MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions.

The hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is a pleasure today to be able to stand and present a petition on behalf of the residents of Twillingate, Triton, Brighton, Durrell, Summerford, Grand Falls-Windsor, Port Anson, Cottlesville, Parkview, Shoe Cove, Boxey, Springdale, St. John’s and Placentia. Mr. Speaker, I will read the prayer of the petition again:

WHEREAS we the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have always built cabins or tilts away from our homes for hunting, fishing, berry picking or just spending time up in the country or places around our shores, sometimes just to get away from the stress of everyday living, a place to relax and enjoy the great outdoors; and

WHEREAS your government has come down hard on the thousands of cabin and trailer owners that are out on our land with eviction notices, and forcing them to move without providing them with an alternative; and

WHEREAS Kruger Inc. has timber rights to approximately one-third of all forest land on this Island and is refusing the vast majority of applications for cabin development;

WHEREUPON your petitioners call upon all Members of the hon. House of Assembly to urge government to have compassion on the citizens of this fair Province and allow them the right to enjoy what is rightfully ours. We were born on this land and should have the right enjoy it, Mr. Speaker.

I have many petitions, and I know when I was presented with those petitions recently I was asked why I was presenting them and not some of the members, probably, that represent those towns that I mentioned. Well, I said, all you have to do is to give them copies of petitions as well and I am sure whenever they get up in this hon. House to speak, regardless of what the topic is, they will stand and bring your concerns forward.

Mr. Speaker, where those people are coming from, it has been a long-standing tradition, I guess, forty or fifty years, or probably beyond, right throughout this Province, where people would go out in the countryside; they could take their trailers or they would have a cabin or whatever. I have stated before that the majority of those people agree that whatever has to be done to be environmentally friendly should be done, but they also want government to listen to their concerns.

A lot of those people are seniors. I know a lot of them personally, and they just cannot afford to go into our parks. Our parks now, I have to say – I know, I do a lot of camping myself. Last year, whether it was in Trinity Bay, here on the Trans-Canada or here in St. John’s, the parks were full. Many of those people - I mean, everyone cannot afford it. I am not downing the price at Pippy Park, because it is a wonderful facility, but a lot of people in this Province cannot pay $40 to $45 a night to go camping on a weekend. That is $130 or $150, and generally our other parks cost anywhere from $21 to $25. That is why a lot of those people are carrying out a tradition that they always had, to go out and enjoy the great indoors.

All I am doing, Mr. Speaker, is calling upon the government. Without any long-term solutions to the problems, I just ask government to sit down with those people in the various areas and hopefully they will come to some successful conclusion to the problem that is there, and to the advantage of everyone: that it would be environmentally friendly and also a place those people could continue on. I mean, they have reared their families in some of those sites.

Then again, I know all too often we hear about the Whiskey Pit, and I stated the other day that the minister is dealing with those people. I know they have a couple of pieces of land, and hopefully they can come to a conclusion that those people can continue to enjoy the great outdoors.