MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for the District
of Port de Grave.
MR. BUTLER:
Mr. Speaker, I am proud today to
stand with this petition and I can assure you I will
read it into the record, on your ruling today, even
though it has been read in before:
WHEREAS
unregulated or gravel pit camping has been a
long-standing recreational tradition for families in
Newfoundland and Labrador; and
WHEREAS
residents of our Province have engaged in gravel pit
camping for up to forty years; and
WHEREAS
government has not typically targeted gravel pit campers
for contravening the Province’s Lands Act due to the
cultural uniqueness and historical meaning of the
practice for the people involved; and
WHEREAS
government has now rapidly moved forward to enforce its
own legislation in gravel pit camping sites in a
relatively haphazard fashion without consideration of
the impacting costs of their actions; and
WHEREAS
many gravel pit campers are seniors that lack the
resources to haul their campers and trailers out of the
gravel pit sites before the sixty-day removal order
currently being imposed by officials within the
Department of Environment;
WHEREUPON
the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call
upon the House of Assembly to re-evaluate government’s
heavy-handed approach to gravel pit campers and consult
with them to work out a long-term solution to problems
with the practice that government finds unacceptable.
Mr. Speaker, this is duly signed
by people from Foxtrap, St. John’s, Flower’s Cove and
throughout the Province of Newfoundland.
Mr. Speaker, I have to say that
those people do have a legitimate concern. I do not
think it is good enough to just go into a site, whether
you place stickers on their trailers or nail signs on
their cottages or wherever, and just leave it at that,
Mr. Speaker.
I think those people should have
been consulted with, given a timeframe where maybe they
could come to a long-term solution to an issue that they
take very strongly. They figure that consideration
should be given on the impact upon them to remove them
from those sites.
Mr. Speaker, this has been done in
other areas. It has come to a successful conclusion
where the campers themselves and government have reached
an agreement. I think nothing less should be done for
all those people throughout the Province in whatever
areas there seems to be concern for the department.
Mr. Speaker, I stand today and
present this petition on behalf of those residents.
Hopefully, government will reconsider and be able to, in
some format, get in contact with the people in the
various sites, and do something for the long-term
solution so that this issue can be resolved.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
