Mr. Speaker, my family goes back so far in Scarborough that St. Clair was farmland back when we settled in Scarborough. I am happy he asked the question about some of the lessons learned because it brings up something that I did not get to in my speech. Although I had an entire 20-minute speech prepared, I barely even looked at it.
The heat island effect was debated very recently in the House. Green spaces like the Rouge Park help to offset that incredible urban heat island effect that happens in our cities and artificially inflates the temperature. It causes more ecological problems, especially in the summertime, because if it is 2°, 3° or 4° hotter in the city people will have to make more use of air conditioning, electricity and other mitigating factors to offset what they have used. That is an important lesson.
However, we also have to move beyond thinking that we cannot have farm and city coexisting, just like business and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive but should be working hand in hand. The more food we can produce locally, the better off all of our cities will be in the future.