House of Commons, Changing the Name of the Trans Canada Trail

MP Pierre Nan­tel Ques­tions the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Heritage’s Choice to Rename the Trans Canada Trail to the Queen’s Jubilee Trail

Octo­ber 22, 2012

Mr. Pierre Nan­tel (Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, NDP): 

Mr. Speaker, after rechris­ten­ing the Ottawa River Park­way and the Cana­dian Museum of Civ­i­liza­tion, the gov­ern­ment now wants to spend even more tax­payer money to rename a key part of Cana­dian her­itage. The Con­ser­v­a­tives want to rename the Trans Canada Trail the Queen’s Jubilee Trail. How far will they take this uncon­di­tional love? Are they going to change the flag and our country’s name while they are at it?

Can the Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage explain to us why he wants to change the name of the Trans Canada Trail?

Mr. Paul Calan­dra (Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary to the Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage, CPC): 

Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we know that invest­ments in the cul­tural sec­tor are very impor­tant to the Cana­dian econ­omy. That is why we have made his­toric invest­ments in this sector.

Unfor­tu­nately, every time we make these investments—as we did last week, when we invested $25 bil­lion in the new Cana­dian Museum of History—we know that the NDP will vote against them.

[Eng­lish]

Per­haps if we had a museum of tax and spend and high­lighted such clas­sics as an increase in the GST, increase in taxes for fam­i­lies and the ever-unpopular $21 bil­lion car­bon tax, then maybe we would get some support.

[Trans­la­tion]

Mr. Pierre Nan­tel (Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, NDP): 

Mr. Speaker, I am very dis­ap­pointed in my col­league. Frankly, I expected more than another bro­ken record.

The Trans Canada Trail evokes our country’s vast­ness, diver­sity and beauty. The name says it all: it crosses Canada. It is the same idea as the Trans-Canada High­way. “Trans Canada” rep­re­sents some­thing con­crete. To para­phrase today’s guest of hon­our, the Prime Min­is­ter of Jamaica, we love the Queen, but there comes a time when we must define our­selves as a government.

Can the Con­ser­v­a­tives set aside their nos­tal­gia for the British Empire and real­ize that this is the 21st cen­tury? Now is the time to move for­ward, not backward.

[Eng­lish]

Mr. Paul Calan­dra (Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary to the Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage, CPC): 

Mr. Speaker, how ironic a ques­tion. In the same vein, the mem­ber is talk­ing about for­get­ting about our his­toric con­nec­tion to the monarchy.

On this side of the House, we know and under­stand what Cana­di­ans want. They want to talk about the his­tory, the events, the places and the peo­ple that have made this coun­try great. Con­trast that to the oppo­si­tion, with sep­a­ratists sit­ting in their party mak­ing 29 dona­tions to sep­a­ratist par­ties. We will never apol­o­gize on this side of the House for invest­ing in arts and cul­ture. We will never apol­o­gize for doing all of those things and cel­e­brat­ing all of the things that have helped make this the best coun­try in the world in which to live.

I would remind the mem­bers why they sit in this place: to defend the best coun­try in the world in which to live and not to talk it down every chance they get.