Bill C-18 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Rouge National Urban Park Act, the Parks Canada Agency Act and the Canada National Parks Act

This enactment amends the Rouge National Urban Park Act to set out priorities in respect of factors to be considered in the management of the park. Additionally, it adds land to the park. It also amends the Parks Canada Agency Act to allow the New Parks and Historic Sites Account to be used in a broader manner. Finally, it amends the Canada National Parks Act to modify the boundary of Wood Buffalo National Park of Canada.

Rouge National Urban Park Act

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for those comments. He and I have worked together on a couple of issues over the year, and I always look forward to his comments. I look forward to him visiting Scarborough—Rouge Park in the near future.

The member talked about a lack of protection or that maybe we have gone too far in protecting the environment with respect to the park. What it really comes down to is that the stakeholders I have spoken to and the community organizations that have worked on this issue for the last three or four decades have overwhelmingly said that we need to have ecological integrity for the park enshrined in the legislation. This is why our Minister of Environment and Climate Change undertook an extensive consultation process with the parties involved and came up with this bill.

I think it is important for my friend to recognize that this is the only park that would not have ecological integrity enshrined in the legislation if we do not bring these amendments. Every national park in the country has ecological integrity, but this does not. I think it is important for my friend to recognize that this is an important element that the community has asked for, and the government is responding to those needs.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I thank my friend for the invitation to Scarborough—Rouge Park. I will be happy to take him up on that at some point. I am sure the Conservative electoral district association there is looking forward to setting up some door-knocking for me.

With respect to the member's comments about what the community is looking for, the reality is that the concerns we have been raising are not just concerns we have. I will share something that was said at the environment committee in 2014. This is from Mr. Ian Buchanan, the manager of natural heritage and forestry, environmental promotion and protection in the Regional Municipality of York, who is clearly an important stakeholder in this discussion. He said:

The biggest threat would be picking the wrong end point, as was mentioned. Ecosystem health is a “yes”, but ecological integrity is unrealistic.

We have an important stakeholder, and this is just one example of someone coming before the environment committee. I think this is along the lines of what I was talking about.

We can certainly agree that preserving the health of ecosystems is important and that, obviously, preserving the natural environment is a core part of the purpose of the park. However, if we were to head in the direction of ecological integrity, it is unrealistic. Potentially, in terms of its interpretation, it could create some significant problems down the line, whether it is for the agricultural use of that land or other kinds of uses, so—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

We will go to questions and comments.

I understand that people are very passionate about this topic, but this is questions and comments and not elaborate speeches. We have already been through that. I just want the member to keep that in mind.

The hon. member for Regina—Lewvan.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan is eminently sensible in suggesting that we must strike a balance between protecting the environment and the human use of our environment. I wonder if he would acknowledge that part of that balance is having certain areas, such as national parks, in which we really do err on the side of protecting and preserving nature.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have been called many things by NDP members, but that is the first time for “eminently sensible”.

To respond to what the member said about national parks, we all agree in the House on the importance of preserving national parks. However, I would say that the way in which we protect nature in different kinds of national parks is going to be different. Our approach in Banff, Jasper, or Elk Island National Park, near my own constituency, which I talked about, is going to be different from our approach in an urban park.

Yes, ecosystem health and the preservation of ecosystems is important, but there are going to be different kinds of uses. There are multiple purposes that exist in a national park. I think we can have our cake and eat it too here, but that does not involve the language of “ecological integrity”, in my view.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his commentary. It has been really interesting to listen to it all day.

I come from British Columbia. There are some instances where protecting ecological integrity has not necessarily ended up being in the best interests of the park or the public. I will speak to that a bit later when I elaborate on the spread of the pine beetle from Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, across B.C., and now into Alberta.

Does the member have examples of similar situations where park managers' hands have sometimes been tied because ecological integrity has been the priority?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention and look forward to hearing more details in his speech later on.

Certainly he makes a very important point. There are some cases where the management of the natural environment, in order to preserve the well-being of those ecosystems, might be at odds with the “just leave it alone the way it is, untouched” kind of approach. Sometimes the preservation of those ecosystems may point in a different direction from what might be implied by “ecological integrity”, leaving things the way they normally are.

I have quoted specific references from the environment committee to those concerns. I spoke about Elk Island National Park near my own constituency, where the engagement of people for the preservation and protection of the bison herd certainly was important.

The underlying theme of what I am trying to get across is that there is a legitimacy to that interaction between people and the environment, which could have positive effects for the environment as well as for individuals. We should not always assume that human non-engagement with nature is better. There are many cases in which that engagement is certainly better for the human beings doing the engaging and which could also have positive effects on the natural environment in question.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague mentioned the importance of ensuring a certain balance. However, we are talking here about a national park where integrity should be the priority. That does not mean that there cannot be other activities there.

As certain Conservative colleagues have pointed out, agriculture has been practised there for decades now—centuries, even. Consequently, the other activities simply have to be subjected to a rigorous environmental assessment process. They can still continue to coexist despite the presence of a national park where ecological health and integrity are the priority.

We understand full well that exceptions may happen and accommodations may need to be taken. That is what the new bill states, whereas the previous one completely did away with ecological integrity and health. Many witnesses, who have not been named, spoke about the importance of ecological integrity and health. It was not just one witness; many others said the opposite.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, regarding the member's comments that yes, this is a national park and thus there is a certain standard that should exist, I am very comfortable with the fact that there are different kinds of national parks that exist in different kinds of environments, where different kinds of approaches may be more realistic or more appropriate.

When we are talking about wilderness parks, absolutely, there is a certain approach that makes sense in that context. However, when we are talking about an urban park, it is very likely that a somewhat different approach is required to be realistic when it comes to ecological integrity.

The balance struck in different kinds of national parks will likely be different depending on the specific objectives and the specific environment.

It sounds like my colleague agrees that other activities have to be preserved, such as the continuing agricultural use of parts of that park. That is very much what we are talking about: striking a balance, in terms of the language we use, that is not going to create problems for those other uses down the line.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Madam Speaker, let me preface my comments by letting folks in the House and those who may be watching know that I was very proud in a previous life to serve as a conservation officer in the province of Alberta. I served at a variety of provincial parks. In fact, when I last served at a provincial park I was the in-charge officer for that provincial park. I also had the privilege of being a national park warden for Parks Canada in 1995. It seems like a long time ago. I also had the privilege of being a back country warden on the north boundary of Jasper National Park. I had several horses and seven cabins that I would stay at as I patrolled. I was able to live at the Decoigne Warden Station during my free time, while it was still a warden station.

I have a zoology degree in fisheries and aquatic sciences, and a conservation law enforcement diploma from Lethbridge College, designed specifically for a career in parks, fisheries, and wildlife, and working as a law enforcement officer in the conservation field. I did not spend a lot of time doing that, just a number of years in my 20s. I was successful at it for a while. Of course, that kind of work is seasonal work for the most part when starting out, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to work in the oil patch in the wintertime. As a farm boy in Alberta, one could pretty much walk in and get a job in any oil company. If one knew how to use a wrench, one was hired. I thank the companies in the energy sector for supporting my parks habit in my 20s, because I loved to work in parks, but needed the money that the energy sector provided. The energy sector is suffering so badly right now in my home province. My heart goes out to my constituents who I know are struggling mightily with what is transpiring there.

However, I am digressing. I need to get back to the issue before the House today.

Some people in the House will be surprised to find that, given my background, I am not going to stand here and advocate for a national urban park in the greater Toronto area. It is not because I do not believe in the value of national parks. As I said, I dedicated a portion of my life to them, and most of my education has gone into that. However, I understand the culture of Parks Canada. I am not saying it is a bad culture. I am not saying it is negative. I need people to understand what they are getting with Parks Canada. They are getting an organization that believes in its mandate wholeheartedly. That is a good thing. That is not a negative thing. However, in a country that is almost 150 years old, there is a reason that not a single national urban park was created until this park was.

If we look at Parks Canada and what Canada is known for in its national parks, it is known usually for broad landscapes. It is protecting vast amounts of land and protecting areas, whether those be marine protected areas, or mountainous regions, like Alberta, or vast tracts of land in Yukon, the Northwest Territories, or Gros Morne in Newfoundland and Labrador. All of these parks are usually set aside far away from urban areas. The reason for that is that human and natural conflicts are sometimes difficult to manage. I am going to speak a little about this.

I have been a member of Parliament for a long time. It will be 11 years pretty soon. Some people on this side of the House would think I have a long future ahead of me. Some people on that side of the House would probably encourage me to think of other things. That is fine. I get that. I truly do.

I have been an MP in Alberta, and I have had the good fortune of doing that for a long time. I used to represent the community of Rocky Mountain House, with its national historic site and its proximity along highway 11 to the Saskatchewan crossing and highway 93 between Lake Louise and Jasper.

I had dealings with all of the people there, whether someone operating a ski hill who simply wanted to build a small maintenance building to augment their services, or those involved in something as broad as expanding the size of a ski hill to accommodate tourists and guests.

I spent most of my summer holidays with my family in Waterton Lakes National Park and Jasper National Park. I returned to that national park I had worked in so long ago because I love it. I knew what the deal was going to be when I went there and I received the deal. People were constantly telling me that the tire on my truck was a bit off the gravel pad and on the grass, that I would have to move it. They would tell me that I had left my empty cooler outside and that I would have to get it. They would come into my campsite and take away things. They did not know me. They did not know that I knew what I was doing. They assumed that I was like everyone else in the park, that I might or might not have been be skilled in doing these things.

The people of the GTA need to understand that with its mandate, Parks Canada will micromanage everything that happens in that park, especially the people.

What I am concerned about is the fact that four million people are in the immediate area. The bill currently before the House talks about preserving the ecological integrity of a parcel of land that is a mere 79 square kilometres in size. I have news for everyone: If this legislation passes and the protection and preservation of ecological integrity becomes the mandate of Rouge National Urban Park, I promise everyone watching today that there will be complaints and conflicts between the people living near, living in, doing business with, or having anything to do with that national park. The mandate of Parks Canada and the protection and preservation of ecological integrity will not sit well in a 79 hectare park with houses right up against it and with virtually no buffer zone around it. It is important to understand this.

Jasper National Park and Banff National Park are themselves not islands alone surrounded by development. There is Kootenay National Park and Yoho National Park right across the border. There is the Willmore Wilderness Park, the White Goat Wilderness Area, and Kananaskis Provincial Park, as well as all kinds of other provincial parks, municipal parks, and crown land surrounding those national parks. Those national parks, when compared to Rouge National Urban Park, are geographically massive, and yet Parks Canada still struggles with managing ecological integrity.

Cariboo migrate massive distances, but because there is an ecological and hands-off approach, letting natural systems take their course, even in a park surrounded by the Willmore where there is no ATV traffic, cariboo still have a hard time surviving. There are basically similar rules to what we see in a national park. Provincial parks and recreational areas are all around it. However, even in a park that size, cariboo, which are not threatened by oil and gas activity and not threatened by forestry activity, still have a hard time surviving because, when ecological integrity is preserved, natural systems take care of themselves. Thus the presence of wolves and mountain lions in an uncontrolled, non-predator controlled environment such as a national park has led to the virtual extirpation of cariboo from Jasper National Park. They are not hunted. Aboriginals are not hunting in Jasper National Park. They are not exercising those rights there. It is not oil and gas activity. It is not forestry activity and it is not even forestry activity all around it, because all around that park are buffer zones that prevent those same kinds of activities. Yet we cannot actually preserve the integrity of a species in its range even in a park of that size.

How on earth is Parks Canada going to manage a conflict should cougars, black bears or other types of large predatory animals find their way into the Rouge National Park where they would be afforded all the protections of the National Parks Act, which is exactly what this bill intends to do? I am saying straight up that the current Parks Canada mandate will not work well in an urban national park surrounded by four million people. This is a fool's errand. It will be expensive, it will be frustrating, and it will not work.

Parks Canada can get into memorandums of understanding with landowners, but I know the culture of Parks Canada. Parks Canada officials do not want human activity in a national park. It is that simple. People can say whatever they want, but I can assure the people watching and the people in the House that Parks Canada officials want little to no human activity in a national park. That is the culture. I am not saying it is right. I am not saying it is wrong. I am saying that is the way it is. I have been there. I have done that. I know it.

What is going to happen? How do we provide ecological integrity in a park that is 79 kilometres square in its size, hardly bigger than some family farms in places like Saskatchewan and Alberta on the Prairies? What is going to happen when the beavers get into the waterway and decide to dam things up, and people have to go through the paperwork and the process or a national park warden has to make the call where public safety is an imminent threat to kill the beaver? They cannot protect that ecological integrity.

What about insect infestations? What about crop management for farmers asking for the privilege of putting a herbicide or pesticide on their crop inside a national park which has the mandate to provide for ecological integrity? They cannot circle that square. Something has got to give. Alan Latourelle knows this very well. He wrote a letter saying that this would not work, as he was leaving after 13 years at the helm of Parks Canada. He said not to do it, not to go that extra step.

Parks Canada has other stages of parks. We have park reserves. We have land that is being held in trust for parks. We can simply change the regulations and the law to allow for the uniqueness of an urban national park. We can take all of the policies that generally come out of an urban park in any of our cities. I am sure the city of Toronto has them. I know the city of Edmonton did when I worked for Edmonton parks and recreation. Virtually every city has its own rules and its own policies for the parks inside city limits, because those are the rules and policies that make sense in a city.

What is going to happen when there is an insect infestation? What is going to happen if that insect infestation is either destroying the crops of the farmer, threatening the neighbourhood, threatening the trees and other physical improvements that the city has put in place in proximity to that park, or private landowners who have spent money on cherry trees, orchards, fruit trees or whatever they have in their backyard? When they tell the MPs in Toronto that they have a bug problem in their backyard coming from the national park and ask them what they going to do about it, MPs from the GTA are going to do nothing about it. They are not going to be able to do anything.

Members should trust me. I know what I am talking about. They cannot change the law all by themselves. Therefore, they are going to have to look their constituents in the eye and say that the member of Parliament for Red Deer—Lacombe, in a speech eight years ago, warned about this, but they did not listen to him and voted in favour of the government bill, and now wished they had listened. It is coming. They do not have to believe me if they do not want to, but it is coming.

There nothing anybody is going to be able to do about it because Parks Canada is going to say, no, that the ecological integrity has to be maintained, that the insect is naturally occurring in this area, and if it spreads out of the park's boundaries, so be it.

Members may not believe me, but Parks Canada has a much more enforced mandate than provincial parks. Anybody can understand these three words “mountain pine beetle”. The NDP government of the day in British Columbia did not understand that if it did override the ecological integrity provisions of the B.C. Parks Act, which is less onerous than the National Parks Act, it could have gone in and extirpated the infestation of mountain pine beetles in Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. I know my colleague is going to talk about this later. It could have saved the ecological integrity of virtually tens of thousands of square kilometres of pine trees all through British Columbia, Alberta, and now into Saskatchewan, even the ones in the national parks like Jasper.

That is what it would have been able to do, but the NDP government could not do it, or it would not do it. It let nature take its course. It was billions of dollars to the forestry industry, bailouts, and fighting this pine beetle scourge as it moved across from B.C. through Alberta and across the north. Had there been a different mandate or a provision that would have allowed for common sense and management of these lands in an appropriate way, we might have been able to prevent this problem.

Parks Canada changed its mandate a long time ago. I used to ride my horses through the back country of Jasper National Park. Some of it was on trails. Some of these trails looked awfully sculpted. When I inquired what they were, they were old fire roads. Parks Canada used to have a fire suppression policy, where it would go in and protect the forest because the forests were beautiful.

People cannot dispute that when they drive through a national park, or through a forest management area or some crown land, and we have plenty of that close to us, whether it is nearby Quebec or northern Ontario, it is beautiful. Driving along the highway and seeing the boreal forest, whether it is in the Shield or wherever the case might be, is absolutely lovely.

This summer, my family and I went back to Jasper, and we drove up the Maligne Canyon. A fire broke out in the Maligne Canyon last year. It was a beautiful picturesque landscape. On basically three sides of that canyon, it is scorched earth, right down to the rocks. The fire burned so hot that it actually burned through all of the forest. Normally a forest fire just burns the canopy and goes through and kills the trees, but this bared it right down to the rocks. That is how hot and intense that fire actually was.

Forest fires are natural. We were not going to harvest the trees in the national park anyway. They tried to suppress the fire simply to protect the physical assets and infrastructure, such as buildings, businesses, and so on in the area. That is the only reason they got involved.

The fire suppression policy is going to apply unless a specific exemption is made in Rouge National Urban Park. Which MPs here are going to say that they wished they could have told people that they could have saved their homes when the fire broke out at a picnic site in Rouge National Urban Park, but they voted in favour of the ecological integrity provisions for an urban national park next to four million people.

If members do not think a fire can get out of control and affect a city, they should look at Fort McMurray or Slave Lake in my province. It is not funny at all. This is serious business. I would love to keep going. If I could have just a few seconds—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The member will be able to conclude during the questions and comment period.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Ottawa South.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague and I have served together on a number of committees, but that was probably the most defeatist speech I have heard here in a decade.

There is always a way forward. This is a negotiated outcome involving three orders of government, hundreds of stakeholders, and residents. The concept of ecological integrity is one that we are struggling with not only in urban settings, urban parks, but in no-go zones, parks that have been created where there is very little human traffic or presence. The fact that it is going to be difficult to achieve does not in any way, shape, or form, for me, suggest we ought not to try.

Already, in the last 12 months, Parks Canada has completed 15 major ecological restoration projects, including farmland enhancement and scientific research projects. We are just beginning to move forward. The fact that there are four million or five million people in the area is actually a positive thing. We are trying to mainstream this concept of ecological integrity throughout Canadian society.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Madam Speaker, in principle, I do not disagree. Rouge Park is a tremendous opportunity to use as an educational facility, to engage many Canadians who, and I do not know if I am right on this, in our larger urban centres might be a little disconnected from our natural environment. I applaud the notion that my colleague brings forward. I am simply relaying to him my personal experiences in dealing with a Government of Canada agency, a Government of Canada agency for which I proudly worked. I am not bashing the agency. I am not bashing the people who work there. They are doing fantastic work according to their mandate.

My concern is that the House does not truly understand how the mandate is implemented. In an area where there is so much opportunity for contentious uses of that very small land space, there will be many bumps along the road. I am just suggesting that we had better not put some more bumps in it by adding ecological integrity at this time.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened very carefully to my hon. colleague's speech, as he is an expert on the subject. I, myself, am not, so I rely on a variety of sources to improve my understanding of the issue.

I understand what he is saying, but when I compare it, say, with the comments made by Mr. Éric Hébert-Daly, national executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, CPAWS, I note some inconsistencies.

Mr. Hébert-Daly said, “CPAWS also welcomes the greater certainty for the farming community that is proposed in this bill. It shows that, with some creative thinking, solutions can be found that work for farming and for conservation of the precious Rouge ecosystem.”

It would seem, then, that we are not alone in thinking that it is possible for these things to coexist.

My question is very simple. What amendments would my colleague propose in order to make the bill acceptable to him?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will simply ask if anybody knows of any national park in Canada that allows farmers to start up operations and farm the land inside a national park. No, that is not happening.

We are starting a national park that currently has farming operations in it, with an organization that has no mandate. In fact, it has an opposite mandate when it comes to agricultural practices. They are diametrically opposed. The culture and management starts with the minister and deputy ministers in Ottawa, all the way down. Alan Latourelle, the head of Parks Canada for 13 years, a distinguished career, said that he disagreed with including the provision of ecological integrity in the mandate of Rouge National Park. That is good enough for me. I do not understand why it is not good enough for the rest in the House.