Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for South Shore—St. Margaret's for continuing the battle for us to preserve our lighthouse heritage in a far more effective manner than is being done to date.
I would like to follow up on the comments the member has made about what is happening with respect to privatization of our lighthouses. In his view, does the bill before us provide adequate protection against the possibility that in the divestiture processes taking place now a particular lighthouse could be divested to a provincial or municipal government and then, in turn, the provincial or municipal government could end up privatizing it? Is there sufficient protection in the existing legislative framework and further in the bill before us or is it his view that at committee there has to be a strengthening to ensure that in the process of divestiture and then the possible future privatization that the heritage lighthouses are not lost for all time?
In the commercial usage of a lighthouse by a private operator that acquires it from a provincial or municipal government in the divestiture process, are the protections sufficient to ensure that it is not lost from the public domain and, therefore, no protection for our heritage property in that sense?