Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I
want to thank Minister McLeod for his sincerity on this issue. I know tourism is very important to him. He even came by my office today to talk about this. I want to thank him for that, and I want to acknowledge that he does a good job over there.
To this issue, Mr. Chairman. He was bringing the information down as to what’s happening on this line item. I thank him for that. But as I see it, the detail, in my mind, wasn’t there. I had the documentation in front of me. Things like the RV park weren’t there. I would have appreciated if it had been there. I think if Members who now sit in Cabinet over there who claim we don’t see the detail.... The detail isn’t here, as it was stated earlier by the Minister. He said that there would be an RV park. It’s not there. I know other Members would go kicking and screaming if one Minister said, “Really, it’s in between those numbers,” and it’s not.
The fact is that I see this as an excellent group of projects coming through the business plans. I wouldn’t want to pretend I speak on behalf of EDI or any other Member here in this House, but I suspect that they would be very welcome to see this as a potential initiative, and they can deal with it line by line through their process. I don’t sit on the EDI Committee, so I stress I won’t speak on their behalf. But I can’t imagine why they would refuse anything like this.
The issue of the RV park has come up a few times, even mentioned by the Minister as being buried in that airport display money of $600,000. I don’t think it’s to any surprise in this community that I definitely
support RVing. I definitely believe that further investment needs to be there.
But, unfortunately, the business plan doesn’t break that information out, and I think it puts us in a very awkward position to take the Minister at face value in the context that detail will come.