Bill C-40 (Historical)

Rouge National Urban Park Act

An Act respecting the Rouge National Urban Park

This enactment establishes the Rouge National Urban Park, a new type of federal protected area, and provides for the protection and presentation of its natural and cultural resources and the encouragement of sustainable farming practices within the Park. The enactment confers a broad range of regulatory powers for the management and administration of the Park. It also makes consequential amendments to the Canada Lands Surveys Act, the Parks Canada Agency Act, the Species at Risk Act and the Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act.

Rouge National Urban Park Act

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of consensus and trying to emerge not only with an all-party agreement but with an agreement with the provincial government has been raised several times in debate today. The question that remains is this: Why does consensus require us to do what the government says as opposed to bringing the stakeholders around the table to come up with a common way forward?

Why is the provincial Government of Ontario being left at the side of the park? Why are the issues that have just been raised around the first nations and aboriginal communities not included in the plan? Why is something that has never been proposed by anyone, the eviction of farmers, suddenly seen as the one thing that has been achieved in this set of negotiations? No one has asked them to leave. No one has proposed evicting them. No one has ever suggested that they are not part of the park, yet the reason we are being told to support the legislation is that there is a consensus that they should leave. The one thing there is consensus on is that they should stay.

However, where other things are required, such as environmental standards and recognition of the first nations community, there is no consensus support around the government bill, yet we are being told to support it, because there is consensus.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not part of the provincial government. I am now part of the Canadian government. However, I can say one thing. There were negotiations between the various entities. They had a memorandum of understanding. There were no objections or anything. Suddenly, Minister Duguid was against Bill C-40.

We have seen that both of our governments want the same thing in the Rouge: the strongest legislated protection so that rich biodiversity, ecological protection, and food production are protected now and into the future.

I do not understand his position. I know that it contradicts the rules of memoranda of understanding. I hope that he will come to his senses. The fact is that if we spent a day in the park, we would see an absolute disaster. Trails are broken and not maintained. I do not know where the money from the province is.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to remind my hon. colleague that his government slashed funding by a third and cut one-third of the scientific positions in parks management. Partners, people and the member for Scarborough—Rouge River have been working very hard on the Rouge park file for a long time now.

There was consensus on creating the park. However, the Conservatives have done such a bad job that they have managed to break that consensus; it had to be on purpose. How can a government break consensus on creating a park? That is unprecedented. It is really exceptional.

The Government of Ontario told the Conservatives that they were messing up. Stakeholders who appeared before the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development also told them they were messing up. They could have solved all of the problems just by making one small change to a clause in one little amendment, but they dismissed the amendment out of hand.

Why did they have to be so stubborn, so obstinate with the partners, the provincial governments and others, who were calling for the creation of a good Rouge park?

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite was speaking about the funding. Our government committed $149 million for the creation of the Rouge park plus a commitment for future years for the maintenance of the park.

I do not know why the hon. member is asking why we are not providing funding for the park. I can assure him that we provided $149 million for the park.

I am expecting that the provincial government will also put forward some money and bring the standard of the park up from what it is today. It is completely neglected.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if we wind back the clock six months, we had broad consensus. The Ontario government was on side, the federal government was on side, all the members from Scarborough and Pickering were on side, and the environment folks were on side. The farmers wanted some stability. They wanted something better than year-after-year leases, et cetera.

How did we get from there to here other than that at the point of consensus, the government drafted a bill that was so shockingly inadequate that the Province of Ontario withdrew its consent, the ecology folks went offside, and thousands of petitioners said, “No way”?

Is that the government's definition of consensus?

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, consensus is a two-way street. That was negotiated in a memorandum of understanding. Everyone was in agreement, and then suddenly the Province of Ontario decided to withhold land. It listened only to seven environmental groups and so on. That does not lead to consensus. It leads toward confrontation, which is not needed in the creation of a national park.

It would be good for all Canadians to have this park. I hope that the Province of Ontario will come to its senses.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am really saddened that I will not be able to support this legislation moving forward, because I was one of the people at the very first visioning exercise for the creation of the Rouge national urban park. I was the youngest person in the room, and being the youngest person in the room, I knew that I would be the one to get to enjoy the park the most. I was super excited about it.

I will be sharing my time with a colleague.

While I will not be able to support this legislation brought forward by the government, I do support creating Rouge Park as a nationally protected park. We want this land to be protected. We want it to be a national park that everyone can enjoy for generations to come. This legislation would decrease protection.

I was so excited when I heard in the throne speech that the government planned to make the Rouge Park a nationally protected park.

I went to the day long visioning exercise. For years I have worked for the conservation and protection of the existing Rouge Park. The Rouge River is in my riding of Scarborough—Rouge River. The largest piece of the current Rouge Park is in my constituency. I am blessed to have this park literally in my backyard.

The Rouge Park is special in being located in an urban setting. Roadways, highways, hydro corridors, railways, and oil pipelines are all within the Rouge Park. It is a special park because most of our national parks do not have all of those things within their protected areas.

People on the ground affected by this park had a vision. We knew we could make it happen. We knew we could make it work. We could envision a nationally protected urban park that would include farmers, conservationists, environmentalists, highways, roadways, railways, and hydro corridors. Obviously these things could not be moved. We all thought there was real potential for a 100 square kilometre national park that would be called Rouge national urban park. We were excited about it because it is designated within the greenbelt natural heritage system. It is the northernmost point of the endangered Carolinian and mixed woodland life zones. The Rouge Park is the largest public park within the southern Ontario region that is close to 25% of the population in the greater Toronto area. A lot of us were excited.

Our party was happy to push the bill to committee at second reading. We believed that the government would have good faith at committee. We thought we would be able to put forward amendments that would strengthen the legislation now in front of the House.

I will talk about three items: ecological integrity; maintaining or exceeded the current protections already afforded within Rouge Park; and the 100 square kilometres. First, I will speak about ecological integrity.

The Canada National Parks Act states:

Maintenance or restoration of ecological integrity, through the protection of natural resources and natural processes, shall be the first priority of the Minister when considering all aspects of the management of parks.

Clause 6 in Bill C-40 states:

The Minister must, in the management of the Park, [and here is the catch] take into consideration the protection of its natural ecosystems and cultural landscapes and the maintenance of its native wildlife and of the health of those ecosystems

The difference is the strong piece that already exists in the Canada National Parks Act, which says that maintenance and restoration and protection of our natural resources should be the first priority of the minister.

In contrast, the new legislation put forward by the government would water it down so much that although the minister must take it into consideration and think about it, he does not have to do anything about it.

Let us look at it as people on the ground who love this park would. I am in the park at least once a week or, if not, once every two weeks. It is part of my life. We want to see it protected. We want to make sure that it can last for generations to come. This bill would significantly water down the protection of the ecosystems and would not really help in maintaining the ecological health or integrity of the park.

I want to make it abundantly clear that the NDP supports the creation of a Rouge national urban park, but not if it means that the protection of its ecological integrity is risked. That is what would happen with this bill, and that is why, sadly, I cannot support it moving forward as the Conservatives have outlined it.

I know that I only have 10 minutes, so I will move to my next topic, that of meeting or exceeding the existing protections. My colleague who spoke on this bill earlier mentioned the memorandum of understanding between the Province of Ontario and the federal government that was signed in January, 2013. The federal government signed this memorandum of agreement to “meet or exceed” Ontario's existing policies, which included the greenbelt and the Oak Ridges Moraine conservation plans, during the drafting of the legislation and management plan for the Rouge national urban park.

The provincial greenbelt plan provides provincial policy status to the Rouge park and watershed plans. I know that the current protection for the park is a patchwork of about 11 different policies and plans. The federal government agreed to meet all of those existing plans. I agree that they are patchwork, but the federal government agreed that it would ensure that the new legislation, Bill C-40, would meet or exceed the protections provided for this park.

The provincial minister sent a letter to the federal minister, who, I must add, has not yet spoken on this bill once. We have reached third reading, the last stage of this bill, and the current minister of the environment who is responsible for this has not even spoken on the bill once, which I think is absolutely shameful. I have digressed a little.

I will paraphrase a letter that the provincial minister of economic development, employment and infrastructure wrote to the federal minister, as I do not have time to quote it. He basically said that the protections for the park in Bill C-40 are much less than what already exist in Ontario through the existing provincial policies and plans. The current state would enhance the ecological integrity of the proposed Rouge national urban park. The provincial minister said that he would not be able to transfer the 5,400 acres of lands currently owned by the provincial government for the creation of the Rouge national urban park.

That takes us right to my third point of the 100 square kilometre park. The community dreamed of a 100 square kilometre park, which would be absolutely amazing, but then the government proposed a study area of 58 square kilometres. Now, with the provincial government not willing to transfer more than 25 square kilometres of land, this new national park would be less than one quarter of the size all of us on the ground had dreamed of for decades.

I am going to read a little bit from a letter that was sent to all members of Parliament from seven different environmental organizations. They asked us not to support Bill C-40 at third reading. They said that they had attempted to make it better, to work with the agricultural community, environmentalists, and the government. They opposed passage of this flawed bill, saying that it would not be good for the Rouge national urban park.

Mr. Speaker, that is why I am giving you and all the people who care about the Rouge park my word today that I will be working on writing a new private member's bill that would improve this bill. I look forward to being able to table that in the House and eventually seeing it become legislation once we have an NDP government.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to refer back to an intervention by the previous NDP speaker when the Conservative member had talked about how we cannot have it both ways, that either we love the farmers and hate the ecologists or we love the ecologists and hate the farmers. I want to ask the hon. member if she thinks we can have it both ways, whether with some proper drafting, good will, and possibly even some consensus, we could legislate protection for both farmers and ecologists to minimize the differences rather than maximize them.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood for his pointed intervention. I think it was a very good one.

My colleague from Halifax mentioned that in the amendment put forward by the NDP to clause 6 of the bill, we had proposed enshrining into legislation the protection of agriculture for farmers as well as the environment, and the need for conservation and ecological health and integrity in Rouge Park. I think the farmers would agree because all of the witnesses who came to committee were reasonable. I took it upon myself to ask all of the witnesses if they felt that farmers and the environmentalists were at opposite ends and whether or not they could work together. They all said that there was common ground and that they could work together.

I want to finish this response with a quote from Ms. Kim Empringham, who was from the York Region Federation of Agriculture. She said:

Two of the guiding principles for the Rouge national urban park are to maintain and improve ecological health and scientific integrity, and to respect and support sustainable agriculture and other compatible land uses.

She was clear that the farmers in York region she represents say that we need to improve ecological health and scientific integrity, as well as maintain sustainable agriculture. The farmers have already said they are environmental stewards of their farms by running them in an environmentally friendly way, and that is what we all want.

[Bruce Hyer, Green, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-40 needs amending but is not getting it. A big part of is that on January 26, 2013, there was a memorandum of agreement between Parks Canada and Ontario, which Ontario has now backed out of. The goal of that agreement was to meet or exceed the following existing protections in the area: the greenbelt plan of 2005, the Oak Ridges Moraine conservation plan, the Rouge north management plan, the federal green space preserve master plan, the International Joint Commission water quality agreement, the Rouge River watershed plan, and the Rouge Park natural heritage action plan.

My question for the hon. member is this. Why are we proceeding with something that instead of meeting or exceeding the present protections would actually degrade and worsen them?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague forgot a few other plans that are already protecting it, like the Oak Ridges Moraine conservation plan of 2002, the Duffins Creek watershed plan, and the federal green space preserve. I can go on because there are other pieces or plans that are protecting that land, and it makes no sense that the federal government is creating legislation that would weaken the protections of an existing park. We are creating legislation to create the first ever urban national park in this country, yet the government wants to provide less protection for the parklands. It just makes no sense. That is why Nature Canada, Environmental Defence, CPAWS, the David Suzuki Foundation, Friends of the Rouge Watershed, Ontario Nature, and the STORM Coalition all came together and asked all hon. members in the House to vote against Bill C-40, which is clearly a flawed bill and is providing less protection for this park.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, about 15 years ago, the House passed three pieces of legislation that have been crucial to protecting our collective heritage: the Canada National Parks Act, the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act and the Parks Canada Agency Act.

Today we have a magnificent network of 44 national parks and four marine conservation areas that we are very proud of, because these natural resources are for the benefit of all Canadians.

However, while we are protecting this wilderness, we must also acknowledge the fact that Canada is now an urban country. In 2006, more than 80% of our population was living in our cities. That is why this bill to create the Rouge national urban park is so important.

The project begins a new phase in the history of our conservation practice by establishing Canada's first national urban park. Clause 4 of this innovative bill outlines its objectives, which include protecting and presenting, for current and future generations, the natural and cultural heritage of the park and its diverse landscapes, promoting a vibrant community and encouraging Canadians to discover and connect with their national protected heritage areas.

This bill creates a new framework for the ecological protection of Canada's urban areas. Rouge Park is already the largest park in Canada's largest city. The park is home to a wealth of exceptional ecological resources, including one of the largest Carolinian forest habitats in Canada and important heritage sites such as an old portage route, Lake Simcoe and Lake Ontario.

The current Rouge Park owes it existence to the perseverance and continued efforts of citizens' groups that have been working hard for decades to preserve it. If the government is serious about its commitment to Rouge Park, it must act diligently and respect Canada's long tradition of conservation.

The bill would create a new precedent for ecological protection in urban settings in Canada. Rouge Park is an incredible resource, the largest park in the largest city in Canada. We should recognize and congratulate the efforts of concerned citizens who have preserved this natural legacy for many decades. We have to do justice to their efforts. If the federal government plans to take responsibility for the park that they have fought for, it must do so carefully and correctly.

We now have many prominent organizations that have worked with the park and have signed a letter recently, opposing the bill as it exists today, including the David Suzuki Foundation, CPAWS, Nature Canada and Friends of the Rouge Watershed.

The provincial Government of Ontario has expressed that it will refuse to contribute its lands to a park governed by the provisions of Bill C-40.

Given the importance of the mandate to create the first urban national park, I want to reiterate the importance of doing so properly. Bill C-40 raises concerns, mainly with regard to the minister's priorities when it comes to conservation. The priorities in Bill C-40 are different than those for a national park.

Bill C-40 states:

The Minister must...take into consideration the protection of [the park's] natural ecosystems and cultural landscapes and the maintenance of its native wildlife and of the health of those ecosystems.

However, in the case of a national park, the minister's first priority is to maintain the ecological integrity of the park through the protection of natural resources and processes. If we accept a model that will henceforth protect the ecology of urban settings, then we must ensure that ecological protection is a real priority and not left to the whims of a minister.

Creating a national urban park is something that a number of my constituents are interested in. I have the good fortune and privilege of representing LaSalle—Émard, an urban area on the Island of Montreal along the St. Lawrence River. In the middle of the river are the Lachine rapids, a natural obstacle that contributed to the creation of the Lachine Canal, the birthplace of industry in Canada, and the St. Lawrence Seaway, the second-largest in the world.

Besides its historical importance, the Lachine Rapids are the spawning grounds for 50% of the freshwater fish in the St. Lawrence River. Des Rapides park, which is adjacent to the Lachine Rapids, is a migratory bird sanctuary that is home to one of the ten largest heron rookeries in North America.

We are proud of this resource, and I invite my colleagues to visit this beautiful Canadian region. We are very proud of this resource, which has environmental, cultural and historical significance, from the settlement of first nations to industrialization.

Last month, I organized a forum on the future of our river, rapids and canal, which was attended by more than 120 people, in order to promote the importance of creating an urban park like the Rouge park.

At this forum, we discussed the importance of these Canadian urban jewels. My riding of LaSalle—Émard, much like the Rouge park, has sites like this, sites of exceptional natural beauty that are also part of our historical heritage. Due to the proximity of urban areas to these exceptional sites that we must preserve and enhance, people can get there very easily by public transit, by bike or on foot. There will be expert resources working as site interpreters.

I am very serious about creating a national urban park like the Rouge park. I would like to reiterate the importance of establishing solid guidelines in Bill C-40, not only to ensure we protect the land and preserve species, but also to really make this a priority.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague's speech.

We have heard some very good speeches on the shortcomings of this bill and on the Conservatives' habit of opposing proposed amendments, even when they would make improvements. A number of people would like to have a national park like the Rouge urban park, but the government is unwilling to look at ways to preserve the park. We think it is important to create a national park, but also to provide adequate protections for that park.

Would my colleague like to say more about the recommendations we proposed and about the need to implement them before this bill passes?

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question and I congratulate her for the work she is doing within our caucus. Her region in northern Ontario also has some sites of exceptional natural beauty that are just as important to protect and discover.

Citizen groups have been examining this issue for decades and are have been working to protect this region. They turned to the Government of Canada to create a partnership in order to strengthen and to continue working on protecting the beautiful Rouge national urban park, which is home to some exceptional sites that I look forward to visiting.

The Government of Canada needs to respond to the requests of these groups, which worked very hard. It needs to be a partner that will understand the priorities for this park.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. I want to talk about the same thing she did, namely partnership.

More and more in the House, we are seeing that this federal government is refusing to work closely with the provinces, particularly Ontario. At a dinner yesterday evening here in Ottawa, Premier Wynne gave a speech in which she clearly indicated that she was still waiting for an answer from the Prime Minister of Canada so that they can begin working together on a number of files, including the Rouge national urban park.

Can the member help us understand how a federal government can continue to act this way? The two levels of government should have finished the work and should be ready to sign an agreement, yet there is no consensus or partnership. The federal government is not co-operating when it comes to the mines in northern Ontario.