Fisheries committee  No.

Fisheries committee  The intent is to meet Treasury Board rules, which, as you've heard, means they have to have a common public purpose. Every single light in B.C.--the province I'm most familiar with--is an operating light. We couldn't imagine them being disposed of to private interests. I don't know about the ones on the Nova Scotia coast.

Fisheries committee  They certainly will be if they're operating lights. In our experience, we're signing a licence of occupation for 30 years at a buck a year with Parks Canada to refurbish and operate the foghorn building.

Fisheries committee  You'll hear about that from the Heritage Canada Foundation, which has done that kind of work. According to Heritage Canada's information--Chris Wiebe was here, I believe--one in six lighthouses in the States built before a certain cutoff period is considered a heritage light. So that's about 600 lighthouses.

Fisheries committee  But I would like to have a few minutes, because there's been a lot of talk about light stations, and this very short presentation will show you what the different light stations look like.

Fisheries committee  This will just take a few minutes. I need to show you the different—

Fisheries committee  Okay. The first one is Peggy's Cove, which is known to all of you and is an operating light station. You'll notice its architecture. It's accessible. You can drive to it. The next one is the Nootka light station. When we talk about access, this shows the importance. Nootka light station is on an island on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Fisheries committee  Okay. Then I commend them to you. I particularly commend the slide of the 52 staffed lighthouses in B.C., which shows you how isolated they are, since that's an important point—there are no communities in many of those areas—and also of the East Point foghorn building, which is being resurrected by my community.

Fisheries committee  First of all, it's a pleasure to be back here in the House of Commons, where I served two terms as the MP for Vancouver Centre from 1980 to 1988 before being called to the Senate in 1990. It's also an honour to appear before you to present my private member's bill, Bill S-215 , an act to protect heritage lighthouses.