Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the House on the occasion of the second reading of Bill C-7.
On December 12, 2003 control and supervision of the Parks Canada agency was transferred from the Minister of Canadian Heritage to the Minister of the Environment. The transfer was given effect through an order in council.
On July 20, 2004 a further order in council came into effect relating to the responsibilities for built heritage. It was required in order to clarify the earlier order in council. First, control and supervision of the historic places policy group were transferred from the Department of Canadian Heritage to Parks Canada. Second, the powers, duties and functions related to the design and implementation of programs that have built heritage as their primary subject matter were transferred from the Ministry of Canadian Heritage to the Ministry of the Environment.
Bill C-7 updates legislation to reflect these changes. It deals with the machinery of the government and does not contain any substantive policy provisions. It simply gives legislative effect to the government reorganization that was announced on December 12, 2003 as it affects Parks Canada.
In addition to amending the Department of Canadian Heritage Act and the Parks Canada Agency Act, Bill C-7 also amends statutes through which Parks Canada delivers its mandate. They would be the Canada National Parks Act, the Historic Sites and Monuments Act, the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act, the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act, the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park Act, the Species at Risk Act and the Canada Shipping Act.
There are no additional funding requirements related to Bill C-7.
Parks Canada's organizational integrity has been maintained. The agency remains committed to working with Canadians to protect and present nationally significant examples of Canada's natural and cultural heritage for present and future generations.
I would like to take a few moments to talk about the Parks Canada story. Canada's national parks, national historic sites and national marine conservation areas represent the soul of Canada. They are a central part of who we are and what we are. They are places of magic, wonder and heritage, and each tells its own story. Together they connect Canadians to our roots, our future and to each other.
What we cherish as part of our national identity we also recognize as part of our national responsibility. All Canadians share the obligation to preserve and protect Canada's unique cultural and natural heritage. Together we hold our national parks, national historic sites and national marine conservation areas in trust for the benefit of this generation and future generations.
Canada has the distinction of having established the first national parks service in the world. Over the decades our system of national parks has grown to 41 national parks and reserves, preserving for future generations almost 265,000 thousand square kilometres of lands and waters. There are plans to add, as has been mentioned earlier, an additional 100,000 square kilometres through the creation of eight more national parks. This legacy is possible in large part because provincial and territorial governments, aboriginal people and local communities have worked with us to create many of these new national parks.
The creation and management of national parks is a delicate balance between the protection of ecologically significant areas of importance to wildlife and meeting economic and social needs of communities. The Government of Canada is committed to working with aboriginal people, local communities and other Canadians and stakeholders to protect our precious natural heritage through the creation of new national parks and national marine conservation areas.
In October 2002 the government announced an action plan to substantially complete Canada's system of national parks by creating 10 new parks over the next five years. This will expand the system by almost 50% with a total area spanning nearly the size of Newfoundland and Labrador. In fact, we have already created two of these 10 new national parks with work continuing on the eight other proposals. Five new national marine conservation areas will also be created.
Canada is blessed with exceptional natural treasures and we owe it to Canadians and to the world to protect these lands and waters. The action plan calls on Parks Canada to work with all of its partners, the provinces and territories, aboriginal and rural communities, industry and environmental groups and others to complete this effort.
In March 2003 the government allocated $144 million over five years and $29 million annually thereafter toward this effort. The action plan has already produced two new national parks.
The new Gulf Islands National Park Reserve of Canada protects 33 square kilometres of ecologically rare land in the southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia.
At over 20,000 square kilometres, the new Ukkusiksalik National Park protects virtually an entire watershed close to the Arctic Circle in Nunavut. This park is a product of an agreement between the Government of Canada and the Inuit of Nunavut, forged over several decades of hard work all focused on protecting land, waters, caribou and polar bears for present and future generations.
Specific sites for more national parks have been selected in other natural regions across Canada: the southern Okanagan; lower Similkameen in the interior of British Columbia; Labrador's Torngat Mountains and Mealy Mountains; Manitoba's lowlands boreal forest; Bathurst Island in Nunavut; and the east arm of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. Sites for the two remaining national parks are being identified by Parks Canada.
Negotiations to establish the Torngat Mountains national park reserve in northern Labrador are nearing completion. This longstanding proposal will protect some of the highest mountains in North America east of the Canadian Rockies.
In March 2004 the premier of Manitoba and the former minister of the environment signed a memorandum of agreement identifying the boundaries for public consultation for a national park in the Manitoba lowlands. They also committed to negotiating a national park establishment agreement by May 2005. Both parks will make magnificent additions to our world-class national parks system.
The government is also working with partners to establish five new national marine conservation areas adding an estimated 15,000 square kilometres to the system. This will be a major step forward for global conservation of marine habitat.
Canada has the world's longest coastline and 7% of its fresh water. This commitment to creating new marine conservation areas is consistent with the recent Speech from the Throne in which our government made a commitment to create new marine protected areas as part of the ocean action plan.
These natural marine conservation areas will be located in ecologically unrepresented marine regions. Four sites have been identified: Gwaii Haanas off British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands; western Lake Superior; British Columbia's southern Strait of Georgia; and the waters off Îles-de-la-Madeleine in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
While a site for the remaining national marine conservation area has yet to be finalized, Parks Canada has received a number of proposals from local communities. This is a testament to the growing interest in the conservation of our marine heritage.
In addition the government will accelerate its actions over the next five years to improve the ecological integrity of Canada's 41 existing national parks. This will implement the action plan arising from the panel on the ecological integrity of Canada's national parks, whose report was endorsed by the government in April 2000.
These two initiatives, the action plan to expand our system of national parks and national marine conservation areas and the action plan on ecological integrity, are the most ambitious initiatives to expand and protect national parks and national marine conservation areas in over 100 years; indeed since the Banff National Park of Canada, Canada's first, was established in 1885.
Parks Canada needs to get on with the job Parliament has assigned to it. I urge members of the House to give speedy passage to Bill C-7.