maintain and operate facilities”; and subsection (4) says “The Minister may enter agreements”.
Every phrase for about two and a half pages of the act begins with “The Minister may” or “The Minister shall”. I have a large concern about the degree to which we are reverting the control of these things to the minister without proper accountability. Obviously, the bill gives him the authority but there is no accountability. Some of these things I find expressly offensive.
It says for example:
The Minister shall consult with relevant federal and provincial ministers and agencies, with affected coastal communities, aboriginal organizations, aboriginal governments and bodies established under land claims agreements, and with other persons and bodies that the Minister considers appropriate...
Then it goes on to say of course that it has to do with the development and designation of the conservation area.
I have no problem with consultation, but too often we have just observed. I personally have observed over the last eight years that the government consults in name only.
It is a formality it goes through. I will put it this way. It is there but it does not hear. It listens but does not hear and does not act on what it hears.
It is regrettable that the clock says I need to quit because I am just on a roll and I am just really on the first part of the things that I wanted to speak about. I presume when this resumes I will be able to get the rest of my time.