Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague, who is a good friend and a good representative for his constituency, is absolutely right. We have had difficulty apologizing for some of the inequities of the past, particularly when dealing with situations of land expropriation.
I come from a farm in rural Alberta. Any time there are expropriations it is always very difficult. We have had these discussions at the provincial level as well as land zoning issues when I was on municipal council. As I said at the conclusion of my remarks, we in the House should always be very careful when it comes to making decisions that concern other people's private property.
I will point out that technically the letter of the law was followed by the provincial government that expropriated the land. My understanding of how it worked is that the province expropriated the land on behalf of the federal government in order to turn it over to create a national park. We have beautiful national parks today. I do not believe that anyone would dispute that. They are certainly a treasure to behold. From time to time we do encounter issues with them concerning disputes with adjacent landowners and other barriers during their creation. However, we must say that on a net basis the benefits certainly outweigh some of those costs.
As I said, the law was followed at the time, however it was wrong-headed. I certainly have a lot of empathy for the landowners who had a magnificent way of life and basically were evicted from their properties, albeit by the letter of the law.