Mr. Speaker, if things were as easy as the member said there would be no problem.
The Government of Canada administers 150 national historic sites and the provinces and municipalities administer thousands of others.
The member might want to talk to his own provincial government about the need for real teeth in terms of heritage acts in this country. For example, in the province of Ontario, within 180 days of a developer purchasing a site with an historic property on it, that property will be demolished. This is a federal, provincial, and municipal responsibility.
In terms of what needs to be done, that is why we are having federal, provincial and municipal orders of government provide us with a registrant of those sites on the registry. We hope to eventually have 20,000 on there because it is important.
There is no alternative. The only alternative is to preserve it. I do not accept demolition or decay as options. Now that we have the political will, which the member talked about, and we obviously have it federally, provincially and municipally, we now have the tools to act responsibly in the public good.
This is good public policy. I expect all members will support the legislation as we move forward.