Keith Martin

[Special Import Measures Act, September 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on Bill C-35. I would like to thank my colleagues from the government and all members in the House today who have allowed me to speak for 10 minutes on Bill C-35 which is the Special Import Measures Act. This is an important bill. It goes into some extremely important issues that are affecting my constituents in British Columbia and are affecting Canadians across this land.

British Columbia has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn the whole country has seen. Some people point legitimately to the Asian flu and others point to the Russian meltdown. Although those have had a contributory effect, there is much we can do within our own house to rectify the situation at least in part. I would ask the government to please look into this.

To the government's credit, it has actually employed something from Industry Canada that has improved the Small Business Loans Act. It is going to provide small businesses with an added amount of capital which will enable them to restructure and work on their businesses and become more competitive.

One of the problems is that the private sector is finding it increasingly difficult to actually work in today's environment. I am going to illustrate some of these areas and try to develop some solutions that exist and which we can use in this House. We can gather together with other Canadians and even our provincial counterparts to employ them in the policy area to help the private sector employ more Canadians and become more competitive in an economic environment which is becoming increasingly more global and more competitive.

The first area which I alluded to yesterday was our high taxation rates. The high taxation rates today when we compare them to the situation down south are quite traumatic. An American two-earner family will take home 44% more in their pockets than a Canadian two-earner family. That is a significant difference. Also, the top marginal tax brackets make it very difficult for business people to invest in their businesses.

Some very interesting work has been done on surtaxes. If we look at the many surtaxes that now exist in our country, those surtaxes significantly compromise people to invest in companies, hire more people and invest in the future of the country. It is estimated that a $1 extra surtax would actually diminish productivity by about $64. The reason is that taxing more at the top end or adding more taxes on to anybody actually decreases the amount of investment that goes into the private sector. The behaviour of individuals is such that they work less and because they work less, less money is paid in taxes to come back to the public coffers.

Not only do we have a decrease in competitiveness by taxing more, we also have a decrease in the ability of people to work harder and a diminishment of money that comes into the public coffers. What does that do to the most disadvantaged people in our country? With less money coming into the public coffers, less money is available for our social programs, for health care, education, pensions and others.

In the Conservative regime, I believe it was in 1992 when Mr. Mulroney actually decreased taxes for a short period of time and there was an actual increase in the amount of money going into the public coffers. This would have provided governments with more money for programs necessary to help the most underprivileged in our country, to help our health care system and to provide for the educational framework our young people desperately need to become employable in the future. After that the Conservative government then taxed more which actually resulted in a decrease in money going into the public coffers. This is very significant and something we cannot ignore.

The other added factor of increasing taxes is that it actually drives our best and brightest to south of the border and to other countries. It also drives Canadian companies to other countries. We have had a massive brain drain. In my profession among physicians, some of our best specialists, particularly our orthopaedic surgeons and neurosurgeons have gone south of border, two-thirds of our neurosurgeons and one-third of our orthopaedic surgeons.

We are going to have a gap in specialists in nephrology dealing with people with kidney problems. We are going to lose about 40 people from this country over the next 10 years. This is a significant problem given the fact that more and more people are actually going to need specialist care for renal problems.

The cause of this is the high taxation rates and the dampening effect of the egregious rules and regulations that we have which prevent the private sector from being as aggressive as it can be.

One of the things that is killing our private sector, if we speak to the business community, is the corporate surtaxes, the surtaxes that occur in specific businesses. There is also the capital gains tax which is preventing them from being able to sell their businesses and properties and reinvest that money in their own companies. That is why a lot of companies are holding onto their assets. The corporate tax rate is a huge disincentive. If they sell their assets the capital gains will be so high they will incur a loss.

The status quo with high taxes, and specifically with the capital gains tax on corporations, causes an inertia within the system that prevents companies from generating the finances to reinvest within their own companies. The government should carefully look at removing those taxes. It would benefit the people who are most disadvantaged in our society. If companies cannot hire, people will be unemployed. That causes a greater demand on our social programs and also, from a societal perspective, greater social problems.

We could also create strategic alliances. The Canadian Export Development Corporation has been very much an innovator in developing ideas of strategic partnerships. I implore the government and companies to look at strategic alliances where companies that have different areas of specialty can work together to further a particular product. That situation can even occur across borders.

A natural alliance would be the United States. There are companies in the U.S. and Canada that have specialties in certain areas. If they were to form strategic partnerships they could be a very aggressive tool and an effective marketer of their particular business abroad. Since we live in an era of globalization, that would make Canada a more effective competitor internationally.

Years ago I tried to take all the best ideas I could find from Canadians across the country and put them on my website. The private sector could then extract the information and use it to their advantage. I know there are members of the House who will be working very hard to stimulate companies in their ridings to be more effective.

Although we support Bill C-35, there are some amendments that could be made. Examples have been put forth by my colleagues with respect to baby food. Heinz got a monopoly because the public interest was not taken into consideration. Those things must be carefully looked at when dealing with international trade issues.

The government has to deal with decreasing taxes in an effective manner, looking at innovative ways in which it can provide a lower tax rate for people in the lowest socioeconomic area. If these things can be done we will be able to provide a better state of affairs for Canadians across the country.

The government can also increase the foreign ownership maximum on RRSPs from 20% to 30%. With the lack of confidence that Canadians have in the CPP, it would be very important and useful for the government to give Canadians the option of helping themselves by enabling them to increase the foreign ownership content of their RRSPs.

[Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 1998, September 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak on Bill S-16 which deals with double taxation with the countries of Vietnam, Croatia and Chile. This is very important.

Double taxation has often been seen as a real hamstring to our private sector. The removal of double taxation also enables developing countries in particular to develop a stronger economy in the future. It also enables companies in other countries to work effectively.

The end effect of the removal of double taxation actually lowers the taxation levels for the private sector so the private sector can engage effectively in these countries. We should strive to ensure that taxation occurs only in one country rather than two.

In the case of South Africa, the removal of double taxation which took place a few years ago was very effective and helped to stimulate investment in that country in a very effective way. It all boils down to a way of improving development in developing countries. It also helps the neediest people in those countries.

The government needs to address the aspect of taxation within our country. As we know, the taxation levels here are probably the greatest barrier to the ability of our private sector to be competitive. In comparing our situation to that of the United States, couples with two incomes are actually earning 44% more take-home pay than an equivalent couple in Canada.

Businesses are labouring under a tax level that is at least 13% greater in Canada. It hamstrings the ability of our private sector to be competitive with countries down south and, as a result, has contributed to brain drain and the inability of our private sector to be as aggressive as it could be.

I would ask the government to look at the egregious rules and regulations that hamstring our private sector. We continue to put rule after rule after regulation on the books without taking a step back and looking at whether the rules and regulations are necessary. It would be wonderful if the finance committee created a subcommittee and utilized the private sector and its experience to look at the rules and regulations that exist on the books and remove the ones that are ineffective. By doing this we would greatly improve the nimbleness and efficiency of the private sector and, by doing so, enable the private sector to hire more individuals and be increasingly competitive in the global economy.

We need to look more carefully at research and development. Research and development is a cornerstone and a pillar of our economy. Right now we are at the bottom of the barrel of all OECD nations.

Education needs to be spruced up. We need to look at how education can better reflect the needs of our economy in the future. I would ask the government to work with its provincial counterparts in developing a think tank to ensure that our post-secondary institutions and students can better understand the needs of the future and thereby get skills.

There is also room for looking at the European experience in non-post-secondary university type settings where people can get the technical skills that are going to be required in the future. This does not require a university education. The technical skills are desperately needed in our country today and will be needed in the future. The government can certainly take a leadership role along with its provincial counterparts in creating institutions which will teach technical skills to our youth.

This bill comes from the Senate. Our party has spoken at length about the Senate and the desire of many members of the House, as well as many others, to have a democratic Senate. Senators have recently been appointed by the Prime Minister. If the hallmark of democracy is the ability of the people to vote for their representatives in this House, the Senate fails.

There are many good people in the Senate, but there are some who are not pulling their weight. It would benefit all members of the Senate, the good ones in particular, if we were to have an elected Senate. If we had an elected Senate people from all across the country, the best and the brightest, could become candidates. The Canadian people could then decide. We would have a much more vigorous Senate. It would truly be a House of sober second thought which could more effectively work with members of parliament to provide the best legislation to Canadians.

In closing, I would like to move an amendment, seconded by the hon. member for Surrey North, which reads:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following therefor:

“this House declines to give second reading to Bill S-16, an act to implement an agreement between Canada and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, an agreement between Canada and the Republic of Croatia and a convention between Canada and the Republic of Chile, for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income, since the principle of the bill which was proposed by the unelected Senate fails to address the matter of the Prime Minister's refusal to respect the democratic rights of Albertans when he appointed a former Tory MP to the Senate.”

[Supply, September 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from the Conservative Party. He is right on.

Unfortunately I think this bill, as my friend mentioned, is a political bill meant to pit urban versus rural voters. It is meant to seduce the urban votership onto the side of the government by the government looking like it is the big defender of the public good.

The facts are that everybody in this House wants to make our streets as safe as possible. We are in favour of the firearms acquisition certificate, the courses, the rules and regulations, the criminal checks that do our best to ensure that people who should not have access to guns do not have them, as opposed to the situation in the United States which we completely abhor and which the Reform Party opposes greatly.

The last point I want to make is on suicide. If we are truly interested in decreasing suicides, we can take the money from gun registration and put it into health care where it should be to treat people with depression.

[Supply, September 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member mentioned that because, as an emergency room physician, I have seen a lot of people kill themselves, the vast majority of whom did not use guns. Let us take the issue at hand.

All of us in this House would love to prevent suicides. I am glad the hon. member mentioned the issue that suicide can be impulsive. It can also be a part of an ongoing major depression and the person can be ruminating about this for a long time.

However, if somebody was going to be suicidal and they wanted to get a gun to kill themselves, in order to do that today without gun registration, it would take them six to nine months before they even get a gun because they have to go through a firearms acquisition certificate, they have to take a course, they have to go and buy the gun.

So if somebody was going to kill themselves, they would not go through that. They would find many other ways of killing themselves, which most people do.

The hon. member mentioned somebody killing themselves because a gun was available in the house. How would gun registration actually prevent that from happening? Indeed it would not because we already—

[Supply, September 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on the Reform motion which refutes many of the fallacies about Bill C-68.

I say at the outset that if Bill C-68 would make our streets safer the Reform Party would support it. However, it is for the reason that Bill C-68 is going to make our streets less safe that we oppose it. I will get to the reason why.

Half of Bill C-68 is good. Half of it involves penalties for the criminal use of guns. We support that. We have been fighting for it for many years. Half of it, however, will make our streets less safe.

Point one is the registration of guns. In this country two-thirds of the people who are murdered are murdered with a weapon that is not a gun. One-third die of gunshot wounds. Of that one-third, which amounts roughly to 225 people, the number that die with a registered handgun is five.

The point I am trying to make is that the cost of gun registration is going to be hundreds of millions of dollars and the government's estimate is over $1 billion. That money has to come from somewhere. It is going to come in part from the pockets of the citizens of this country. But in large part it is going to come out of the functional arm of justice. That means if we are going to remove money from the RCMP, if we are going to remove money from the police forces we had better make sure that where we are putting it has better bang for the buck. But the reality is it will not.

We are going to have fewer RCMP officers hired, less equipment, fewer training opportunities for them and in short, if we are going to have fewer officers training, those officers are going to be less able to arrest criminals.

One Liberal member I spoke to during debate some years ago said if we can save five people, then we have saved five people. I said to him if it is going to cost $500 million or $1 billion to save five people, is that worth it. He said any price is worth it. Although we cannot put a price or a value on human life the reality is money does not grow on trees and the money is being taken away from the functional arm of justice and will make our streets less safe. That is the fundamental issue of why we do not support this bill.

The former minister of justice appeared before the committee and gave the reasons. One is that it will decrease murder. We have proven that it will not. The second reason is that the minister said it will decrease suicides. If a person is depressed and is going to kill themselves, do they go out and get a firearms acquisition certificate, take a course, wait six months to get a gun and blow their head off? No, they do not.

The facts are that gun registration will do nothing to decrease the suicide rate. Will it help the police? In a domestic dispute situation the police always go in with a view that a dangerous weapon is on hand. This is standard procedure.

The members across the way have said that the police support this. If that is the case why did 91% of the RCMP officers in Saskatchewan and 85% of the police officers in Alberta not support this? The men and women on the front lines of justice in this country know full well that the money is going to come out of their funds to fight crime. They know gun registration does not work.

Does this decrease accidental death? Accidental death with a firearm is a function of the use of that firearm. If a person has registered that firearm, leaves it loaded on his or her bed and the children come in to play with it and shoot themselves or someone else and someone dies, that is a tragedy of youth. It is a tragedy of people not using guns properly. Gun registration will do nothing for that.

Contrary to the member across the way who talks about all the good things that we have, implying that we do not have issues such as the firearms acquisition certificates, storage rules and regulations and trigger locks for handguns, we have those and the Reform Party supports those. We believe, as does the government, that these are going to make our streets safer and are effective.

However, our view is that we are simply not going to pursue or support a bill that is going to make our streets less safe. That is why we have been so vocal about this for so long.

If the government were truly interested in decreasing crime then it would hit crime where it counts. The problem in this country today is that we have rules and regulations on the boards that are simply not being implemented. Most of the criminal activity with the use of firearms is done by criminals using illegal firearms. When those people commit an offence with a firearm what happens? They often get the firearms offence plea bargained away or to run concurrently with the other offence. What message does that send to the criminals?

It tells the criminals to go ahead and use a firearm because all they will get is no penalty or a penalty that runs concurrently with their other sentence. This means that there is no penalty whatsoever for those people who use firearms in the commission of an offence. That is what our party has been fighting for so long.

What we all want to do is to ensure that criminals are not going to be using firearms. What we must do is enforce the law. If somebody is using a firearm in the commission of an offence then we should take that and run the sentence consecutively, not concurrently. We must stop plea bargaining away those sentences. If a criminal is guilty of pulling out a gun in the commission of a robbery then we should hit them with the book. We must make sure they pay the penalty so they know they will not get off scot free when using firearms.

We also have to do something about the egregious situation we have in the country concerning the trafficking of firearms between our country and the United States. The penalties for trafficking are there but they are not being applied. Trafficking is taking place, for example, on certain reserves in Quebec and the RCMP are sitting back and are being told, from what I understand, not to intervene. That is a serious problem because it ties the hands of our law enforcement officers when these offences are occurring in front of their eyes. Furthermore, it puts into jeopardy the lives and welfare of aboriginal people on those reserves and the people outside the reserves.

Good effective justice and good effective laws would ensure that the laws of this country are being applied in the courts and not merely pushed underneath the carpet. That is what we are in favour of. In that way we can hit the criminals and leave the law abiding citizens out of it.

It is a serious offence for law abiding citizens, who have never been a criminal in their lives, to transfer their guns to their children and loved ones. Some of these guns are very valuable to them but the government is violating their rights as property owners. We would not be in favour of just allowing guns to go to people who do not have to go through the proper criminal checks, firearms acquisition certificate application process that law abiding firearm owners have to pursue.

We support that but we oppose vehemently the government's violation of people's rights to merely take those guns away from them with no recourse whatsoever.

I would ask any member of the government to tell us how that is going to make our streets safer. If we look at history and what has been taking place in other countries where they have applied and implemented gun registration, it is proven that it does not work. In Australia it did not work.

As members across the way and the government have clearly said repeatedly, this may not make our streets safer. If it is not going to make our streets safer, if it is not going to save Canadian lives, if it is not going to increase the safety of people, if it is not going to improve the ability of the police to do their job, then why do it?

Why support something that is going to make our streets less safe and hamstring the ability of our police officers to do their job by tearing away the resources that they require to keep our streets safer?

The government needs to pursue the enforcement of the laws of this land when it comes to guns. It needs to scrap the idea of gun registration. It needs to apply the penalties for trafficking. It needs to work with us on effective measures to prevent crime and give the police the tools to do their job, as well as clean up our legal system and the judicial structure we have that hamstrings and ties the hands of our police officers in doing their job to keep our streets safer.

[Supply, September 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to what the hon. government member was saying. The hon. member said that the bill was not about decreasing crime and then went on to tell a tragic story about an accidental death.

I will repeat what my hon. colleague mentioned. How would gun registration actually decrease accidental deaths? Is the member aware of something called opportunity cost? If money is taken from

a and put into b

, in this case money from the functional arm of justice being put into gun registration where it is proven to have less effect than leaving it with the RCMP right now, how does he account for his government's desire to pull hundreds of millions of dollars out of the functional arm of justice and put it into gun registration which is proven not to make our streets safer?

[National Parks Act, June 12th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on Bill C-38. The Reform Party will be supporting it in our efforts to support conservation in Canada. However, I am greatly disappointed in the activities of this government over the past year with respect to protecting our endangered species and our parks.

I wonder if the hon. secretary of state knows that what is going on in the Arctic today is truly a tragedy. Teratogenic and carcinogenic materials in the form of radioactive isotopes are coming across to the northern Arctic. They are poisoning the Inuit people who live there. Those materials are bioaccumulating in the flora and fauna and causing serious trouble for the environment. Some of these isotopes will not go away for hundreds of thousands of years. We hear absolutely nothing about it yet the government has been warned repeatedly over the years. I would strongly recommend the government look into that.

Over 240 species are at risk in Canada today, including the prothonotary warbler, beaked whales, Mississauga rattlesnakes, black-footed ferrets, Vancouver Island marmots and many others. The people who are trying to preserve these species are not getting the help they require.

The minister of heritage has taken a knee-jerk response to Banff. She has done the exact opposite of what she should be doing. She should be enabling the people of Banff to generate the necessary funds to not only protect their wild spaces but also to expand the park.

I have heard the hon. secretary of state speak eloquently about this so he knows very well that the degradation of our environment and the destruction of our habitat seriously threaten endangered species. In a nutshell, we have to give endangered species a home. We cannot kill them. We have to protect them and we have to work with the people to do that.

There are many serious threats, from the destruction of our habitat to trafficking. Canada is one of top 10 countries in the world in the international trafficking of endangered species. There is trafficking of tiger parts, black rhino horn and many other endangered species around the world. That is not part of the Canadian legacy and it is not something we should be proud of having within our midst.

There is the issue of lack of support for our conservation staff. There are difficulties and jurisdictional problems between the feds, the provinces and the municipalities.

These issues have to be cleared up in a very substantive way for many reasons. One reason is that we have derived many medicinal and other benefits. We will derive more in the future if we can preserve these species for the benefit of all, not to mention the philosophical benefits of being able to give to our children what we have received from our parents.

There are some sensible solutions. What has worked around the world has been to get parks and wild spaces to generate their own funds. If parks and wild spaces can earn revenue, that revenue can be ploughed back into the parks. This is a very sensible and eco-friendly way to preserve and expand the parks.

Buffer zones could be created around the parks and the people living in the surrounding areas could derive benefits. When the people in the surrounding areas derive a benefit from the park they can use the area as a poaching buffer zone around the park. Different parks around the world have used this strategy. It has worked very well in Central America and elsewhere.

It could also be a very useful way of engaging developing countries in creating revenues in an eco-friendly way. Parks in south central Asia and Africa could generate revenues that would benefit the people in the surrounding area in a sustainable way. It enables people to support themselves.

In terms of the jurisdiction of the environment we have to clean that up. Currently federal regulations only cover 4% of the Canadian land mass. Species do not know boundaries. They cross over municipal, provincial and national boundaries. They need to be protected within that context. We have to remove the jurisdictional entanglements that prevent strong legislation from coming forward to protect our endangered species.

The trafficking situation is appalling. We have to have enough conservation officers and we have to give them the powers to enforce the laws. They are not getting the support of the justice system. They must do this for Canada to end its miserable legacy that it has before the world in being a conduit for wild animal parts.

I recognize that there are no new moneys, but funds can be generated through using the parks in an eco-friendly way. One example is to put a 2% levy on hotels deriving benefits from the parks. Those moneys could be poured back into the parks for conservation measures, habitat protection, extending the habitat, doing scientific research and education. In this way we would not have to ask the government for more money. The money would be there.

Hunting is actually useful. I do not hunt as I could never kill anything, but as has worked in the past, if money could be derived from hunting, those moneys which could be quite extensive could be poured back into the parks and used to preserve many of the other species. It might sound cold hearted but it is pragmatic and it does work.

We also have to deal with enforcing our obligations under CITES, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species. We are a signatory to this convention but as I said before, we have been an embarrassment with respect to our enforcement of those issues.

We have a number of opportunities within our midst. The power of the federal government is enormous. It has to sit down with its provincial counterparts to establish jurisdictional differences. Perhaps it would be best for the federal government to take the responsibility and work with the municipalities. It also needs to work with farmers and land owners. They could be a natural support for conservation measures. Where that has been done on the prairies it has worked very well.

Generally speaking land owners do not want to see the decimation of the biodiversity within their midst. They would like to see that preserved for many reasons, yet they need people to work with them. If the government could manage to work with them then we would be able to expand our biodiversity and use the private land owners as friends rather than as enemies. This could be a useful way of expanding today's situation.

I will go back to the situation on trafficking. We live in a world that is intertwined; what happens half a world away affects us here at home. Canada has taken a leadership role in signing international treaties on biodiversity in the past. The world needs a leader in working with other countries in this area.

We have to put aside our prejudices and deal with some very pragmatic ways in which we can support our environment. Yes, it does take money. One of the things we could examine is that the environment can generate revenues in an environmentally sound, pragmatic and sustainable manner and those moneys could then be poured back into the environment.

When the minister prevented development within the city boundaries of Banff, that was not sensible. This did not involve an encroachment on the park. The minister could have taken a leadership role. She could have said that it would be allowed within the park so long as it fit certain federal regulations with respect to the environment. If the minister had done that and taken a leadership role in putting forth sensible ways for the park to generate revenues which could be poured into the conservation measures, Banff National Park would be stronger today.

[National Parks Act, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, for clarification, this does relate in particular to Motion No. 1. We are talking about the development of a new park. I hope I was presenting some constructive solutions that he might take to the minister that can be applied to the new park.

As I mentioned before, one of the threats to the parks, be it the park mentioned in Motion No. 1 or any other park, is the threat to habitat. The threats to Banff National Park and the threats to Tuktut Nogait are one in the same in many ways.

I would implore the minister, rather than penalizing the parks, to use the model of the World Wildlife Fund. Those funds could be generated by a surcharge of 1% or 2% on hotel accommodations and other tourist facilities and that money could be directed back into the park for the development of habitat. If we do not do that we will be in trouble.

We as a country are one of the leading conduits of endangered and threatened species from around the world. Animal parts from tigers to rhinos to endangered birds are coming into Canada and being distributed around the world. We are a major conduit. Poachers and traffickers of endangered species know this. They are using our country illegally for this illicit trade that is destroying populations of threatened species around the world. Money is required to combat that. This is a way we could generate the money to give our conservation officers the ability to preserve flora and fauna not only in our country but around the world.

[National Parks Act, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for allowing me the opportunity to speak to Motions Nos. 1 and 2.

Bill C-38 will create a new national park. The creation of national parks is important. The minister has said before that one of the objectives of this government is to expand the habitat of our national parks and we agree with that objective. However, it is important for her to realize that with the expansion of the parks the individuals within those parks will be unable to raise the money to develop them because there will be no new funds.

How will we manage to develop parks such as Tuktut Nogait? How will we manage to buy the land and provide the money for the conservation officers, the habitat protection, the scientific research and the equipment that is required to be able to manage these parks?

The minister should look at some of the good work that is being done by the World Wildlife Fund. The World Wildlife Fund has utilized a basic theory in various parts of the world, including Central America where a number of species, including the golden lion tamarin, were becoming extinct. They asked themselves “How do we manage to rescue these animals when we do not have very much money”? They utilized the basic theory that parks have to pay for themselves. They utilized the park and were able to generate revenues in an environmentally sound fashion. With those revenues they managed to hire park staff, to do research and to expand the park to the surrounding areas. They also used the revenues for health care, education and many other services.

By doing that they created a buffer zone around the park. The people took ownership of the park themselves because they derived benefits from it and they saw the value of the park in their own lives. Without any new funds they expanded the habitat of the park. They managed to raise funds to research the flora an fauna within the park and saved many useful species that were becoming extinct. This was accomplished without using any new revenue. It was extremely clever. We need to learn from this experience.

There is not any new money, but parks have an unusual ability to raise funds and use the funds for expansion. As Motion No. 1 attests, the development of habitat is exceedingly important in the ability of flora and fauna to exist. The destruction of flora and fauna is intimately entwined with the destruction of habitat. Therefore, the expansion of habitat is exceedingly important in saving flora and fauna.

How do we manage to expand and develop a park such as the one mentioned in Motion No. 1, or Banff, without providing new money? We can do that by generating revenues within the park.

I will use Banff as an example.

Banff has an ability to raise funds. The people within Banff are asking for 850,000 square feet of land to be developed within the boundaries of the city. They do not want to expand Banff into other areas. This is exceedingly important to understand. They will be able to generate funds from that development. Within the boundaries of the park that money could be poured back into Banff National Park for the expansion of the habitat and the development of conservation initiatives. That would give the conservation officers the tools they need to do their job.

One of the biggest problems we have is that our conservation officers do not have the tools. The argument that was put forth by the minister was that conservation officers are spending too much time on developmental work. If we want to give conservation officers the necessary tools, we should use the money generated from the development of the park. That money could easily be put back into the park as designated revenues, rather than general revenues, to be used for something completely different.

Some places in the world charge a 1% or a 2% surcharge on hotel accommodations and other tourist facilities. That money is designated for park services.

This would help our threatened flora and fauna. It would enable the minister to fulfil her objective in expanding habitat and providing funds to preserve our wilderness areas.

The models around the world which are used by the World Wildlife Fund and others can be adopted in Canada. However, we have to have the political will to do that. I hope the minister sees the opportunity to generate revenues within the parks which could be used to preserve them.

[National Parks Act, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak at the report stage of Bill C-38.

The Reform Party will support Motion No. 1, which will change the name of the new national park to Tuktut Nogait.

We feel that Motion No. 2 is unnecessary. It is an amendment that is covered already under Bill C-38. The Reform Party will be opposing that motion.

The third motion, which was put forward by the Bloc, changes the boundaries of the park which will allow exploration for minerals in an area that is a calving ground for bluenose caribou, and we will be opposing that motion.

I would be remiss in not using this time as an opportunity to castigate the minister for her short-sighted views on Banff National Park. The government has done some good work with Bill C-38, but it is also missing the boat.

The minister said that one of the greatest goals that exists—