Mr. Speaker, I do keep in touch with the park in my province, Prince Albert National Park, and the people who work there. I can assure the House that the people who work in the park today and who have been in the park system for any length of time are relieved that they will get out from underneath the heritage department and into some other government department. They feel they have been used as political tools for far too long by the heritage department, so I can confirm what the vice chair of the environment committee had to say.
I have a question for the vice-chair of the environment committee. In my park there is no money left for simple maintenance. Parks Canada buildings are deteriorating. They have no paint on them. The roads are falling apart. There is extreme, excessive regulation of national parks and the entire maintenance budget of the park is being used up to comply with environmental and other departmental requirements.
There are no funds left to take care of day to day simple maintenance matters in the park. This is becoming a real crisis. The roads in the park are literally coming apart. The buildings are an eyesore. Tourists coming to the park shake their heads in dismay. This is one of our national parks which has visitors from other countries. They must be shaking their heads at what they see in the park.
I would like to ask the vice-chair of the environment committee, could his committee look at the capital cost requirements of our national parks and the crying need for simple maintenance of existing infrastructure in our parks?