Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, folks. We appreciate your being here.
It's nice to see you again, Michael.
We studied and produced what I think was a really great report on protected areas, and I believe it was unanimous. We asked the government to do everything in its power to protect more land and nature. We had a recommendation that the federal government work directly with municipalities in acquiring land so that we could hit some of our targets. The government delivered. They announced the $1.3 billion, of course, to protect nature, parks and wild spaces in our budget 2018.
Bruce Peninsula National Park was a file that our chair, Mr. Aldag, worked on back when he was a public servant with Parks, so I'm happy to be his voice now that he's chairing, because he's not allowed to ask questions. I'm sure, though, that this would be the one he would ask. I know that he and many Canadians have advocated for the expansion of Bruce Peninsula.
You mentioned in your remarks, Michael, and I was happy to hear that Parks Canada had reached an agreement to acquire a parcel of land in Georgian Bay to expand this park, so $21 million is included in the estimates for this acquisition.
I wonder if you can tell me a little bit about this land parcel, specifically its significance, maybe ecologically. I'm not from that area of the country. I don't have the in-depth knowledge that our chair would have on this, but I do find it fascinating, because we have a park that I consider to be Halifax's Rouge Park in Blue Mountain-Birch Cove. I hope someday I'll be reading a question to a Parks Canada person about a massive acquisition of land in Halifax for our version of this park or Rouge Park.