We actually went to an Ecojustice lawyer, John Swaigen, who literally wrote the book on environmental law. He was one of the founders of the Canadian Environmental Law Association. I worked with him when I was a vice-chair with the environmental assessment board with the province. He was the chair of the environmental appeal board.
John's advice to us, after researching it, was that ecological health is very ill-defined. It's defined in so many different ways. In Canada, thanks to Parks Canada, we already have a good definition for ecological integrity.
People in the GTA want a first-class park. They don't want a second-class park, so what you are doing today is giving the GTA an opportunity, long term, to have a first-class national park. Right now it may be fragmented, but I've travelled east and west to many of our parks, and I love them all. I came back to an area that I used to bicycle to when I was a kid, and I found this to be the most biologically rich area in Canada.
It's really special. Even Lord Simcoe knew that. Lord Simcoe asked for a land grant in the Rouge as one of his perks of being the lieutenant-governor way back in the late 1700s.
Ecological integrity is an aspirational goal. It will take a century for us to get close to it. Also, because there were first nations farms in the past, which have been a part of its landscape for hundreds of years, that will be part of the ecological integrity in this area.