We have to conserve what we have left before thinking about restoring anything. Restoration is a need and a necessity today. There is a tendency in all developing municipalities across Canada to put pipes underground, to pave roads, to build parking lots, to channel all that into the streams and rivers. I think it would be an interesting proposition to use wetlands to retain and filter water before it is transferred naturally into our streams and rivers.
With climate change, sometimes we have long periods of drought, but when it starts to rain, many millimeters fall. We can receive 10, 15, 20 or 25 millimeters of rain in half an hour. Many municipalities, including the City of Montreal, have rain water management problems. That may be the case for other major cities such as Toronto and Vancouver as well. I am not aware of all the water management problems, but all that is attributable to channelling, and we have made the ground artificial.
If we retained more natural environments and plants, and if we built streets much straighter and with less paving, while maintaining safety by relying on firefighters and ambulance attendants, that is to say on the services offered to citizens, I believe everyone would win. We would save on concrete infrastructure and road maintenance. Our natural environments would work for us and we would also save money in that area, and the water in our rivers would be of better quality. It would cost us less to treat the water we pump and filter for our water supply because it would be treated naturally.