Mr. Speaker, I must say that I am a little surprised that the hon. member chose to bring these points forward at this time. I have no problem offering a rebuttal, but usually on private members' business a member would take that opportunity to walk across the floor and speak to the member supporting the bill.
Obviously the bill does incur some financial obligation on the government if it were to pass in its present format. The suggestion would be that all of those details could be looked after at committee.
This bill, or versions of it, has now come to the House for the third time. It has passed the Senate. It was passed in the last Parliament by the Senate. What we are actually dealing with here is property that is incurring a federal cost now. This property is already owned by the federal government so we are spending money for the upkeep of lighthouses. We are not putting new costs in here.
Because many of these lighthouses are being divested to private ownership, we are asking that in the future the owners, be they provincial, municipal or private, would have some responsibility to keep at least the physical outside of the lighthouse in the condition that would speak to its heritage and the era in which it was built.
As far as additional federal costs, actually less federal money would be spent in the future on lighthouses than there is now. To this day, there is a federal cost to lighthouses. I do not understand the logic of the member's intervention.