Mr. Speaker, I am happy to hear from the member for Burnaby—Douglas, who has been a good advocate for Vancouver and that area. He is right in expressing concern about this.
One of the important things a local board can do with some type of representation is reduce conflict before it happens. It is able to identify those issues that might be problematic to the adjacent property owners, the adjacent users and, on top of that, the regional people they are serving. Those elements come to the surface a lot more quickly then than they do by having somebody appointed from Ottawa from some dark chamber somewhere. We are talking about having people on the ground floor who are able to deal with the issues on a regular basis and are able to unplug some of the difficult problems before they manifest themselves.
When we look at the reduction of boards, it sounds great. We want to reduce these elements, but at the same time, if we do not do it with the concept of being proactive, wanting to reduce conflict and having the foresight to think about what the community will be in 25, 50 and 75 years because we and our families are being raised there, we will lose an element that is very important for the strategic connection between a port and its community.