Mr. Speaker, I would really like to thank my hon. colleague from Laurentides—Labelle for his excellent motion, Motion No. 441, which calls for a review of the Vessel Operation Restriction Regulations.
Basically, this motion wants to give greater flexibility to municipalities, especially rural municipalities, that have lakes or rivers within their territory, including waterways that some people might be abusing by failing to respect others regarding the use of vessels. My NDP colleague's motion will give those municipalities greater flexibility by giving municipal laws more teeth in order to deal with such people who disrespect these rules.
I would remind the House that navigation falls under federal jurisdiction. We should therefore be able to expect the federal government to take its role seriously and actively help the municipalities regulate navigation practices on their waterways.
Unfortunately, there is a vacuum in this area. As some of my colleagues have pointed out, perhaps the existing regulations are not up to date. The way Canadians, Quebeckers and the people of Saguenay use waterways has evolved over time. It is time to build a new partnership between the federal government and municipalities, in order to properly regulate recreational and commercial navigation practices on our waters.
We believe that the municipalities should have greater powers to propose changes to the management of waterways in their territories.
The municipal level is the one closest to the people. It is well positioned to ensure social peace on this issue. I mentioned social peace because, unfortunately, there are a lot of complaints. I come from a rural area, Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, and I represent the riding of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, which has one large city and many small municipalities.
As my colleagues have said, the current process is very expensive and is imposed on small municipalities by the federal government. The municipalities have to pay dearly in order to have their say on how their bodies of water are used.
I am proud to tell my NDP colleague that his motion even has the support of the municipalities in my riding. I have here a letter from Rivière-Éternité, a charming village of about 500 people. With so few inhabitants, its financial means are already limited. It already has many priorities for municipal investment in infrastructure, such as a clean drinking water supply, waste water treatment and roads.
Managing these priorities is taken somewhat for granted by large cities. However, small municipalities are not rich, nor is the provincial government. The federal government can be of greater assistance. We are not even asking for money; we are only asking to make things a little easier for small municipalities.
The Rivière-Éternité municipal council wrote a letter stating its support for Motion No. 441, which asks the Government of Canada to carry out a review of the Vessel Operation Restriction Regulations. It points out that this motion addresses the concerns of many municipalities and that, moreover, the review of the regulations would foster the standardization of uses among the various users on bodies of water. He attached his resolution to this letter.
My Conservative colleague seemed to suggest that the government will vote against the motion. I regret that, because the Conservatives are showing how out of touch with reality they are. The NDP represents all regions in Canada—urban regions and rural regions. This is a rural issue. In 2011, during the federal election, the Conservatives slogan in my region was, ironically, "Our region in power". We see that the government has abandoned the regions. That is very unfortunate.
A government must represent everyone, whether they live in major cities or in outlying areas. As my colleague from Victoria said, we have the opportunity to work in a non-partisan manner on this issue. It is not a political issue. It will be good for rural regions in British Columbia and the prairies as well as for those in Quebec and Ontario.
We can all work together, and I believe that mayors from Conservative and Liberal municipalities would be very happy to see us set partisanship aside in order to work on this issue with them. The process is currently extremely complicated when municipalities want to regulate what happens on their waters.
I would like to explain the process. First, the municipalities must conduct a three-step consultation. Then, they must look at solutions other than regulations, then they must make a request to put restrictions on the body of water. Finally, through a complicated process, the Office of Boating Safety examines the file and ensures that it meets the requirements of the Cabinet Directive on Streamlining Regulation.
My colleague from Laurentides—Labelle brought out the document that is given to municipalities that want to change regulations for their waterways. It is not realistic, and the Conservative government is creating a lot of red tape for the municipalities. Municipalities do not have a lot of financial resources to dedicate to this long and tedious process, especially if we are talking about a municipality with 500 residents.
For example, the municipality of Rivière-Eternity has very few employees, because small municipalities have little room to manoeuvre. They therefore cannot hire someone specifically to work with this long process, which is not very practical. I referred to the support from Rivière-Éternité, but I should also mention Saint-Fulgence, a municipality of about 2,000 people in my riding. Their town council also passed a resolution to support the NDP initiative.
As I said earlier, the process is so long and tedious that municipalities often turn to other solutions, specifically codes of ethics. First, I would like to commend the municipalities for trying to find alternative solutions, despite all the obstacles that the Conservative government puts in their way. Unfortunately, a code of ethics is not mandatory, and municipalities would like to have more power and more regulatory control over what happens on their lakes and rivers. Their goal is not to prevent the majority of their community from enjoying water activities. However, we know that some people have a little less respect for the rest of the community and they may be a little selfish about how they do things. Smaller municipalities should be given more power precisely to handle these few people who are a threat to social peace and the collective good.
Municipalities therefore use codes of ethics to better manage navigation on their lakes. Even though we support such codes of ethics, they rely on people's good will. It is very problematic for people who resist the constraints that municipalities impose. People can pretty much ignore these codes because there is no law to legitimize them.
It comes down to the fact that the government has jurisdiction over navigation on waterways. It should therefore be up to the federal government to introduce a bill to do a better job of helping these municipalities. It has not done so for many years, which is why my NDP colleague had no choice but to do it himself. He represents a beautiful riding in Canada's boreal region, which is also where my riding is. He did an incredible job consulting people on this, and I would like to congratulate him on that. At the time I was writing my speech, over 40 municipalities, most of them in Quebec, had each expressed support for the motion. That is quite impressive.
In closing, I would add that this is also good for the environment. Enabling municipalities to better manage navigation on their waterways and to limit the presence of motorized vessels will help us do a better job of protecting the environment. This is good for everyone: for people, for municipalities and for the environment. Why would the Conservatives vote against it?