Madam Speaker, I thank the members for Calgary Shepard, Kootenay—Columbia, and Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier for their support for this bill.
I am pleased to speak once again to Bill C-315, an act to amend the Parks Canada Agency Act. It is a bill to amend the act with regard to the conservation of national historic sites. As I mentioned the last time I spoke to this bill, it would establish separate accounts for individual Parks Canada sites, to which people could donate money and be issued tax receipts for. That money could be kept in a fund, similar to a foundation, and the interest earned on it would be used for the preservation of particular sites.
Again, as I mentioned before, this idea was brought forward during intense discussions about the Rideau Canal a few years ago. When researching the possibility of being able to donate money, we found some interesting things. There was no mechanism for people to donate to specific historic sites managed by Parks Canada. In the last hour of debate on this bill, government members said there already was, but we have done significant research on this and found that not to be the case.
We know there are many people who want to donate. We already heard from the member for Kootenay—Columbia about people along the Rideau Canal who wanted to give money during the significant discussions on the future of the Rideau Canal. The Conservative government at the time announced over $40 million toward infrastructure, and in fairness to the current government, it made announcements after the election supplementing that funding, which is all good news. I think all members support national historic sites and this bill would create a mechanism for those who want to donate to do so, despite several speakers suggesting during the last hour that it is not possible.
There are a number of national historic sites in my riding that are managed by Parks Canada, including Fort Wellington. For example, if a wall were crumbling at Fort Wellington and a friends group wanted to raise money from the public to help repair that wall, it could be organized and accomplished if this bill were to pass. Right now, people can donate to Parks Canada. However, that money goes to the overall Parks Canada budget and does not allow people to donate to specific sites. Many Canadians have an affinity to national historic sites. They visited them as children, they are in their regions, and they have a personal affinity to those sites and want to contribute to them. Right now, there is no mechanism to do that.
I conducted a Google search to see what would happen if I asked how to give money to Parks Canada, and these are some of the sources that I found: “Understanding The Parks Canada Entry Fees”, “Working at Parks Canada”, and “Parks Canada's diversified accommodation reservation policies”. I found a number of different suggestions. On page 4 of the search results, there was a link to the speech I gave just a few weeks ago, but by page 9, the search engine began to refer to peripheral mentions of Parks Canada in speeches and other documents that had little or nothing to do with Parks Canada.
I tried the same search but identifying the Rideau Canal as the only recipient, instead of Parks Canada. By the end of the first page, I found, “Observations on the Inland Navigation of Ireland”. Many members would be familiar with the Redpath Sugar company. It retains in its museum a silver cup that was given to Mr. Redpath by Lieutenant Colonel John By when he was building the Rideau Canal. They are very proud of their connection to the Rideau Canal's heritage and representatives of Redpath wrote a letter in support of this bill. They have also made substantial donations to programs and projects along the canal, but they have not been able to do it specifically for the canal itself.
Earlier today, the Speaker ruled that this bill needed a royal recommendation to be passed. Members come here with private members' bills and we hope they all have an opportunity to look at them. I am encouraging members to vote for this bill and send it to committee so we can find a better way to support Canada's national historic sites.