Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières. One thing is certain when it comes to the environment: we have to make sure that, if this bill is passed, we see it written in the law, in black and white, that Gatineau Park will not be altered.
I know the bill also affects Ottawa’s greenbelt, and other regions might benefit from Quebec’s demand in this regard. We must not alter any form in which our green heritage may exist, including Gatineau Park, the Gatineau River, the shoreline of the Ottawa River—which, I hope, will one day be the Kitchissippi River. This legislation has to abide by the principle that any change must not alter the environment, or at least must not harm it. We can improve a situation, but we must not go from there to development for the sake of development. There is a limit.
There is also a difficult question. Land inside Gatineau Park must not be sold to create little villages for the ultra-rich. In La Pêche, all of the francophones had their land expropriated. Around Meech Lake, I swear that the people are a fair bit richer, and it was not necessarily francophones who were living there, although their land was not expropriated. But they are still in the heart of Gatineau Park. That hurts, and it is the federal government that did this to us.