Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on the bill before us today. In my career and in the rest of my life it has been my good fortune to take a keen interest in the issues of conservation lands and parks.
This issue is close to my heart. I once was director general of the Union québécoise pour la conservation de la nature and I have taken part in coalitions to ask not only for better protection of natural spaces and ecosystems, but also the resources needed to truly protect them.
Long before that, as a student I worked in Forillon National Park. That was in 1982. I remember the dramas and tragi-comedies as the Quebec and Canadian governments each raced to create parks faster than the other, not to protect ecosystems, improve access to them or welcome visitors, but to get a foothold on Quebec territory.
I remember one employee meeting held in Forillon Park. The minister at the time, a Mr. André Ouellet, had come to address the employees, who had all left their tasks, and boast about how he stole the Mingan Archipelago from Quebec, where the Quebec government had been planning to put a park. He was as proud as a boy who has just played a great practical joke.