Evidence of meeting #34 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farmers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
So members are on the same page.
There has been a lot of talk about how often people come back and say that farmers have nothing to worry about: you'll never have anything to worry about; everything will be perfectly fine, and the sins of the past will not happen again.
In the letter I have, Minister Duguid referenced these three organizations: Environmental Defence, Ontario Nature, and Friends of the Rouge Watershed. Point number one says' “incorporate, strengthen and implement the vision, goal and objectives of approved Rouge Park Plans 1994 and 2001”.
I'm going to read something.
The 1994 Rouge park plan says, “Part of protecting cultural heritage values in the park involves the continuation of active farming”. That sounds good so far. It goes on to say, “since all activities must dwell within the framework of park goal and objectives, with the highest priority being the protection and restoration of the park's natural heritage, some reduction of farm land base is recommended to permit natural restoration goals to be met”.
That's in the 1994 plan, which is referenced by these three groups, which are constantly being talked about. It's referenced by Minister Duguid.
Is this part of the fear that farmers might have with respect to reduction in farmland? Am I correct?
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Thank you.
Now I want to read another quote. I want to help my colleagues understand why farmers in the area might be somewhat concerned.
Here's another quote, and this is from Friends of the Rouge Watershed general manager Jim Robb, in a Toronto Star column from November 25, 2012:
Parts of the Rouge Valley have been occupied by farmers since the 19th century. But Robb says many farm operations are becoming bigger and more intensive, and therefore stand in the way of restoring the Rouge to a more natural state. “It's not a park; it's an industrial farm,” Robb said. “The interests of a few...are being put above the interest of the public and the interest of the environment.”
What do your farmers think when they hear a quote like that, saying that you're nothing but a bunch of industrial farmers and that your interests are somehow being put above the interests of millions of other people? How do farmers react to such a quote?
York Region Federation of Agriculture
It bothers us.
Those millions of other people eat just about every day. But as for the industrial comments, some people believe that because the tractors are bigger, because the equipment is bigger, because of economies of scale, this has meant that we farm...as in a lot of other things in the world today, it's bigger. We need to farm, for some crops, larger acreage to be able to pay for the crop inputs and the equipment to be able to make a profit.
Looking at the equipment for instance, bigger is actually better in many cases, because, as far as conservation goes especially, one of the issues with the smaller tractors, the smaller wheels, the weight of that tractor is placed in a very small area. If it's bigger, tires spread out more and there's less compaction, which is a lot healthier for the soil.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Not to single out anybody, but the member for Scarborough—Guildwood said this when speaking about me: “I think, frankly, the hon. member”—me— “mischaracterizes the fear of the farmers. A lot of the people who are keenly interested in this park south of Steeles are, in fact, big farmer fans north of Steeles.”
Am I mischaracterizing the fear of the farmers when I say that you're worried about losing land?
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
No.
I want to ask you another thing if I can.
The Liberal member of Parliament for Trinity—Spadina, Adam Vaughan, said:
Could the member explain to me if he knows of any plan by anybody to evict any farmer on the land in question?
I read the Rouge Park 1994 management plan which clearly says that they want to reduce farming land. You probably knew people who were impacted by the Bob Hunter decision.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
In that decision, farmers were told a Rouge Park would have no impact. They later came back to you and said, “Nothing stays the same”, and that's why farmers were being evicted.
Are you not somehow afraid that nothing will stay the same, yet again, unless you're specifically protected as this legislation does?
York Region Federation of Agriculture
We watched the farmland south of Steeles disappear, so that only that 10% of heritage farms were left. We became much more involved once the farmers started getting notices to cancel their lease in creating the Bob Hunter park. There is definitely the fear that there will be other reasons for going forward, that the farmers will lose their leases.
Conservative
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Thank you to each one of you for your contribution here.
I want to tone down the false food fight a bit and see whether we can arrive at some sort of reasonable understanding among both sides of what I consider to be essentially a false debate. I think the farmers by and large need to stand up and say that they are some of the world's foremost ecologists. I think what I heard the ecologists say and the environmentalists say is they actually recognize that farmers are among the world's foremost ecologists. This is my judgment of a largely false food fight, which is getting us nowhere.
The big issue as I see it is in clause 6. The big issue here is that the minister is saying in effect that all she needs to do is “take into consideration”, and there are a couple of other things, “protection of its natural ecosystems and cultural landscapes”, etc. There's the contrast between that and what a normal park bill looks like in the ecological integrity clause, which would say that the minister shall establish within five years a set of ecological integrity objectives and indicators, provision for resource protection and restoration, zoning, visitor use, public awareness, and performance evaluation, which will be tabled in the House.
I would have thought that a clause such as that would be of as much interest to the farmers as it would be to the ecologists. If I'm a farmer and I want some stability of land tenure, some guidance on how I manage watercourses, land, etc., all of the things that you outline, Ms. Empringham, it seems to me that I would want to know that no minister could unilaterally deal with zoning, could make visitor use wide open, or public awareness, have any impact on my use and enjoyment of the land. If we're not going to get that clause, and the government has made it abundantly clear we're not going to get that clause, what is it that would give some comfort to the ecologists and some comfort to the farmers that they're both on the same page so that they know and everybody knows what the framework is as this management plan is worked out?
I would direct this first to Mr. Hébert-Daly, and then to you, Ms. Empringham.
National Executive Director, National Office, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
I think I laid it out a little bit in our presentation. Fundamentally we're looking at two key elements. One of them is, how do we define maximizing ecosystem health? I think there's a question of what that looks like. I think we all agree that we all want to do it, so the question is, what does that look like? In our view, it's largely about how to maintain.... If you could imagine that ecological integrity is kind of the—
National Executive Director, National Office, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
—the end line, if you will, where everyone wants to be, we see maximizing ecosystem health as the push towards that without necessarily saying that we have to be at the goal line at any particular point. It's incentive-based. It's trying to drive to that area without saying that it has to get to the end point of ecological integrity. To us, the definition is a key question, and the prioritization is also a key question. It's a filter through which we look at management decisions. I think that it's not intended to be, and certainly I don't think it can be interpreted to be, some kind of a barrier to the continued enjoyment of farm land or cultural heritage sites or—
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Let me stop you there and get Ms. Empringham's reaction to his two points, which are maximizing ecological health and the prioritization.
What's your response to that?
York Region Federation of Agriculture
The prioritization we would like to be equal with the environmental concerns and natural heritage protection.
I'm sorry, what was the other point?
Liberal
York Region Federation of Agriculture
The farmers already are using environmental farm plans. They're already using best management practices. From our initial consultations with Parks Canada, we have suggested that those would be what we would be looking for as a standard so that the farmers know what's expected of them.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
If the government came forward with some sort of definition which prioritizes your concerns, prioritizes his concerns, so that they are relatively similar standards, it seems to me that once that happens, you're both going towards maximizing the ecological health of the asset. Am I missing something here?
Ms. Browes.
Director, Waterfront Regeneration Trust Corporation
You make them equal. There's no need to prioritize them if we are looking at all of these as one ecosystem health standard.
In reviewing the debates, one of of the things is ecological integrity. When you think of the amount of intervention of humans in the Rouge, the ecological integrity is simply not possible. I was talking the other day about...well, maybe the Rouge marsh right down at Lake Ontario is an ecological integrity area, but it isn't.
Director, Waterfront Regeneration Trust Corporation
It isn't because in the 1800s the railroads put a big berm across and the whole Rouge marsh is just a lot of silt. If we wanted to have ecological integrity of the Rouge marsh, we'd have to get rid of the railroad.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
But we're not talking about ecology integrity. Even the CPAWS people know that's not happening and that's not possible nor practical.
