Transport committee  No. We need to amend this bill.

Transport committee  No, I don't. I live in Ottawa, although I have a property in the Pontiac region, which is half an hour from the tail end of Gatineau Park. I know the region very well.

Transport committee  That's nice. How close?

Transport committee  Going back to the other honourable member's point before, this bill should have looked quite different. What we're suggesting—

Transport committee  We need to amend this bill.

Transport committee  Finally, Mr. Chair, if I could, I find it strange in passing that Mr. Jean somehow comes up with the notion that if Mr. Murray is close to the park, it's going to improve the value of his property—after he's worked eight years.

Transport committee  No, it's sideways, at best.

Transport committee  Over the long term, we would.

Transport committee  No, the plan should be on a gradual basis. And there are so many layers to this. Mr. Speyers alluded to the fact that around the greenbelt, the NCC would sell off lands. I remember that, back in the 1990s, when various agencies falling under the Department of Heritage, of which

Transport committee  —but because this is so difficult in and of itself.... A national park is quite frankly a different ball game. This could perhaps be a prelude to it down the road, but....

Transport committee  It looks on the face of it to be a large problem, but as Mr. Murray said, it would be up to the commission whether or not they would acquire that particular property—

Transport committee  Mr. Chairman, notwithstanding, various groups have advocated national park status for Gatineau Park over the years—

Transport committee  Thank you. You raised a number of great points. If you look at it historically, there has been a lot of effort put into the creation of national parks, not just in Canada but in the United States, and they've gone through a lot of pains. The creation of the first parks in the U

Transport committee  Most of them were French. The people on Meech Lake were never expropriated. In this bill we're not advocating for expropriation. That would be the route of a true national park act. We're looking for something special here, and it comes down to right of first refusal. No one is

Transport committee  Over the last decades, a consensus has emerged on Gatineau Park as a result of public and private initiatives, federal-provincial cooperation, NCC consultations, and parliamentary debate. It’s now generally felt that the park legislation must meet basic criteria to be reliable an