Yes, I believe there is room for local food production and sustainable agriculture in Rouge Park, but the current model of 60%.... Basically, industrial farming is below market value, so it's subsidized right now. I could give you an example. In Toronto there's a farm of 496 acres, with two nice houses and four buildings, for $1,800 a month. Where could you get 496 acres, two houses, and four barns for that? It's totally subsidized.
The second point is that we need to be fair to the heritage families. I was at the 60th wedding anniversary of Russ and Faye Reesor. I really respect the families there. If there were problems with the original expropriation and land acquisition, we need to make sure they are properly redressed.
There are about four dozen tenants on the farmland right now. Many people who farm it don't live near there. They have farms at quite a distance. There are a number of farmers who have sold their land, have become millionaires, and who continue to lease public land at highly subsidized rates. So there is going to be a public balancing issue: do the needs of four dozen tenants overwhelm the needs of several million people? Do the needs of the last ecological opportunity to protect two endangered zones of Canada...? There will be a balancing to be done here.
We think that through a rational and scientific process, with reasonable people at the table, those issues can be addressed. But the current balance isn't in the broad public interest; it's in the local vested interests, and I think.... So those issues will have to be addressed through the planning process. So far in the park concept, we're very concerned, because a 600-metre wooded ecological corridor has been put in the plans for over 20 years, and that isn't evident in the current Rouge national park concept.