Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech and for coming here and presenting the government's viewpoint on the bill, which has certainly not come from the front benches of this establishment. That is something that should always be considered when presenting such an important bill.
I want to talk a bit about Parks Canada, because having lived next to Wood Buffalo National Park for my entire life, I know very well what has happened with national parks in our country.
Under the Liberals' administration, national parks were the whipping boy for program cuts. They have continued that way through this government. In the year 2000, I remember the park superintendent at Wood Buffalo telling me that the park's budget in real dollars was less than it was 20 years before. We are dealing with very large pieces of land that do not have a lot of support in terms of financial resources to do the job that has to be done.
In the Nahanni expansion, I asked Jim Prentice, the minister at the time, to give me a letter outlining what he was going to do for this expansion. He said they were going to put $5 million into capital projects for the Simpson and Nahanni Butte region. That was seven years ago. Nothing has been spent yet. I talked to the director the other day in committee. He said they have $3 million put aside, so over seven years the $5 million has turned into $3 million, and nothing has been built.
What is the best indicator of future performance? It is past performance. How is the government going to improve on its past performance when it comes to putting infrastructure into our national parks?