Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
To come back to this, we realize, and the CEO of Parks Canada said on Thursday, that Ontario made inclusion of ecological integrity conditional on the transfer of the land. It was absolutely conditional.
I think that the committee may be under a bit of a misimpression, based on the testimony of the CPAWS witness last week, who talked about the regulations for the Ontario protection of the Oak Ridges Moraine. I would just like to suggest that Ontario doesn't have a basis.... Those protections do not apply to the Ontario lands that are subject to transfer now.
Certainly, from my understanding over the years, all stakeholders have agreed that conservation should be the first priority, and that farming should continue and be celebrated—and we've heard that in a variety of ways. I'm still concerned, and Mr. Latourelle, in his testimony, sees the possibility of what I'd call a poisonous seed, that future governments, or future forces, may try to use this ecological integrity but misapply it to an urban park to crack it open.
You heard that the farmers have some trepidation that, in fact, one day someone may come in and interrupt the commitment that is contained and provided for in Bill C-18. They fear that someone may use “ecological integrity” to overwhelm and reverse that element and that protection for the farmers, for the agricultural land.