Bill C-696 (Historical)

Act to amend the Rouge National Urban Park Act (ecological protection)

This bill is from the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2015.

Sponsor

Rathika Sitsabaiesan  NDP

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Outside the Order of Precedence (a private member's bill that hasn't yet won the draw that determines which private member's bills can be debated), as of June 17, 2015
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill.

This enactment amends the Rouge National Urban Park Act to
(a) make watershed health and ecological integrity priorities in the management of the Park;
(b) provide for the establishment of a scientific advisory committee to provide advice regarding the management of the Park; and
(c) recognize that the practice of agriculture is to continue in the Park.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Rouge National Urban Park ActRoutine Proceedings

June 17th, 2015 / 4:30 p.m.

NDP

Rathika Sitsabaiesan NDP Scarborough—Rouge River, ON

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-696, Act to amend the Rouge National Urban Park Act (ecological protection).

Mr. Speaker, over the last year, the government has pushed through critically flawed legislation for Rouge National Urban Park, ignoring the advice of several thousand Canadians, 106 members of Parliament, the Ontario government, and several of Canada's top environmental organizations. Even the former chief scientist for Parks Canada, Stephen Woodley, publicly stated that the Rouge National Urban Park Act “falls considerably short” of the accepted environmental standards for protected areas, whether urban or wilderness.

The new park that is being created would be less than two square kilometres and would not include the currently existing Rouge Park. The bill that I have put forward would actually fix many of the serious flaws in the existing Rouge National Urban Park Act by prioritizing and protecting the restoration of ecological integrity and watershed health; by respecting water quality agreement objectives and policies for the provincial Greenbelt, Rouge Park, the Rouge watershed, the Oak Ridges Moraine, and the Great Lakes; by requiring good public consultation and scientifically sound park management; by supporting healthy and sustainable farming in the park; and by respecting the history and heritage of the first peoples of the land.

I hope that we will be able to move forward with the bill and see a Rouge national park that is 100 square kilometres, a people's park and will continue to be the gem in everybody's backyard in the city of Toronto and the greater Toronto area.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)