Thank you, Mr. Speaker, later today I will be tabling the submission by the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, the Paulatuk Community Corporation and the Inuvialuit Game Council to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage as part of its review of Bill C-38, a bill to establish the Tuktut Nogait National Park. As Members will recall, in February of this year the various Inuvialuit organizations requested a review of the boundaries of the proposed park to take into consideration new mineral information arising from an aeromagnetic survey flown last fall. The Government of the Northwest Territories agreed to that request, making five of the six signatories willing to consider a change.
The possibility for a review was foreseen under Section 22.1 of the Park Agreement which allows any party to request that the other parties to the agreement review any matter. Unfortunately, the federal government did not see fit to accept this request. In fact, what Ottawa did was to speed up consideration of this bill even though no legislation has been forthcoming to create the Aulavik National Park on Bank's Island, a park which was agreed to several years before the Tuktut Nogait Park agreement was signed.
As the submission covers all the necessary points, I will not repeat them today. However, I do believe one issue of importance to all northerners must be underlined. That is the matter of one set of rules for land and parks south of the 60 and a different set north of the 60. As Members may be aware, Parks Canada just approved a large increase in the number of visitors and hotel facilities permitted in Banff National Park. In effect, this has just shrunk the size of that park significantly. I wonder if the Inuvialuit had Canadian Pacific Hotels as a partner and their land was located closer to Banff and Lake Louise, would the decision on their request be any different? Mr. Speaker, I request unanimous consent to conclude my statement.