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

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the member opposite talk about the issues related to Rouge Park. The Province of Ontario is showing a complete disregard for the creation of the park based on cheap political calculations and has expressed its so-called ecological concern at this late date.

I live 100 metres from the park and the lower Rouge Park is in my riding. I can tell members that the state of the park and its bare administration during the years has translated into continued neglect. This neglect was also briefly alluded to by the member for Scarborough—Guildwood.

I am asking the hon. member this. Does he or does he not support the creation of the first national urban park or is he endorsing the Ontario provincial Liberal government's steps to decide to deny and to delay the creation of the park?

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would be surprised if anyone in this chamber does not strongly support the creation of a national urban park. But the devil is in the details and the devil is always in the details. The province might be playing political games, but the government has its narrative set up already, that the province is withholding and playing cheap political games to prevent the park from happening. The follow-up line is that they have been neglecting the park.

If we really want to play that game, let us go right back to the reason I became involved in politics, which was Mike Harris and the devastating damage he did to environmental protections in Ontario. If we really want to go back into why there is trouble in our parks, we just have to look back at the Mike Harris era. It devastated environmental protections and started the move to self-regulation that the current government has been more than happy to continue with: self-regulation of rail, of food inspections and of airline safety. That was all started during the Mike Harris government, that era of neglect of our safety and our parks.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise today to participate in the debate on the legislation in front of us, which would create a first in Canada, a new national urban park in the greater Toronto area.

The first thing I want to do is acknowledge all the people who have worked tirelessly on this issue for over two decades. Literally tens of thousands of Canadians in the greater Toronto area and the Golden Horseshoe have been involved with this initiative.

This started some 25 years ago, as members opposite and on this side of the House have mentioned, when agricultural lands and open spaces began to be paved over by the ever-growing sprawl in the greater Toronto area. At that time many concerned citizens decided to get involved, become activists, petition and call upon municipal, provincial and federal governments to preserve this important part of Canada's biodiversity.

It started with the involvement of those citizens in the 1980s that then led to an adoption in the House in the 1990s of a motion that minister Pauline Browes introduced and was continued with by people like Glenn De Baeremaeker on Toronto's City Council.

More recently, in the 1990s, work was done by the Rouge Park Alliance, which was chaired by Mr. Alan Wells, past chief administrative officer of the Region of York, appointed by premier McGuinty to chair that alliance. I had the privilege of sitting on that alliance with a number of municipal and provincial stakeholders in recent years and doing very important work with Mr. Wells. Minister Flaherty appointed me to that alliance in June of 2008 and I worked with that group for about five years.

When I was first appointed to the Rouge Park Alliance, I had no idea about this gem in York region, now the city of Markham, and the city of Toronto. As an MP from the west part of the GTA, I had no idea that this ecological gem existed and what is even more surprising is that I lived in the city of Toronto for 15 years and I had no idea, as a Torontonian then, that this existed on the eastern part of the reaches of the city. After I was appointed to the Rouge Park Alliance, I quickly became aware. The scales were dropped from my eyes and I became aware of this precious area in the eastern part of the GTA.

The Rouge Park Alliance and its members worked together for a period of about a year and a half to take a look at the future of the park. There were many challenges that the park and the area faced. One was a very complex system of governance that had no legal standing to affect outcomes, a multiplicity of players and interests that all had competing agendas. It was decided that we needed to come forward with a new governance model.

Therefore, the Rouge Park Alliance spent a year and a half consulting dozens and dozens of stakeholders about the future of the park. That culminated in a report that was adopted in early 2010 by the Rouge Park Alliance, adopted unanimously I might add, that recommended the creation of a national urban park in the Rouge watershed. That is the genesis of how we got to where we are today.

The legislation in front of us is the result of broad consultations. There are two sets of consultations in particular I would like to focus on to illustrate the number of people and the depth of the consultations.

The first set of consultations were held between 2008 and 2010 by the Rouge Park Alliance itself. The Rouge Park Alliance was made up of representatives from the Government of Canada, the province of Ontario and all constituent municipalities, the city of Toronto, the region of York, the town of Markham, as it was then called, Durham region, Pickering and Ajax, stakeholders like the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, environmental groups like Save the Rouge. They were all represented at the table by the Rouge Park Alliance. When we conducted that year-and-a-half analysis that produced the report, we consulted widely, not only with stakeholders but with many other people in the region.

We consulted with organizations such as the Waterfront Regeneration Trust, environmental groups like the David Suzuki Foundation and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, dozens of meetings with dozens of stakeholders. Those consultations produced the report of the Rouge Park Alliance, in early 2010, recommending the creation of a national urban park.

Now, after that report was approved unanimously by the Rouge Park Alliance, a number of us convinced Minister Flaherty and the then minister of the environment, the current member for Thornhill, that this was an important initiative, that the Government of Canada should get behind this initiative, that we should concur in that report, and that we should act on this.

As a result, in 2011, the cabinet deliberated on this proposal from the Rouge Park Alliance in a memorandum to cabinet and came to a record of decision that decided the Government of Canada would support the creation of a national urban park. In the fall of 2011, after cabinet approval, Parks Canada was instructed by the minister and the Office of the Privy Council to begin public consultations, the second round of consultations, concerning the creation of this new park. Those consultations were even more broad and deeper than the consultations that had been held previously by the Rouge Park Alliance.

Parks Canada heard from 11,000 Canadians about the future of this park, consulted with 150 stakeholder groups, and included MPs such as the MP for Scarborough—Rouge River, who I had the pleasure of personally inviting to a consultation that was held by Parks Canada at the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus in the fall of 2011. Out of those consultations came a draft management plan, which Parks Canada has been working on, and the legislation in front of us today.

The legislation has been the result of not just broad and deep consultations, but the work of thousands of ordinary citizens, ordinary Canadians who care deeply about the environment in which they live. Therefore, the legislation is the on-paper dream of many tens of thousands of people who live in the greater Golden Horseshoe.

It is important to note that the legislation is not simply paper. Minister Flaherty, when he was alive, put $144 million in the fiscal framework for this park for the first 10 years it comes into existence. The money has been budgeted. There is real money and real resources, $144 million, that will go to the creation and support of this park, and $7.6 million a year after the first 10 years. This is real money that would lead to the tangible result of the creation of this national urban park.

I urge members to support this park because of those resources that will be brought to bear, but I also urge them to support it for two very important reasons.

The first one is accessibility.

This park will sit in the greater Toronto area, and as such it will be accessible to millions of Canadians. It is unlike most other parks in our national parks system. Most parks in our national parks system are not accessible by millions of Canadians, especially Canadians living in the St. Lawrence Lowlands. They are not accessible geographically because they lie in far-flung places of the country, like Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island, or Jasper National Park, which I have never been to, out in the Alberta Rockies, or Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island, or Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland and Labrador. These parks are often far away and very expensive to get to.

This park is in the backyard of some 8.5 million Canadians who live in the greater Golden Horseshoe.

This park is not only accessible geographically to those millions of Canadians, many of whom are new Canadians who have never had the privilege of experiencing the great Canadian outdoors, it is also, unlike many of these national parks, accessible economically.

To get to Nahanni National Park to do a one- or two-week canoe trip, it can cost upwards of $6,000 or $7,000 per canoeist. That is well beyond the means of many Canadians. To hike up the Weasel River in Auyuittuq National Park, it can cost upwards of $7,000 or $8,000 just to get there, do the trip and get out. That is also well beyond the economic means of many Canadians.

This park, though, this national urban park in the Rouge Valley will be accessible by a simple subway stop, a $3 TTC token or a simple car ride to that part of the country. This park is accessible in a way that millions of new Canadians will be able to enjoy. It will introduce them to our great treasure, our great national inheritance, our great outdoors.

It will also create a park that is 10 to 15 times the size of Central Park in Manhattan, a park that far outsizes Stanley Park in Vancouver. This is truly an opportunity for us to introduce millions of Canadians to the national park system, especially new Canadians, many of whom live in the greater Golden Horseshoe.

There is a second reason why this park should be supported by members on both sides, and that is ecology. There is an ecological reason to support this park. Parks Canada, through federal legislation, has a mandate to protect each ecologically significant part of Canada's biosphere. That is the mandate of Parks Canada.

We have done so to a large extent, as governments, present and past. We have protected the rainforest in the Pacific Rim National Park on the western reaches of Vancouver Island. We have protected the Atlantic coast and the great mountains of Atlantic Canada in Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland.

We have protected much of the prairies and the boreal forest zones. We have protected pieces of the Rockies, such as Jasper and Banff National Parks. We have protected marine areas, like Fathom Five National Marine Park in Georgian Bay. We have protected much of Canada's unique biodiversity.

However, the one area in the country where we have not protected a significant piece of our biodiversity is in the Carolinian forest zone, an eastern deciduous forest zone. It is the forest zone that lies south of a line drawn between Stratford, Ontario, and the city of Toronto. I would argue it is one of the most precious ecological spaces in this country for one simple reason. It is the most dense biosphere in this country.

It contains the greatest number of species of flora and fauna. There are more species of flora and fauna per square kilometre in the eastern deciduous forest zone than in any other square kilometre of Canada's other pieces of biodiversity. However, as governments, we have yet to protect a significant chunk of that.

That is why the act is so very important. For the first time, we will protect thousands of acres of that precious biodiversity in this part of Canada.

When we came forward with this Rouge Park Alliance report, when the cabinet was deliberating on what to do to protect these thousands of acres of biodiversity, we had a conundrum.

The conundrum was this. The area of the Rouge watershed is replete with modern civilization. It has the 401 going through it. It has sewer lines from York Region that go through the York-Durham line onto Pickering and Ajax and to the water treatment plants on the shores of Lake Ontario. It has hydro lines. It has hundreds of kilometres of dirt and paved roads. It has civilization running through it. It has farmland. It has many other things that do not normally exist in our national park system.

Clearly, the government cannot remove the 401 from this part of the Rouge. It cannot remove the toll road, the 407, from this part of the Rouge. It cannot remove hydro lines or sewer pipes. It cannot do all that, and it has to acknowledge that this area is different than places such as Banff or Jasper or Gros Morne or Pacific Rim National Parks.

The government had two options to pursue. One was to water down the national park standard, which has an ecological standard of wilderness. The other option was to create a new second type of national park. Wisely, the government decided to go down the second path. To water down the wilderness ecological standard of our national parks would put the future ecological integrity of those national parks at risk.

By introducing a second standard, we can create this firewall, so to speak, around the national urban park to ensure we do not weaken the national park standard of wilderness ecology.

We introduced the legislation to create a first, a national urban park that would still meet a very strict standard. In fact, it would exceed the provincial park standard in Ontario. It is similar to the provincial park standard in that it acknowledges existing uses such as agriculture, the 401 and the 407. It would acknowledge existing needs to stop forest fires and flooding, which we do not stop in national parks. It would acknowledge the need for hydro lines and sewer pipes to traverse the region. It would acknowledge the existence of agriculture. However, it is different than the provincial park standard because it is a stronger standard.

I love the Ontario provincial park system. Every summer I canoe through our beautiful provincial parks: in Algonquin Park from Canoe Lake up to Brent and back; through the beautiful lakes like OSA in Killarney Park, from Georgian Bay and through Baie Fine. I have canoed up the Missinaibi River, a provincially protected area, up to Moosonee.

I love our provincial park system, but in the crown jewel of the provincial park system, in Algonquin Park, the province of Ontario today allows logging. The Algonquin Provincial Park has a provincial logging authority. There is logging in the provincial park. The province also allows for hunting and fishing. I know because I have fished in Algonquin Park and caught a smallmouth bass. The province of Ontario's standards for provincial parks allow for resource extraction such as mining, logging, hunting and fishing.

This legislation and the government's draft management plan would not allow those activities to take place. It would not allow any resource extraction such as mining or logging to take place in the Rouge national urban park. It would not allow the removal of native species of flora and fauna. It would not allow for hunting, or for the removal of fossils or other national heritage features.

Also, this proposed legislation and its associated budget would, for the first time, ensure that full-time Parks Canada staff are on site 365 days of the year to enforce the national urban park standard. The dedicated year-round enforcement officers exclusive to the Rouge Park would prevent illegal dumping, hunting and other long-standing problems in the park area.

In closing, I strongly urge members to support the legislation. It may not be perfect, but it is very good legislation that would provide a lasting legacy for the millions of Canadians who live in this area.

When I have traversed Algonquin Park, I have often thought about the people and the leaders who had the wisdom and foresight in the late 19th century to stand up to the Ottawa lumber barons, to stand up to the vested interests, and say that we needed to preserve this part of the transition forest between the boreal and the southern forests in Algonquin. I often think of those leaders who, over 100 years ago, had the foresight to establish this park so that today generations of Canadians have come to enjoy parks such as Algonquin.

The proposed legislation is in that spirit. The bill would benefit our children and grandchildren, and for that reason, I urge all members of the House to support it at second reading.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find the spirit the member presents today for the proposed legislation quite depressing. What I get from him is that we are going to create a second tier, a diluted watered-down tier, of national park that is an urban national park, because we cannot remove the 401, because we cannot remove hydro towers.

What the bill offers is the opportunity to make sense of the notion of urban ecological integrity. If the current Conservative government would hang on to that concept and apply it to an urban space, I think there is great hope for building ecological integrity into our urban spaces and our urban lives, which we need.

However, the notion that we need to rope off this area and have a lower concept of ecological integrity because it is urban is quite a dismal view of urban life in Canada and urban possibilities for Canadians, which, frankly, leaves me depressed.

I would like to hear the member's response to that.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, quite simply, this area could not possibly ever meet the national park ecological wilderness standard, for a number of reasons. First, in national parks, we allow uncontrolled forest fires to take place. We allow natural flooding to take place. We do not allow agriculture. We do not allow the construction of new underground sewer pipes in our national park system.

We have to acknowledge that this park sits in the GTA. It sits in southern Ontario in an area that has been subject to civilization for centuries. We need to ensure the co-uses of the area, such as agriculture, such as controlled flooding, such as the management of forest fires. That is why we need a second standard.

This is wonderful legislation, because it would also allow us, at some future date, to deal with the issue of Gatineau Park, across the river.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his thoughtful speech. As I said earlier, I think we could actually do business. I agree with him that we cannot set up a national parks standard similar to parks like the Nahanni, et cetera. I agree that this is off the table. However, he goes on with what I consider to be a straw man argument, which is that in the provincial parks, we can mine and log. Well, there is actually no discussion about mining or logging or resource extraction of any kind in this particular park. I am sure the five million people in the GTA who would enjoy this particular park more than possibly others would be absolutely outraged if that were allowed. I respectfully suggest that it is a straw man argument.

He goes to the standard set out in the bill, which he thinks is a wonderful standard. Were it to be accompanied by more forthcoming and understandable concepts, we would not be hearing concerns from the David Suzuki Foundation, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Wildlands League, Sierra Club, Save the Oak Ridges Moraine, Environmental Defence,and Friends of the Rouge Watershed, which have called on the government to uphold its commitment to the memorandum of agreement.

As it stands now, the draft federal legislation threatens to undermine 25 years of consultation, scientific study, and provincial policy. I am in a bit of a dilemma. I would like to believe the hon. member, but those who have actually studied this and participated in it do not.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I made reference to the provincial parks standard in Ontario simply because the Province of Ontario has raised this as an issue. I believe the province's position on this park is wrong. I believe that this legislation puts in place a stricter ecological standard than exists for Ontario's provincial parks system. It would create a stricter standard than exists today for Algonquin Provincial Park, Killarney Provincial Park, and the other parks in the Ontario parks system. That is why I referenced the provincial standard in Ontario in my speech.

The second point I would make is that if we were to talk to all the environmental NGOs on this issue, they would argue that they want to see improvements to the bill. That is fine, but as I have said many times in the House before, perfection is the enemy of the good. What we have here is very good legislation for a very good initiative that would create a first in Canada: a national urban park that would benefit millions of Canadians living in the Golden Horseshoe.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for the level of eloquence and knowledge he has brought to this debate.

I just want to ask him a question. What is the plan for urban reforestation under the bill?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the important thing to know about reforestation in the bill and in the draft management plan for the Rouge is that we would continue to allow agricultural use in the park. In fact, we would strengthen agricultural use in the park. We would go from one-year leases to multi-year leases that would allow the farmers to plan longer term, with a greater degree of certainty.

Also, the draft management plan, which supports continued agricultural use in the park, is strongly supported by almost every single environmental group. These are groups like the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the David Suzuki Foundation, and many others. They strongly support the continuation of agricultural uses in the park. The draft management plan in this legislation would allow those uses to continue. The voice of the member for Oak Ridges—Markham, who has been so vocal and strong in this regard, will continue to be heard, and we will continue to allow agricultural uses.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Beaches—East York and I were talking about the fact that there is an actual debate happening here. I do not know if anyone noticed that, but it is exciting to talk about real ideas in the House.

In that spirit, I, too, want to believe my colleague across the way when he talks about this park having good legislation around it to keep its ecological integrity and about it being strong, robust legislation.

This is a comment more than a question. It is really hard to trust the government on this file, and it is hard when there is a national parks act that talks about maintaining ecological integrity and then we have one bill about one park that says we will “consider” ecological integrity. I can accept that there might need to be a new standard for urban parks. However, I would feel more comfortable if that new standard were a stand-alone discussion. Maybe there could be an amendment to the parks act that would say that if we have urban parks, we have to consider different things, because it is complicated. I do not know how that would be done, but we would feel more reassured knowing that this was not opening a door for every other forthcoming piece of park legislation and that this was actually about urban parks.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member opposite that this legislation does not in any way, shape, or form impact the ecological wilderness standard of national parks like Jasper, Banff, and every other park in our national parks system. It establishes a new, second type of park, a national urban park. One of the things that might be helpful for the member opposite in allaying her concerns is to get a copy of the draft management plan for the park, if she does not have one already. She could perhaps put a question on the order paper, and I am sure Parks Canada would be obliged to provide that information to her.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills will know that there is no other member in the House for which I have greater respect, except for the hon. member for Cape Breton—Canso, who raises his hand at this moment, so it pains me to disagree. I do hate to differ, and I literally regret differing with my hon. colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills.

While the present Bill C-40 does not do as much damage to the standards of national parks as did the Sable Island National Park Reserve act, which was regrettably passed by unanimous consent in June 2013, we have before us a bill that needs improvement. My friend from Wellington—Halton Hills referenced the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, but when I look at its website, it says “Rouge Valley: Getting it right for Canada's first National Urban Park”. It urges its supporters to ensure that the bill will put conservation values first, and they are not satisfied with the current state of Bill C-40.

I note also that it is a red herring to claim that we do not put out fires in national parks. The Gulf Islands National Park Reserve in my riding aggressively puts out forest fires. We only allow uncontrolled forest fires in national parks when they are fire-driven ecosystems, such as in the northern boreal, but not in the Gulf Islands and not in the Rouge.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge the member's point about forest fires, but I would point out that we are at debate on second reading. This is about whether to send the bill to committee for further study and potential amendments. That is why I urge all members to support the bill at its first vote at second reading.

I would also add that the member opposite and I have long talked about this issue. She was in the government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as a staffer in the 1980s, working with the hon. Tom McMillan on this very file with the hon. Pauline Browes, so I welcome her interest in this file, and I encourage her to support it at second reading so that her concerns can be examined.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member's time has expired.

Before I give the floor to the hon. member for Drummond to resume debate, I must inform him that I will have to interrupt him at 2 p.m., when statements by members will begin.

The hon. member for Drummond has the floor.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, from the outset I would like to mention that I will be sharing my time with someone yet to be determined.

Before I begin my speech, I would like to say something about this debate. I listened to all the speeches today, and some members have done an excellent job. I would like to say that I met with a number of environmental groups who spoke to me about the problem of ecological integrity in Rouge Park. They told me that it is very important to keep the concept of ecological integrity and to make exceptions that will make it possible to adapt the national park to urban realities. This would help maintain very high standards.

I would like to come back to the importance of parks and nature in Canada. The marvellous WWF Living Planet Report 2014 contains a truly important proverb that really puts everything in context: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”. That is really important. That concept must be part of our actions and our sustainable development. The future of my children and my grandchildren is one of the reasons why I entered politics. The report continues:

Yet...we are not proving good stewards of our only planet....The way we meet our needs today is compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs...

We must understand that if everyone on earth consumed resources like Canadians do at present, it would take more than three planets to meet our needs. We are mortgaging our children's future, which is really not a good thing. The report makes that clear.

I have met often with representatives from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. They said some key things about the importance of parks in Canada.

According to a federal government study from 2011, Canada's national parks support 33,000 jobs across the country, providing a stable, long-term economic base for rural and remote communities. The study also found that, for every federal dollar invested in national parks, more than $6 goes back into the national GDP. Parks are therefore very important for our economy.

That brings us to the much talked about Rouge Park. A number of my colleagues expressed their concerns about the federal government's ability to ensure the ecological integrity and health of the park and the natural environment. Nature in this part of our country is actually very important.

I would like to come back to a report by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development and a report by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, which said that the federal government made major cuts in 2012, thereby reducing our scientific capacity to only one-third of what it was. If we have only one-third of our scientific capacity, we will have a hard time meeting the needs. In fact, according to the report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, “ecological integrity is a characteristic of healthy ecosystems”.

That is very important and indeed it is set out in the National Parks Act. If we want Rouge Park to become a national park, it must have ecological integrity. It says so in the legislation.

The commissioner's 2013 fall report says:

...the Agency's governing legislation and policies specify that the “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.”

That is the law. The priority in the management of national parks is the maintenance and restoration of ecological integrity.

That has to be the priority for the Rouge national urban park. There can be adaptations in the future with exceptions for an urban park as needed. However, the basic principle of ecological integrity must be maintained.

I am a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, and several of my Conservative colleagues have said that they would never touch the ecological integrity of national parks. If that is so, then they should not start doing it here. This should be the priority, and new terms can be added to adapt later. I am very concerned about the federal government's approach to ecological integrity because the commissioner's report states:

We found that overall spending on Heritage Resources Conservation decreased by 15 percent in the 2012-13 fiscal year, compared with the average of the preceding six years, with further reductions planned [after that...]. The planned staffing numbers in Heritage Resources Conservation were reduced by 23 percent.... More specifically, staffing in the science work stream [those involved in ecological integrity] was reduced by 33 percent during this period, as 60 of 179 positions were eliminated.

The federal government has everything it needs to protect the ecological integrity of the Rouge national urban park. That is why we completely disagree. We are very concerned about that possibility.

According to the Rouge national urban park bill, the minister is not required to consider ecosystem and wildlife health. He is not required to rehabilitate ecosystem health, just to consider it. What a joke. They cannot simply consider it; they have to implement strict rules.

In conclusion, we will support this bill because it is important to move forward with the Rouge national urban park. People have been working on it for a long time, and it is really important. As a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, I will ensure that this bill is amended to make ecological integrity the priority.

I think it is a real shame that the Conservatives have started blaming the Ontario Liberal government for future inappropriate use of the park. On the contrary, they should be reaching out to the Government of Ontario and provincial governments. The Conservatives tend to be high and mighty with the provincial governments, telling them things will be done their way, period. What they should do is sit down and negotiate with them.

I find it unfortunate that a provincial government has come under attack in the House. Instead, the Conservative government should be working in partnership with the provincial governments and Rouge River advocacy groups. That is a real shame. That is why it will be much harder to work with the Government of Ontario, given the way it has been attacked here.

An NDP government will provide all of the necessary support to ensure that this park is protected so that we can preserve its biodiversity and help surrounding communities tap into the full economic and tourism potential that our national parks have to offer.

There is absolutely no doubt that creating parks will be one of our priorities when we form the government in 2015. At that time, we will ensure that ecological integrity is a priority, just as most environmental groups are calling for. Of course, there may be exceptions when it comes to urban parks such as the Rouge national urban park, for example.