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.

Opposition Motion—Leadership on Climate Change and Clean Energy

[Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me to be here today in the House of Commons.

[Member spoke in aboriginal language]

I am very proud to bring greetings to all my relations and to speak on this motion put forward by the NDP.

As we know, in life it is always important to have balance. It is one of the things taught to us by indigenous elders, and I have been taught throughout my life to try to attempt to have balance. Often I do not have as much balance as I would like in my work, life, and personal spheres, but nonetheless, balance is important. I believe our government has really attempted and accomplished the balance we need in our economy and with the environment.

We know growing the economy goes hand in hand with protecting our environment. I believe there is no one in this chamber or anywhere in Canada who believes we should poison our waters or destroy the land on which we live. We are working very hard with provincial, federal, and territorial governments to adapt and ensure climate change does not impact Canadians and the world in a way that is too extreme.

We have developed the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change. I thought I would spend a few moments listing all the environmental initiatives we have embarked upon with this government since 2015, which are numerous. In fact, it is actually quite a record and is something for all Canadians to be proud of.

For instance, we named Dr. Mona Nemer as Canada's new chief science adviser, ensuring the government's scientists are free to speak to Canadians about their work. Imagine, a scientist free to voice their opinion without government officials telling them that they can or cannot do so. We have empowered researchers to make discoveries that save lives, deal with climate change, and create jobs by investing $900 million through the Canada first research excellence fund, and $515 million through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Canada's NSERC discovery grants.

We are providing financing to support Canadian entrepreneurs of clean technology firms and attracting new business investment in sectors like clean energy. This includes $700 million in clean technology financing through an agreement with the Business Development Bank of Canada, the BDC. We are investing in clean growth with $3.5 million to build the final phase of the Enerkem Alberta Biofuels facility, the first of its kind to convert non-recyclable, non-compostable solid waste into energy.

There is $25 million for the guardians program, which works with indigenous Canadians to ensure they have a role to play in protecting the land and that they are the land protectors. This is an incredible accomplishment because when we reviewed this program at the finance committee, it was not sure if the program would actually receive funding. However, in the end, the government saw the need to engage with indigenous peoples and ensure they have an important role in being protectors of the land.

We are supporting the development of the indigenous tourism industry, which is largely based in rural areas, with $8.6 million in funding. We are investing $100 million in agricultural science and research to address emerging priorities such as climate change and water conservation to help mitigate biological threats to agriculture. We are making big polluters pay and are driving innovation for green solutions by pricing carbon pollution. That is an important one, making sure that people who pollute actually pay for it.

There are 270,000 indigenous people living in 275 communities who are benefiting from water and waste water projects across the country. Nearly 350 such projects are going to be completed or are now under way. We have lifted 52 boil water advisories on public systems for indigenous communities, and they now have access to reliable, clean drinking water.

We are protecting the wildlife, especially at-risk species and Inuit harvesting rights guaranteed under the Nunavut agreement in Tallurutiup Imanga-Lancaster Sound in the Arctic. The agreement will create Canada's largest marine conservation area. We are creating the largest conservation area in Canada, the largest in our history.

We are protecting Canada's coast and waterways with the historic $1.5-billion oceans protection plan, which aims to strengthen partnership and launch co-management practices with indigenous communities as one of its priorities.

We are accelerating the progress on existing rights and recognition tables to identify priorities for individual indigenous communities, working with indigenous communities to ensure their voices are heard. We are implementing UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in full partnership with indigenous peoples.

We are empowering indigenous women to engage with their communities to address issues that affect them or hinder their advancement in many aspects of their lives through an investment of nearly $5 million in 12 organizations across the country.

We are investing billions of dollars in light rail transit in Ontario.

We are reviewing neonicotinoid pesticides, the ones put on seeds, to examine the potential risk to Canada's health and environment and to develop a plan to protect the safety of Canadians and aquatic insects, which are important sources of food for fish, birds, and other animals. This is important for our bees. I know that there are many farmers in the chamber who will support that.

We are also taking a leadership role in tackling climate change and proudly played a strong role in helping to negotiate an ambitious Paris Agreement. We helped do that. It was not done before 2015, but it was certainly done after 2015.

We negotiated Canada's first-ever national climate plan with the provinces and territories in December 2016, which is a plan to meet or exceed our Paris Agreement commitments. We have launched a $1.4-billion low-carbon economy leadership fund to help reduce emissions in provinces and territories, particularly with investments in using energy more efficiently, which saves people and businesses money.

We are playing a leading role in the global ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, an agreement to phase out polluting hydrofluorocarbons that could reduce the world's warming by as much as half a degree.

We are phasing out traditional coal-fired power by 2030, with an ambitious goal of attaining 90% of electricity generation from clean sources by 2030. We are limiting air pollution and reducing health issues, such as asthma, by reducing methane emissions by 40% to 45% by 2025.

We are banning microbeads, a major source of plastic pollution and a threat to aquatic life.

We are providing scientists with funding for research at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory in Nunavut to contribute to leading-edge monitoring and research in the Arctic, which is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world.

We are investing $2.65 billion to support climate action in developing countries, which are the hardest hit by climate change and have often limited capacity to prevent and cope with its consequences. We are told time and again that everyone has to contribute, but we in the western world have benefited more than those in the developing world by polluting. We are ensuring that those in the developing countries can also develop their economies but do so in a way that ensures that the environment is protected and that they can build jobs for their communities so that they are safer in the long term. It is like that here in Canada. There are many indigenous communities that could benefit from ensuring that they can develop the natural resources of this land, and we should not deny them that opportunity.

We have a new national park. Rouge National Urban Park became Canada's first national urban park when we passed Bill C-18. We increased the proportion of marine and coastal areas that are protected to 5%. We are moving forward to protect lands in the South Okanagan in British Columbia, with the possibility of creating a new national park reserve.

We are helping Canadians living in rural and remote communities reduce their reliance on diesel for electricity and heating by investing in affordable and clean energy solutions, such as hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, and bioenergy, through the clean energy innovation program. We are helping to build a clean economy and to reduce polluting greenhouse gases by launching the emerging renewable power program, which will fund projects on renewable energy technologies.

The list goes on and on. For instance, we are adding 1,200 green jobs for young people in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, in natural resource sectors. That is 10 times more opportunities in the science and technology internship program.

We are supporting over 70 communities across Canada through three programs managed by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities: the municipalities for climate innovation program, the municipal asset management program, and the green municipal fund. The funding will help communities develop sustainable practices and local solutions to infrastructure management that respect a clean environment. We are investing in clean growth with $3.5 million in a biofuels facility, the first of its kind.

The list goes on for pages about all the things we are doing. I am very proud of what our government is doing to ensure balance, to ensure that we have not only a clean environment, a good environment for our children and our grandchildren, but also jobs to ensure that we have a good standard of living for today and into the future.

National Parks

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Scarborough—Guildwood and the many citizens who have worked for decades to make Rouge National Urban Park a reality.

With royal assent to Bill C-18, we kept our promise to protect the Rouge, provide certainty for farmers, work with first nations, and build a lasting legacy for Canada.

On Sunday, Ontario's premier and my caucus colleagues and I canoed at the CPAWS Annual Paddle the Rouge, where the premier reiterated the commitment of the Ontario government to transfer provincial land to complete the Rouge.

The Rouge is within one hour's drive of seven million Canadians and is accessible by public transit. I am so proud that the Rouge will become the world's largest—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I have the honour to inform the House that, when the House did attend His Excellency the Governor General in the Senate chamber, His Excellency was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:

Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Public Service Labour Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board Act and other Acts and to provide for certain other measures—Chapter No. 9.

Bill C-18, An Act to amend the Rouge National Urban Park Act, the Parks Canada Agency Act and the Canada National Parks Act—Chapter No. 10.

Bill S-233, An Act to amend the Customs Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (presentation and reporting requirements)—Chapter No. 11.

Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Income Tax Act—Chapter No. 12.

Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code—Chapter No. 13.

Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act—Chapter No. 14.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Okay.

It's interesting. We did our protected areas study, and it was something I think we looked at. In this year's budget there were millions of dollars for new park establishment, but as we advocate for meeting our Aichi targets, it would be useful to have a dollar number that we are at least striving toward so that we could ask Finance and the cabinet to put those kinds of resources toward it.

Mr. Bloom, in your last comment you touched on this idea of moving forward with park establishment money. As you noted with Bill C-18, new flexibility was given to establishment funds. Again, looking at future resources moving forward and what we need to complete the unrepresented areas, if we've started costing out additional lands, with the flexibility that comes through Bill C-18 to add to existing parks, I'm wondering if we have any sort of idea of what that current need could look like to help with the planning of future estimates. Has any thought been given to that, or is it on a more opportunistic basis as opposed to a strategic basis?

[Mitch Bloom]

I can't speak to the money, but there was a recent change, which just got through the Senate and we're awaiting royal assent, under our Bill C-18. It allowed us to change the nature of that account so that we could actually invest in existing parks, additions and expansions.

You were right. There was an inability to take that money and spend it strategically and quickly had something come in. That amendment will now allow us to...not just for new parks but also for the ongoing expansion of an existing park where there is an opportunity as you describe.

Resuming debate

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the debate concerning motion No. 14 is not about having a problem with working until midnight each evening—except, obviously, on topics raised by the opposition. I agree with what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons said in the House yesterday, that most of us are already working every day on a similar schedule.

In my previous career, I was already used to long hours. When I ran a global business, my European colleagues began calling me at 4 a.m., and my days would often stretch until midnight. This was necessary so I could meet with my employees and people in the plants and businesses in the Pacific region I was responsible for.

As the head of a North American refining and petrochemical company, I realized that maintaining customer relations and meeting deadlines to submit applications made for very long days.

The Liberal government said it wanted to make Parliament more family friendly in order to encourage women to get into politics. I support encouraging more women to get into politics, but I do not believe that many women would choose to work until midnight each evening, away from their kids.

Now, why did this government introduce such a motion, when theoretically it should oppose it?

As I have said, I am not opposed to working long hours. I said earlier today, and will say it again, Einstein was quoted as saying that the definition of insanity was repeating the same action hoping for a different result. The government has not accomplished a lot in the way of legislation. If we think about the 19 bills that have passed versus 52 in the same time frame when the Conservatives were in power, really not much has been accomplished. There is no prioritization of what is coming forward.

I want to take a moment to talk about what has already passed because it shows something important.

So far in Parliament the transparency for first nations has been removed with Bill C-1. Bill C-2 gave back to the middle class $932 a year in taxes and then Bill C-26 increased their CPP payments by $1,100 a year, with no benefit. Bill C-10 gave Air Canada a deal to get maintenance jobs out of Canada and escape a lawsuit. Bill C-14, medically assisted dying, was passed without protecting the rights of conscience. Bill C-17 addressed environmental items for Yukon. Bill C-18 was environmental change for Rouge Park in Toronto. Bill C-30 was a CETA deal that now has to be renegotiated with Brexit happening. Bill C-31 was the trade deal with Ukraine. The rest were all maintenance budget items that needed to be done. That is all we have accomplished in 18 months of the Liberal government's agenda. Everything else is lost in process, being amended in the Senate, and not coming forward.

What is the government going to achieve by making us sit every night until midnight, which, as I said, I am fully willing to do? I really do not think it is getting anywhere. Why is it not getting anywhere? Because it does not listen to the opposition's points of view.

The job of the opposition is to bring reasoned and intelligent arguments on why a government proposal is not good for Canada and to make helpful suggestions about what would make it better.

When bills are sent to committee, the committee's job is to make helpful suggestions and amendments that would make them something all Canadians could embrace. That is really what is happening. The government is not accepting amendments, not listening when the opposition talks, and again and again, when things go to the Senate, the Senate comes up with the same amendments and spends more time studying them, doing exactly the same thing that committees of the House are supposed to do. That is one problem.

Another problem is that there has to be trust when parties work together.

I am going to compare the antics that I see happening here with what I see in the business world. In the business world, people work together. People have to be able to trust one another when they make deals. They have to be able to follow up on things as they said they would.

From what I have seen, the opposition House leaders are trying to work with the government House leader but she is not keeping up her end of what she has agreed to. Every day I watch her stand in the House and misrepresent to Canadians that she just has a discussion paper, when really a motion has been rammed through PROC. I have seen her avoid answering questions that she is accountable to answer.

I would suggest that there has been a huge erosion of trust in the government House leader and sometimes that cannot be fixed in order to restore the ability to work together. The government should really consider changing up that position and coming back to a place where we can work together and trust that agreements that are made, amendments that are suggested, and motions that are brought forward are as agreed. That is really important.

There is another point that I would like to make that has not been discussed much here. I have listened to the debate on Motion No. 14 and I have heard a lot about the blame game. I hear from the Liberals that when Stephen Harper's government was in place, it did this bad thing or that bad thing, or whatever. Honestly, two-thirds of the Parliament are new. Some of us were not here in the previous Parliament. We have an opportunity to do things differently now. If we think something was previously done wrong, we have the opportunity to do it differently in the future.

When items come up in the business climate, not everything needs the same amount of time to be talked about. I have sat in the House and heard Liberal members stand up and say they support such and such a bill and I have heard Conservative members and NDP members stand up and say they do too, and then we talk about it for days.

This is not the way we should be spending our time. If the government had not squandered all of the time in that way, we would have more time and we would not have to sit late. In the same way, there are things that need to be discussed longer that cannot be rammed through, things such as the budget bill that has been combined with the infrastructure bank. When comments come forward, the government needs to lead. It needs to separate those things out so that the things that can be quickly passed get passed on. When I say passed on, I am saying that if we all agree on a bill at first reading and we do not need to change anything, then the legislation should be sent right away to the Senate. Why are we spending time doing second and third reading and committee and everything else? We need to be able to update some of the processes here.

I am not about just criticizing without providing recommendations for how I think we could make this better. Here are my recommendations, which I think the government could use to change some of the things that it is doing and which would result in getting legislation passed through in a better way.

When it comes to the rules of the House, I see an opportunity to modernize those rules but a change would need to honour the tradition of Parliament and have all-party consensus or at least the consensus of a majority of members to change things, because those things influence our democracy and they are important. Doing some of those things would, as the suggestions I have made about passing things we all agree on and everything else, clear the legislative agenda in a way that would move things forward more positively.

I also would reiterate that you have to have someone working with the opposition leaders who can be trusted, and I think that trust is broken.

The other point I would make is about amendments that are brought forward and are agreed to by the opposition members. It is not often that the NDP and the Conservatives play on the same team and sing from the same song sheet. That does not usually happen but lately it has happened a lot. When that happens, it should be a signal to government that this is an amendment that Canadians want to see.

The government needs to say what it is going to do and then it needs to own up to it. Some of the credibility loss that has happened has happened because the government said it was going to do something and then it did not. The government maintained it was going to be open and transparent and then facts have been hidden or things have not been well represented. The government said it was going to be accountable but then every day when we stand up and ask questions we get the shell game. It does not answer our questions, and this would not be acceptable in the business world.

These are some of the things that would help to get the legislative agenda flowing through. As a member of the opposition, I want to see the right things happen for Canada and I am willing to work with the government to see that happen.

National Parks

[Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Scarborough—Rouge Park for his tireless advocacy on behalf of the Rouge national urban park.

The Minister of Transport and I have announced a significant step toward the completion of Rouge national urban park with the transfer of Transport Canada lands to Parks Canada. With this transfer, Parks Canada now owns and manages more than half of the lands identified for the land assembly as Canada's first national urban park nears completion.

Should Bill C-18 pass the Senate, ensuring the same protection for Rouge as there is for every other national park in Canada, I am confident we will be able to complete the park as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Canada—

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

Mr. Speaker, the Rouge national urban park is central to my riding, and with the passage of Bill C-18, the House of Commons is closer than ever to seeing it fully realized.

Could the Minister of Environment and Climate Change please give the House an update on the steps our government is taking to complete the Rouge national urban park?

Ottawa River Watershed

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

More seriously, I want to go through a few of the issues on this motion.

This motion asks the House of Commons to direct a particular committee to undertake a study with respect to an issue in the national capital region. From time to time on certain matters of national importance there is an argument for the House of Commons to give this kind of direction to a committee. However, we are seeing an increase in the use of this tool of private members' motions to instruct committees. In general, I do not think that is ideal, because committees provide an opportunity for members of different parties to come together and set an agenda that reflects a view of the larger priorities and the imminent needs with respect to a particular area. Therefore, when a motion instructs a committee, that can really interrupt that process, especially when it is in the context of a fairly tight timeline.

The demand of this motion is for the study to be completed no later than December 2017. We are in the first hour of debate on this motion. Of course there are opportunities for flexibility around the timeline if the member wants to trade the second hour of debate, but it is very likely that if this motion were to pass, it would not pass for a number of months, which would give a fairly limited window of time for the committee that is being instructed to actually undertake the study. That creates some issues, especially when there may be issues of broader national importance. That is not to say that this is not an important question, but it is an important question with respect to a particular region. There may be issues that the committee, in its wisdom, decides need to be studied.

I would encourage members that with issues like this, it is probably worthwhile for members to talk to the members of the committee. There is a provision for members to substitute in at a committee, even to move motions at committees of which they are not regularly a member, and to ask that committee to undertake a study on that basis.

There is a process concern. At some point, as members of this House, if we want to encourage committees to have more autonomy, there is value in saying, even if particular members may agree with the underlying idea, “No, this is something that really should be discussed in the context of the environment committee.” It is important that we discuss and consider those procedural dimensions, as well as the substantive dimensions, because there may be cases where there is a laudable objective, but the process is not the best at proceeding to a discussion on that issue.

I have some concerns not just on the procedural side but also in terms of some of the substantive proposals with respect to this motion. It calls for a study perhaps with a view to the creation of an Ottawa River watershed council. It identifies some specific objectives in the context of the creation of that council, and includes a reference to “ecological integrity”.

I know that many of my colleagues have a concern about what the implications of this would be for development. There are also some concerns about whether this really moves us in the direction of creating additional red tape that is not needed. There are existing organizations. There is a voluntary river-keeper organization that presently exists. It is not clear at all, based on the text of the motion, how this proposed new council would function with the existing organization in place. It adds another organization.

The concern is that as layers are added, with additional requirements, maybe we want to affirm the importance of the Ottawa River. I would certainly affirm that importance, having spent time in Ottawa as a student, as well as spending a fair bit of time here in Ottawa now. Adding an additional council, additional levels of review, and perhaps bureaucracy would make potential development projects much more difficult. That is something we need to have some real pause about.

The member was quite right to point out that there are inter-jurisdictional issues involved, because this is a river that goes between Ontario and Quebec, and the federal government can be part of that discussion. As much as possible, it is ideal that, while recognizing the right of the federal government to impose certain things like this, we try to take advantage of existing mechanisms like a voluntary organization that is already in place and pass the authority and control over as much as possible to more local entities that can be more directly responsible. When we have motions like this one, we are asking the House of Commons as a whole to pronounce on something that in practice has a particular impact in a particular region. Giving authority to those closest to that region creates maximum responsiveness to the needs that may come from the community.

I also alluded to the issue of development. We dealt with this in Bill C-18, which the government proposed with respect to Rouge park. The insertion of the language “ecological integrity” certainly sounds like a good thing on the face of it. I do not think anyone said they were opposed to ecological integrity, but when that term is used in a certain context it can create some real problems for development. The way in which something is managed in a more urbanized setting may not be practical to preserve it exactly as it would be in the absence of human habitation. Therefore, we have to be cautious and realistic when we use certain language that may create a certain chill for development.

These are some of the concerns that I have and I think my colleagues have with respect to the bill. It is proposing a new organization , which looks like it would add administrative layers and red tape that really is not needed. It is proposing a study on the creation of that, when in fact, as my NDP colleague has pointed out, there may be some direct action that can be taken right now. The important thing is that any action taken in this area respects the realities that already exist, such as the voluntary organization that is there and the opportunities for this situation to be managed and dealt with in a more local way.

I have talked about the importance of respecting the committee process. I would not say, always and everywhere, we should never have the House of Commons instruct a committee. There are cases on issues of clear priority for the entire country where the House can give that direction to a committee. However, we should not be doing that all the time with every committee. Just looking at the private member's motions that we have, the trend is to give a lot of instructions to committees to do studies. Those seem to emerge without even being preceded by an attempt to propose that same study in the context of the committee. It would at least be worthwhile to propose a study in the context of a committee and then perhaps if the committee was unwilling to do the study, but the member felt strongly for it, then at least that might be a discussion we could have here in the House. However, in general, it does make sense to defer to the wisdom of the members on that committee as much as possible.

There are procedural questions here. There are questions about what the impact would be in terms of development and possibly putting a chill on development. There are questions about whether it is necessary to propose this additional level of administration, especially when there is an existing voluntary organization in place. By all indications, it is working very well, and it is not at all clear, based on this motion, what the interaction would be between this proposed new organization and that voluntary organization.

I look forward to the continuing debate on this, but certainly those are some concerns I have about the motion.

Rouge National Urban Park Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

It being 3:12 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the third reading stage of Bill C-18.

The House resumed from February 21 consideration of the motion that Bill C-18, An Act to amend the Rouge National Urban Park Act, the Parks Canada Agency Act and the Canada National Parks Act, be read the third time and passed.

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

Madam Speaker, although that sounded a bit more like a question, I would like to add a few comments before the close of debate today on Bill C-18.

The Rouge National Urban Park Act is extremely important. It has given us an opportunity to have a discussion about the larger purposes of national parks in Canada.

I want to begin by acknowledging that we are on the traditional territory of the Algonquin of Golden Lake. I think that is an important aspect of what we are doing here with the Rouge National Urban Park; it is reconnecting with the first nation peoples and their traditions, use, and occupation of the territory that was here before there was a Canada.

It is important that as we reflect on the purposes of national parks we not fall into what I have found frustrating in the debate on Bill C-18, which has been something of a false debate on the purpose of a national park and why we are worried about ecological integrity.

Ecological integrity is at the heart of the reason we create parks. We do not create national parks in this country to create amusement park areas or primarily for the purpose of giving Canadians and foreign visitors a chance to walk in the woods. That is a wonderful side effect of creating a national park.

National parks have the highest order of protection within the International Union for Conservation of Nature's protected areas hierarchy. They are the crown jewels in every country. National parks, unlike provincial parks, are more restrictive in what one can do. Yes, I enjoy hiking in national parks, but I know that in some areas, one is not to take a dog at all, and in no place is one to take a dog off a leash. Provincial parks are different.

In no place in Canada should we compromise on the fundamental principle of ecological integrity to encourage economic development. There was a bit of a slippery slope some time ago. Back in 1998, the federal government commissioned a panel on ecological integrity. It was chaired by Jacques Gérin, a former deputy minister of Environment Canada and a very respected civil servant, who I am proud to call one of my dear friends. Jacques Gérin, as the deputy minister of Environment Canada, had the misfortune for a while of being deputy minister to the one minister of the environment in the history of this country who truly did not understand the purpose of a national park. This was in the Mulroney administration. Some members may recall Suzanne Blais-Grenier. She was the only minister of the environment who ever said out loud, “Gee, it's a shame. Why can't we mine and log in our national parks. That seems like a lost opportunity.” Her time working within the Mulroney cabinet was brief. Fortunately, the prime minister, Brian Mulroney, did not appreciate having a minister of the environment musing about clear-cut logging in national parks or why we were not mining or damming. She was shuffled out of cabinet, and the person I came to work for sometime later, the hon. Tom McMillan, replaced her.

It was a moment when people began to rock back on their heels and say, “Wait a minute. Could we actually have a minister of the environment in cabinet who does not understand that the purpose of national parks is to protect these areas from development?”

We have a vast area of this country outside of all protection. It is very clear that most of Canada is not protected. Therefore, when we do say that this is a national park, we have to understand the purpose of that park. That purpose was clarified by a panel created on ecological integrity back in 1998 that reported that ecological integrity must not be ignored. It must be fundamental.

This issue is critically important to the creation of national parks.

With that, the Canada National Parks Act was amended to ensure that ecological integrity stayed there as the paramount purpose of national parks. Frankly, that was being eroded over the 10 years of the Harper administration. We saw a private, for-profit company put an ice walkway in Jasper National Park. Yes, it is a great tourist attraction, but no, it did not contribute to the ecological integrity of Jasper National Park. Neither did it contribute to the ecological integrity of Cape Breton Highlands National Park when the previous administration was promoting the horrific idea, which thankfully, this Minister of Environment and Climate Change has seen the end of, of a mother Canada statue in Green Cove, a pristine area of the coastline of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Development and tourist attractions of that type are completely inappropriate for our national parks.

The debate on Bill C-18 has given us a chance, in closing the debate at third reading, to reaffirm that national parks are about ecological integrity. That is why we have to go back and look at the Sable Island national park act that passed in the 41st Parliament. It still, lamentably, allows the Canada/Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board to have superior regulatory authority within the national park over Parks Canada itself. The CNSOPB is allowed to order seismic testing and to merely notify Parks Canada. It does not even have to consult in advance. That national park act, like the Rouge National Urban Park Act, needs to be revisited and ecological integrity restored as the core purpose of creating that park.

There have been some red herrings in this debate about forest fires burning out of control. Ecological integrity in every instance relates to the ecosystem we are protecting. The Carolinian forest is, with the exception of the Garry oak forest type in southern Vancouver Island, the most endangered forest type in Canada. Unlike Canada's boreal forests, the Carolinian forest is not a fire-driven ecosystem. It does not need, for ecological purposes, fires to burn through it. It is a moist forest. It is a hardwood forest. It has 70 different species of trees. It is far more biologically diverse than the boreal, for example. It has more than 400 bird species. It has marshlands, and we are losing our wetlands at an extraordinarily fast rate, particularly in southern Canada.

Despite the concern, which I acknowledge is valid, from an environmental lawyer like John Swaigen, from the Friends of the Rouge, who would still like to see changes made, this is a point where we cannot make changes. We might revisit it in a number of years. However, right now we need to reassert that while 75% of the Rouge National Urban Park is still in its wild state and 25% is disturbed, Parks Canada can have a plan and a vision, and Canadians can support it, to restore more of the marshlands and restore more of the Carolinian forest. We can ensure that in this time of climate change we provide as much of a corridor as possible for those species that are moving further north as the climate changes so that they have a habitat to find as they go north,

We need the Rouge National Urban Park. We need it whether it is an urban park or a wild park. It is the Rouge National Urban Park Act that we debate today, that we put to bed today at third reading. I support it, I am grateful for it, and I am very grateful to my colleagues for giving me this abbreviated time. I did not need to take my full 10 minutes.

I just want to reassert that parks are about ecological integrity, full stop. That is why we create them. That is why we must protect the concept, the principle, and the foundational purpose of our national park system: to protect the ecological integrity of Canada's diverse ecosystems.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise again to speak to Bill C-18, an act to amend the Rouge National Urban Park Act, the Parks Canada Agency Act and the Canada National Parks Act.

Today, I am going to spend a bit of time talking about my riding in northern Alberta. I like to call my riding the promised land, as I have said a number of times. I am going to talk about a little piece of promised land in the northeastern corner of my riding, land that is now becoming part of the new reserve for the Little Red River Cree Nation. Gus Loonskin is the chief. I have not had the privilege of visiting that part of my riding yet. I have made arrangements to go there several times, but due to some unforeseen circumstances on two occasions, the meetings have been cancelled.

I have driven to the northernmost edge of my riding. it is a long four-by-four road into the communities. The chief thought better of my driving the road myself, although I am always up for an adventure. He said he would meet me in High Level and then things transpired and we never actually met, but one day I will make it up to the Little Red River Cree Nation and visit the communities of John D'Or Prairie, Fox Lake, and Garden River.

Garden River is within the boundaries of Wood Buffalo National Park, and that is precisely what this bill is about today. It proposes turning 37 square kilometres of land in Wood Buffalo National Park into a reserve for the Garden Creek community, which is part of the Little Red River band.

The Little Red River Cree Nation is made up of about 5,000 people in northern Alberta. It is about 200 kilometres south, maybe less, of the border with the Northwest Territories. At the end of June and beginning of July, there is nearly 24 hours of sunlight in northern Alberta. In the spring, people typically get a lot of work done because there are lots of hours of sunlight. After getting home from work, typically there is eight hours of sunlight left before people go to bed, so things get done at that time of the year. However, the inverse is true during December and January, when there are only a few hours of daylight. Typically it is light only from about nine o'clock in the morning until three or four o'clock in the afternoon. When there is snow on the ground, not much happens anyway, other than logging.

The Little Red River Cree Nation actually owns its own logging company, Little Red River Forestry Ltd. It owns a number of companies that operate in that part of the world and they are relatively successful. Having a population of 5,000 gives forestry companies in that area human resources to tap into. There is a significant amount of forestry that takes place in northern Alberta. There is also a significant number of other things that happen there.

Little Red River Cree Nation is also home to the Little Red River Wildland Firefighters Inc. Northern Alberta is a relatively sparsely populated part of the country and there are vast forests that people work in, such as loggers. There is also oil field development. There is a lot of wildlife as well. Managing forest fires is a big part of what is done in northern Alberta. The Little Red River Cree Nation is a definite part of that as well, because it has its own company that contracts to the Alberta government and the federal government to maintain the forests in the area.

From my research, this is part of Treaty No. 8 territory. Treaty No. 8 was signed in 1899, well over 100 years ago. Shortly after that, Wood Buffalo National Park was put in place to allow for a large buffalo herd to move freely. Interestingly, however, there was no buffalo herd there, so the park was created and the buffalo were transported from Wainwright, Alberta, which is about 900 kilometres south, and they were transplanted in Wood Buffalo National Park.

This leads to some concern today, because these bison have bovine TB. Even the local indigenous population does not hunt them because of the worries of the disease that happens to live in some of the bison. There is an ongoing concern about that.

Either way, whatever the case may be, at 47,000 kilometres, this is one of the largest, if not the largest, national parks in the country. It takes up the whole northeastern corner of Alberta. It is not a national park that a lot of people visit, because there are not a lot of roads to it. To get to this particular corner, people would have to fly in or drive in during the winter on a winter road. I believe that people can get there by taking a ferry down the river as well. For the most part, however, nobody drives in and out of that area on a regular basis. It is a significantly remote corner of the province. There is not a lot of industrial activity in the park, and therefore, there is no need for roads, and roads going to that corner of the province simply do not get built.

Since 1988 or maybe a little earlier, but for decades and nearly as long as I have been alive, they have been working on transferring this piece of land out of the park and into a reserve. This work has been ongoing.

I would also point out that there are other areas in my riding where people are waiting for a reserve. There is the Peerless Trout First Nation, which is probably about 300 or 400 kilometres south of the area that is in the bill. The people there are also waiting for their reserve. They have been promised land as well, and they are working tirelessly for their reserve.

This is a three-stage process. I have met with the band and council. They have shown me what is going on, and I have been able to advocate for them on these things. They have stage one and their own piece of land, which is now the reserve. They have built a health centre. They have their own fire station, and are building an education centre there as well. However, there are still stages two and three. They are looking forward to getting that completed.

This is an ongoing process with many levels of government dealing with it. There's the provincial government. Typically, all of the crown land in Alberta is managed by the provincial government. The provincial government has to sign off on it, which I believe it has. The local municipality also has interests in that area. It has a big road maintenance yard right inside that area. There has to be an agreement on how that is going to be managed as well. There are some hurdles that have to be stepped over in order to move forward.

There is the Lubicon Lake Band, which was missed by the Indian accountants who came through in the 1800s and therefore never got its own reserve. These people have been living there for hundreds of years, and they just happened to have been missed. It is fairly easy to see why. People can travel for hours and hours on the highway and see only bush. There is a sign at the beginning warning of there being no gas for 175 kilometres. People had better have a full tank of gas. The band also moves around depending on the time of the year, and has several camps on the edges of these lakes. They were missed when the allocation for reserve lands came out, and so they never had a reserve. However, we worked diligently for 20 years or so, and in 2010 the band got its first agreement on where the land would be.

As members can imagine, sometimes there can be a kerfuffle between neighbouring bands. One band may say that it is that band's traditional territory, and the other band may say the same. This is also the case up in northern Alberta where I represent. We are looking to see more progress on that. However, the basic outline has been nailed down, and I think that deal was signed in 2010 with the federal government, and we are continually working toward that.

It seems these land claim deals typically take years and years just to get everybody on the same page and get all the details hammered out. I know that the Lubicon Lake Band First Nation is definitely looking forward to having its own piece of promised land.

As we consider the bill, the Rouge park aspect of the bill has been talked about extensively and I understand that it affects a lot more people seeing as it is perhaps right in the centre of a big, sprawling metropolis, with many ridings that interact with it. I would emphasize that the land in the northern part of my riding, at about 37 square kilometres, is about half the size of the Rouge national park, so it is a significant piece of land. Perhaps there are not as many people who will be impacted by this piece of land, but for the livelihood and the way of life of the Lubicon Lake Band First Nation, those 5,000 people who live in northern Alberta, this will have a profound impact on their ability to develop that area and to build permanent structures there and be able to use the land in the method that they see fit. It is a fairly virgin piece of land as well. There has not been too much impact in terms of industrial activity, unlike the Rouge national park.

I will leave what I have to say about the Wood Buffalo National Park and the taking of the 37 kilometres out of the park. I think I have addressed it well. I know the people of Little Red River are quite excited about this new development, but it has been worked on for generations. Regardless of whether the federal government has recognized this as being their territory or not, they have been living there already and they are excited about it, but it is also a matter of fact because they already live there and are raising their families there.

I will move on to the Rouge national park, the piece of this bill that has had the most attention from members. I think we are starting to sound like a broken record, but I want to talk about the term “ecological integrity”. Coming from northern Alberta, one of the most beautiful places in this country, to put the term “ecological integrity” on the Rouge national park seems like a great irony. I mentioned northern Alberta where we are taking part of the Wood Buffalo National Park out. That is an area that has ecological integrity and it is easy to see how we can continue to manage that purely because there are not a lot of people who live in Wood Buffalo National Park. In fact, this is the only community that lives in Wood Buffalo National Park.

However, the Rouge national park has been lived in for thousands of years. Significant industrial activity has happened in that area. Currently there are highways, power lines, and pipelines that run through it. All of these things make our lives better. Highways allow us to travel at high speeds, 100 kilometres an hour, to get where we need to go. Pipelines bring natural gas that we use to heat our homes, so we need these things. There is no doubt about that. With regard to power lines, I have a cellphone on my desk right now that every day is charged up. Every night I charge it up and most of the MPs here could not survive without our cellphones. It is a bit of an understatement, we probably could survive. It is not like water or food, but the anxiety that I feel when my cellphone is not in my pocket and it is not readily available, or if the battery goes dead, is significant.

That example is about the power to charge up my cellphone every night. I guess it is a bit of an overstatement to say I cannot survive without it, but I think members understand what I mean, that the power is important.

That says nothing about the heat that it provides. I know in Alberta, my home is heated with natural gas but where I rent here in Ottawa, my home is heated with electricity. It is imperative that the electricity continues. In order for that to happen, we are going to need power lines and we are going to need pipelines. It is a great technological feat to see that each house in this country is heated by some form other than wood nowadays. It is much too easy. In fact, I think that is part of the problem, that we have forgotten what it is like to go out and chop wood, and bring it in to keep our homes warm. We have forgotten what it is like to have to store wood all year long in order to burn it throughout the winter.

Now if we are cold, we just go over and turn the thermostat up. We do not think too much of it past that. We do not think about all the power lines that it took, and we do not think about all the pipelines. We do not think about the big dam that is up in northern Quebec or Labrador or B.C. or wherever it is that generates the power that we get to use.

Right here in Ottawa, within sight of this building, there is a big power generation dam. We often drive by there and wonder what it is. That is what is powering our cellphones. That is what is heating homes. It is that kind of thing. These are the technological advances that humanity, because we have put our minds to it and co-operated together, has been able to make, to make all of our lives better.

When we say Rouge National Urban Park should have ecological integrity, it is a misnomer even just to insinuate that currently we do not have ecological integrity there in terms of it being a natural habitat. There is a lot of human impact that has happened there.

Second, if we are going to put that on there, Parks Canada has a definition for that, a “hands-off approach”, letting nature take its course. If a stream is going to erode away the dirt, exposing a pipeline, potentially causing a spill, we are just going to let that happen and we are going to have to move the pipeline. If that is a stream that erodes away the base around one of the power lines, we will have to just let that happen. We cannot take preventative action, which, in my thinking, would be the smart thing to do.

One of my towns in northern Alberta, the town of Whitecourt, is looking to become a city soon. Every time the census comes out, the residents look to see if they have made it over the 10,000 mark. If it makes it over the 10,000, it can apply to become a city. At this point, it is a town.

Just last year, it launched a project to divert the water from the river to some degree to prevent it from washing away big parts of the town. There is a big lumber mill and a big park, and things like that, down in the river valley. It was being threatened by the river eroding the bank away. Just in one year, 35 feet was lost off the bank of the river. The river was moving into town, basically. Big berms have been built in the river to divert the water, so the water does not hit the bank directly and erode it more.

That is the beauty of humanity's genuis, the fact that we can see these problems, and we can undertake methods to divert the water or prevent the forest fire or all of these kinds of things.

To put the term “ecological integrity” on a place like Rouge park seems very counterintuitive to me. No matter how much this piece has to be in there, I do not think it was an appropriate term to be placed on the Rouge park.

That said, I see my time is winding to a close here. I would like to congratulate the people of Little Red River Cree Nation on their new reserve. I would like to thank the government for continuing the hard work that has been done over the last decades to get us to this point.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-18, an act to amend the Rouge National Urban Park Act, the Parks Canada Agency Act and the Canada National Parks Act, be read the third time and passed.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak to Bill C-18, which proposes amendments to the Rouge National Urban Park Act that was passed in the last Parliament. I will be speaking in favour of this bill, as it strengthens the protections of this park and its ecological integrity.

I will begin my comments about national parks in general, Rouge Park in particular, and then spend some time talking about how this bill is pertinent to a national park proposal in my riding of South Okanagan—West Kootenay.

Rouge Park is the first urban national park in Canada, marking an innovative step in the approach Parks Canada is taking to protecting our ecosystems across the country. When we first started creating national parks back in 1885, we had vast areas of wilderness to choose from in southern Canada. We created large parks throughout the western mountains, Banff, Jasper, Kootenay, Yoho, Glacier, Mount Revelstoke. In the boreal forests of the prairie provinces we made Prince Albert National Park, Riding Mountain National Park, and the enormous Wood Buffalo National Park. Some early national parks were smaller, such as Point Pelee National Park in the Carolinian forests of southern Ontario. However, for the most part, we look to our wilderness as a source of parkland. We had lots of that a century ago. Today, those opportunities are much more limited, and I was happy to see Parks Canada broadening the scope of their protected areas with the creation of Rouge National Urban Park.

Our national parks play a number of roles, and first among these is to protect the full range of ecosystems found across this wild and diverse country. Our national parks provide a rich opportunity for Canadians to experience, enjoy, and learn about our natural heritage. That is certainly an important role for parks near urban centres, such as the Rouge. Bill C-18 emphasizes that first role, the preservation and enhancement of the ecological integrity in our parks, which is critical to the success of all natural parks, whether they are areas of vast wilderness or smaller areas hemmed in by urban and agricultural landscapes. The bill would make the maintenance or restoration of ecological integrity the first priority of the minister in all aspects of the management of the park. Also, the bill would add more federal lands to Rouge park. Size matters, at least when we are talking about ecological integrity.

In the mid-1900s, Parks Canada began a program to represent the full ecological diversity of this huge country in the national parks system, adding parks to Atlantic Canada, and in the north. As the decades went on, it became more challenging to find representative areas in the south that could function as parks. Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan dealt with issues around ranching and grazing, while the establishment of Gwaii Haanas involved payment to the B.C. government for lost opportunities in forestry. Despite these challenges, these parks are now considered successes, and indeed national treasures. Gwaii Haanas is also a model of how co-management with first nations communities and government can work in a national park setting.

However, there are still ecoregions of Canada that are unrepresented. In 1979, almost 40 years ago, one of my first real jobs after graduating from university was a contract with Parks Canada to report on opportunities for the creation of a national park in the dry interior of British Columbia, one of the only major ecoregions south of 60 with no representation in our national parks system. I found large areas on the interior plateau that were relatively intact but lacked many of the characteristics that made the dry interior unique in Canada, particularly desert grasslands and ponderosa pine forests. These grasslands are one of the most endangered ecosystems in Canada, along with the Carolinian forests of southern Ontario, as in the Rouge, the tall grass prairies of Manitoba, and the Garry oak savannah of southern Vancouver Island. Those rare grassland ecosystems were best represented in the south Okanagan Valley. However, opportunities for a large wilderness park there were limited. Most of the low-elevation habitats were highly altered, and most of the grasslands converted to orchards and vineyards. The land base is a complex mosaic of provincial, federal, first nations, and private ownership.

For various reasons, nothing was accomplished to create a national park in the dry interior of B.C. for about 25 years. Then, in 2002, an initiative began to bring together various groups in the south Okanagan to get a national park established there. Federal, provincial, and municipal leaders, first nations, and environmental groups lobbied B.C. and the Canadian government and were successful in starting a feasibility study to look at the idea.

While there is general local support for the park proposal, the situation is complex and there are many issues to consider. First Nations were in favour of the idea in principle, but wanted a real role in the development of the park and a direct role in the management of it, as is done in Gwaii Haanas and many northern National Parks. First Nations initially objected to sacred areas included in initial Parks Canada maps of the park proposal. These areas are now excluded and First Nations are again supportive.

Environmentalists were disappointed that some important areas were dropped from the Parks Canada proposal. Hunters were concerned about the loss of hunting opportunities.

A large helicopter school was concerned, and still is, about assurances that its operations would not be affected by a new park.

Ranchers, the group most directly affected in terms of their livelihoods, were deeply concerned that a new national park would put an end to their operations. In BC, most ranchers lease large areas of crown land range in the summer and without access to that land base, they would be out of business very quickly.

It was a complicated situation, and it is perhaps not surprising that the process floundered for several years before the feasibility study was released with a positive answer in 2011. First nations released their own study, again agreeing in principle to move forward with planning in 2013.

Parks Canada spent some time working on a new policy to deal with the concerns of ranchers. It eventually decided that for this park, grazing could be allowed exactly as it was now managed under the B.C. Forest and Range Practices Act. Unfortunately, just before the talks could move on to the next stage, the B.C. government pulled out of the process. Again the initiative languished until the province recently announced it was willing to come back to the table and talk about a national park. I was very happy to hear that decision, and I hope to see the process move forward once again.

Like Rouge Park, the national park in the Okanagan would not be like the big wilderness parks across our country, but it is needed to protect the rare and diverse ecosystems in southern British Columba. It would provide a big boost to the local economy. If other national parks in B.C. are anything to go by, it would create hundreds of direct and indirect jobs, all while protecting the local environment. It would also bring federal funding for the acquisition and management of the park. Yes, it will take time and continued dialogue to create, but we should not give up on it simply because of those difficulties.

The innovation I see in the creation of Rouge Park sets a good example of how new national parks can and should be created in the future, as Canada's national landscapes become increasingly fragmented. I would point to the recent creation of Gulf Islands National Park Reserve as another model of park creation in a landscape of complex land ownership.

Bill C-18 would also broaden the ability of Parks Canada to pay out funds from the new parks and historic sites account. This measure will give the government greater flexibility in paying out funds for the acquisition of land to expand any national park, not just for establishing a new park. Again, this makes it easier to establish parks in areas of complex land ownership. Since the days of expropriating land for national parks is essentially over, private lands will only be added on a willing seller basis and that is very difficult to arrange the moment a park is created.

Bill C-18 would strengthen the ability of Parks Canada to meet its mandate to give strong directions for ecosystem integrity and would create room for innovative solutions to both park establishment and park management. It would keep Rouge Park as a national treasure and I hope allow Parks Canada to continue to preserve the full diversity of our natural heritage, including the dry grasslands and forests of the south Okanagan Valley, for our grandchildren and their grandchildren.