Mr. Speaker, the last member asked what we would tell our children when they asked us what we did when we were here. I will tell a story that I know I will be very proud of when I am done. I deals with an island, which is exactly what this bill is about. On one hand, I think the government should support the bill. On the other hand, the government did a really good thing in my riding.
There is an island in the Bay of Fundy which is 2.5 kilometres long and about one kilometre wide. It is about 10 kilometres offshore and when the mist rises out of the Bay of Fundy it is absolutely majestic. It is totally pristine. It is the way it was 10,000 years ago. This beautiful island has cliffs 300 feet high. Seals, birds, whales and porpoise are all around it. There are all kinds of stories about this island's past such as natives having used it for ceremonial purposes.
There was a story in the Canadian geographic magazine a few years ago stating that this island was up for sale. The island belonged to the Government of Canada and its only use was as a base for a lighthouse. The lighthouse burned down in 1957 and since then it has been a platform for a light. The coast guard owned this island but it then was transferred to fisheries when the coast guard left. I could not believe the island suddenly came up for sale but the coast guard deemed it surplus.
I approached the Minister of the Environment and we had several long discussions about it. At one point he flew down to see this island. He shared my opinion that it was absolutely an incredibly majestic island. On the southeast side of the island is a high cliff shaped like an amphitheatre. It is absolutely vertical. When the birds fly and chirp, the noise is so loud that it almost too hard to take. Meanwhile, seals pop up everywhere and wonder what is going on. I go to this island every year. Nobody lives on it. It is totally pristine.
The Minster of the Environment agreed to designate it as a wilderness preserve. Ownership had to first be transferred to the Department of the Environment, and I believe that transfer is underway now. The last stage will be to designate as a wilderness preserve.
In the future when one of my kids asks me what I did when I was here, this will be the one issue of which I will be most proud. This would not have happened though had the land not belonged to the Government of Canada. Had it not been deemed surplus, it could not have been transferred. If it had been a privately owned island, this never would have happened. Because it belonged to the Government of Canada, it was turned into a wilderness preserve.
My point on this little sales pitch about the Isle Haute is that this is an example of how important this type of exercise is. Part of the reason is because there are endangered species on this island. There are only 10 nesting places for the peregrine falcon in all the maritime provinces and this island is one of them. Several endangered species of rodents are also on the island as well as a lot of endangered flora and fauna. That is part of the reason why there was the total support to convert this to a wilderness preserve.
Both the minister and the parliamentary secretary worked actively on this file, and I am grateful to them for their attitude and their co-operation. I look forward to the day when we can actually announce that it is a wilderness preserve, and I hope that day is not too far away.
I share the member's feeling about the issue of protecting habitat for wildlife. The island is being protected because it is the habitat of endangered species. However it is so much more than that. It is a treasure. Without that habitat, it probably would not have been saved. It would have probably gone to the highest bidder in the United States, or Germany or somewhere else and would have been restricted probably forever from the people in the area, for tourists or whoever wanted to see a part of Nova Scotia which remained untouched. It is absolutely pristine and perfect.
I compliment the member for moving the motion. If it were votable, we would be voting yes. It has a few little things in it we would like to adjust, but as the last speaker said, we could tweak it around. The bill could go to committee where we could debate it and make a few changes to it. Perhaps it would allow a whole lot of projects like Isle Haute to happen across the country and so much treasured habitat and special property and lands would be saved.