Mr. Speaker, I compliment our transport critic, the member for Niagara Falls, on an excellent and thoughtful speech. He really hit the nail on the head. He hit the root issue, which is the whole issue of property rights.
The disturbing trend that we find in Canada is that certain big issues under the rubric of property rights are not properly addressed. A few of them are the endangered species legislation in the last Parliament in terms of not respecting property owners; this issue here with the people around Mirabel; the issue of intellectual property rights; and the issue of ratifying the WIPO treaty and respecting the artists and creators we have here in Canada in terms of upgrading our copyright legislation.
However the member really hits the nail on the head when he says that it is a matter of respect for property rights, property rights being defined as having the right to own property and not being deprived thereof without fair market compensation.
The minister mentioned public interest. We recognize that but fair market compensation should then be applied. The fact is that people in this area were paid about $210 an acre in 1969, but in 1970 the government then paid $2,000 an acre to expropriate land for the airport it was planning to construct in Pickering, Ontario.
I just want the member to expand on that issue and expand on the whole issue of property rights and fair market compensation for the fact that people own land and should not be deprived thereof.