Thank you, monsieur le président.
The Lachine Canal celebrated its 180th birthday two years ago. It's a masterpiece of the federal waterway system that opened the route to the Great Lakes and the interior of the continent. The Lachine Canal is an important asset of the Canadian heritage. It was at the centre of the Canadian industrial revolution, and its surroundings and neighbourhoods were at the heart of Canadian industrial activity until the middle of the 20th century.
As it stands now, the Lachine Canal is a disgrace for the federal government. Parks Canada, the manager of the site, has barely the resources to maintain it properly. The furniture is old and deficient. The cycle path needs urgent repairs and probably a complete renovation. Light bulbs are not replaced, etc.
Given the national historical importance of the Lachine Canal, it is very difficult to understand why Parks Canada has so little resources to develop it. The interpretation programs are minimal. There are very few self-interpretation panels, and we are still waiting for the canal house and interpretation centre that were to be created for the reopening of the canal in 2002.
As I mentioned earlier, the Lachine Canal area was at the heart of the Canadian industrial sector for more than a century. The opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 marked the beginning of the end for the Montreal SouthWest economic base.
This reorganization of the waterway system had a catastrophic impact on the SouthWest: a sharp decline of industrial jobs, a sharp decline of population. And all that of course resulted in massive unemployment and poverty, bringing the SouthWest Borough to one of the poorest urban areas in Canada at the beginning of the 1980s.
In 1984, RESO was founded at the initiative of a wide variety of community and economic partners and stakeholders to revitalize the socio-economic base and support its population to integrate the workforce and restore its dignity.
Very quickly, the Lachine Canal was recognized as the backbone of the SouthWest revitalization. After being completely closed to navigation in 1970, the Canal became the symbol of the area's devastation. For most people, the Canal was an open wound that reflected the neglected state of its neighbourhoods and literally became Montreal's garbage can. Restoring and reopening the Canal was thus a major component of the SouthWest renaissance, and hopefully a strategy to bring back businesses and population based on 21st century economic perspectives: the new economy, the cultural industries and tourism.
One of the goals was to ensure jobs and proper living conditions for those who had been left behind. So far, 10 years after the announcement of the public investments to reopen the Canal in 1997, and five years after its reopening in 2002, even though we make a rather positive assessment of the impact of the project on the SouthWest's social and economic situation, we are forced to observe that the goal to improve the fate of the poorest in our neighbourhoods is, at best, partially achieved.
The Canal banks are rapidly developing with luxurious condos and other accommodations for middle and upper class households, which is not a bad thing for the demographic balance of the borough, as long as the poorer households feel that they won't be the victims of a gentrification process that would eventually push them away from their neighbourhood. This is why we think that this ambitious but necessary project must be completed to fulfil all of its expected benefits.
Among things that urgently need to be done, I will address two specific issues: the development of a multifunctional and multiclientele project on the former Canada Post property on the banks of the Canal, a property now owned by Canada Lands Corporation, CLC; the announcement and realization of the second phase of public investments to complete the Canal's renovation and support its touristic and cultural development.
The Canada Post site offers a great opportunity to undertake a development that will be inclusive, sustainable and beneficial for all. The SouthWest community will be involved in defining a master plan for the site and we are very confident that the community's objectives and priorities will be taken into account.
However, we are faced with a major obstacle that could compromise the realization of community projects: the cost of site decontamination. Considering that this site has been the property of the federal government for over one and a half centuries, and in accordance with the polluter-pays principle, we think that the federal government has a responsibility to take care of the decontamination costs and give back a clean piece of land to the community. It appears that the federal government has put aside $4.5 billion for the next 10 years to decontaminate federal properties. For some technical reasons, it seems that CLC doesn't have access to these funds that would really help to make the difference and facilitate a more inclusive and affordable project on this property.
We respectfully ask you to change whatever regulation needs to be changed to make these funds available to the Canada Post site project.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.