Debates of Oct. 2nd, 2014

Rouge National Urban Park Act

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to acknowledge the work of the Hon. Pauline Browes. Members might be interested to know that at one point, she ran against me, so I have some familiarity with Ms. Browes. Anyway, I am here, and she is not. The member for Whitchurch-Stouffville had the same experience, I believe, as well, but he is here.

I also want to acknowledge the work of Derek Lee, who was the member for Scarborough--Rouge River for many years. I think those are the two legislative heroes.

The hon. member asked a really interesting question: how much is the compromise going to be?

There is going to be compromise. We are not talking about pristine wilderness. We are not talking about Nahanni, which is what we will be talking about in the next park bill. We are talking about a significantly degraded watershed. We are talking about an area in the eastern GTA that is heavily populated, and we are talking about a lot of complications, particularly, for instance, with the leaseholders and how to integrate the leaseholders into the management of the farm yet meet the highest possible ecological standards, under the circumstances.

This is going to be difficult at the best of times, and it has been made even more difficult by these current circumstances.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, given that I am short on time.

What concerns me is the dangerous precedent that the Conservatives could set by creating this park. Since it will be the first urban national park, it is essential that ecological integrity be the priority. My Conservative colleague just said that ecological integrity is important to her. Therefore, she should push her Conservative colleagues to make sure that this priority is in the bill, because it is not.

Does my colleague not believe that a dangerous precedent could be set by creating this park without making ecological integrity a priority?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree and I disagree, simultaneously, with my colleague. I think it is a dangerous precedent.

The creation of urban parks is difficult, and each one is unique to its own circumstances. However, I think this is the one where we make the mould, and if the mould is not one that has ecological integrity, or, in the words of some, has a net gain in ecosystem and watershed health as our standard, then we will achieve nothing. At this point, there is not one. That will result in some rather regrettable consequences.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will make a quick comment. I think the legislation in front of us should be supported by the members of the House, because it would, in fact, exceed provincial standards when it comes to ecological protection in our parks.

Provincial parks, such as Algonquin and Killarney, allow logging, mining, fishing, and hunting. The current legislation in front of us does not allow that. It will not allow for resource extraction, logging, the removal of native flora and fauna, hunting or fishing, or the removal of fossils.

I just make that comment because I think it is important to acknowledge that the legislation would exceed Ontario provincial legislation with respect to parks like Algonquin and Killarney, which are considered crown jewels in the Ontario parks system.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his work on this park. I imagine that if the hon. member were running this file, we could actually do some business.

However, “trust me” does not cut it. The responses from the federal government and the Government of Ontario have been unhelpful. This is a complicated park and, of course, there are other forms of commercial activity in other parks. That is the reality.

Unfortunately, the way that the legislation is phrased makes it open season. That is regrettable.

Frankly, “trust me” does not cut it.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and for Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by noting that today is the first day of the Markham Fair, which runs from October 2 to October 5. This is one of Ontario's largest agricultural fairs. It has been going on since 1844 in my community. It highlights the important role that farming and agriculture have played in the development of my community and the entire York region.

What is very special about the Markham Fair every year is the importance that the entire community places on it. Every November, I have the opportunity to attend the president's banquet at the Markham Fair, and we recognize the individuals who have volunteered their time at the fair. It always amazes me how many people have been there for 5, 10, 20, 25, 40, 45 and 50 years, volunteering at the Markham Fair. Generation upon generation of families volunteer to make this annual fair a special event for our entire community.

As I said, it is an agricultural fair. We see all the things that we could expect to see at an agricultural fair. There are ploughing matches There are competitions for things like hogs, chickens, the best homemade apple pie. There is soap carving. Obviously, there is a midway and there are all kinds of other things that highlight the importance of agriculture to our community.

Today, as they kick off another year of the Markham Fair, I just wanted to congratulate them and wish them well.

There has been a lot of difference of opinion on the creation of the park. Actually, let me take that back. I do not think that there is a difference of opinion with respect to creating the Rouge national urban park. I think that the difference is in the form that the park would take.

As the members for Scarborough—Guildwood and Wellington—Halton Hills highlighted, a lot of people for many years have been focused on trying to create a national park in the Rouge. That is something that has been talked about for many years.

It is important to look back a little bit at where this all started and how we got to this place. A lot of the land in this area became available to the government through the expropriations in 1972 by the Trudeau government of, I think, over 18,000 acres of land for the creation of potential new airports and a second airport for Toronto. At that time, farmers in the area were evicted from their lands. Some were given leases to lease back their lands on a yearly basis, but many were evicted. That has been the reality for many of the farmers in the area since 1972.

Fast forward to 1994, when the Rouge park concept started being put into play. As it has already been noted, it really followed Pauline Browes, who was the minister of state for the environment in the Campbell government and a parliamentary secretary in the Mulroney government. A decision was made that $10 million would be set aside to help create, manage and preserve some of the natural heritage of the Rouge park. That brought in a heightened significance of how special the natural heritage of the Rouge is.

Consequently, there have been provincial governments that have also recognized its significance. Through the 1990s and the early 2000s, the Mike Harris government transferred thousands of acres of land into the management of the park. Also through that time, plans were made to manage the Rouge in a more effective way so that we could preserve and protect the national heritage of the area.

As we have got a little bit further into the discussion, there were thoughts about what could be done to protect the Rouge park. As it has been mentioned, the Rouge park falls into two different categories. There is a Toronto category, and then there is a York region part of it.

For those who do not know the area, in the Toronto category there is a large street called Steeles Avenue. South of Steeles Avenue, some of the most extraordinary natural heritage in Ontario or Canada can be evidenced through the Rouge park there. It is absolutely spectacular. I do not think anybody can question that.

North of Steeles Avenue, we start coming into more agricultural areas. A vast majority of the land to the north of Highway 7, which would be put into Rouge park, is agricultural land that has been farmed for hundreds of years. This is not just a new concept. This land has been farmed for hundreds of years. In fact, I would invite all of my colleagues in the House to look at a program called The Curse of the Axe. This program highlights the Wendat people who were settled in this area some 500 years ago. It was discovered that the Wendat people had been farming those very same lands. The extent to which they were farming completely changed how we viewed our first nations and the role that they played in agriculture and trading in the area. I would invite all my colleagues to look at the program. It will highlight again how long this land has been farmed.

North of Highway 7, it is farming. To the south, as the member for Scarborough—Guildwood rightly pointed out, we have the 401, a hydro corridor, the Toronto Zoo and, on one edge of it, there is a landfill. However, there are extraordinary pockets of incredible beauty that the Ontario government, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and what was previously the Rouge Park Alliance had been working on preserving for a number of years. We have done that with partners in the private sector. By and large, we have done a very good job.

However, when the concept started evolving with respect to a national urban park, and we knew we had some excess airport lands, that is when the debate started to change a bit. We knew, as has been mentioned by other speakers, that we could do something very special here. We could protect the natural heritage of the Rouge Valley, but at the same time we could extract those lands that had become surplus to any potential airport needs, and put them back into a Rouge park so these lands could be protected for a long time to come.

The Ontario Farmland Trust, a non-profit organization that promotes farmland preservation, said, “The new Rouge National Urban Park offers one of the most innovative opportunities for the protection of farmland resources, agricultural heritage and local food production in our generation.”

If I am not mistaken, it is only 1%. This is class 1 farmland. We have lost so much farmland in this area to development. In the park south of Steeles Avenue, pretty much all of the farming that was there is now gone. I believe that we have to do our absolute best to ensure that the class 1 farmland on the northern part of the future park is preserved and saved, and that we allow our farmers to continue to farm, using best farm practices, for a very long time.

Our farmers are sometimes condemned as not being proper stewards of the land. I disagree. These lands have been farmed for hundreds of years, and our farmers are some of the best stewards of the land. The proposal that has been brought forward by the minister would see these farmers finally get long-term leases. Bear in mind that these farmers have been working on yearly leases. It is very hard, if not impossible, for them to make investments in the land that they have been farming. They cannot make the investments that most farmers would want to make. They are forced into a certain type of farming because they are on a yearly lease. This has disadvantaged the farmers in this area for a very long time.

We have the opportunity through this legislation to do both things that are very important, to protect the natural heritage of the park, while at the same time reversing decades of poor treatment of farmers in the area.

That is why I am very excited about this. Obviously throughout this process there has been a lot of debate. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills and I have not always seen eye to eye on this. We have had a tremendous amount of debate. When the proposal first came to me as the member of Parliament for Oak Ridges—Markham to create a Rouge national urban park, I was dead set against it if it meant that farmers in my riding would be disadvantaged the way they had been and if they were to be treated the way they had been under the existing Rouge Park management.

There is a 2001 Rouge Park management plan. Part of that management plan calls for a 600-metre corridor. The net result of that corridor would mean the elimination, at a minimum, of 1,700 acres of class 1 farmland and that is completely unacceptable to me, to farmers and to my constituents. We can make sure that we work with the farmers, who are not opposed to making sure that the entire ecosystem is protected. They want to work together with government to make sure that they can do that. I want to read a letter from the York Region Federation of Agriculture, which represents farmers in the area, to the hon. Brad Duguid, the Ontario minister who has highlighted that the Ontario government does not want to transfer the land. It says:

The York Region Federation of Agriculture members are the 700 farm businesses in York Region and Toronto including the farmers in the Rouge National Urban Park. ...you arrived at your decision to not recommend the Provincial land transfers after discussions with stakeholders and local citizen groups. You did not consult with the York Region Federation of Agriculture, the farmers in the Park, or the community living in the Park. We urge you not to hold up the transfer of Provincial lands to Parks Canada.

The farming community in the Rouge National Urban Park are the same farm families that have been farming and caring for the land...for the past 200 years. The future of the farms in the Rouge National Urban Park have been in limbo since the farms were expropriated in the 1970's. The farmland in the Rouge National Urban Park is Class 1 Agricultural Land, meaning it is the best land for agriculture production. Less than 1% of Canada's farmland is Class 1. The farmers in the park have already given up 1000 acres of productive farmland in the Rouge National Urban Park to reforestation projects.

It continues:

We support Parks Canada's consultation process that engaged over 100 stakeholder groups and thousands of individuals to create the Rouge National Urban Park Draft Management Plan.

It went on to say:

We believe that Parks Canada will improve the ecological integrity of the Rouge National Urban Park while maintaining the farmland in food production.

I want to reference another letter, from the Cedar Grove community group to Minister Duguid. Cedar Grove is an extraordinary community within my riding, a very historical community. This is what it has to say:

On behalf of the Cedar Community Club, we write with regard to your letter of September 2...which presents your decision to withdraw your recommendation to support transfer of land to Rouge National Urban Park.... It was shocking to learn of your decision and we strongly disagree.... With the promise of the coming Rouge National Urban Park, there was an anticipated hope for stability for the farmers and residents of Cedar Grove and surrounding communities.

It went on to support what the minister has done to bring about the Rouge national urban park.

I want to talk about what has recently transpired with the Province of Ontario.

We obviously have been working with the Province of Ontario for a number of years. Since this announcement was made in the previous election of 2011 and rehighlighted in the throne speech, we have been working closely with the Province of Ontario to bring about the Rouge national urban park in a way that respects the ecological integrity and promotes the national heritage, but also protects the farmers and gives them the stability that they have been looking for since 1972.

I do not think it is a big secret that we were close to an agreement. We had a signed agreement with the Province of Ontario that we probably would have announced had an election not been called for the Province of Ontario. Then, after the election that changed, unbeknownst to any of us. I know I picked up the Toronto Star one day and saw a letter from Liberal Minister Duguid outlining the Liberals' concerns. They were no longer going to be transferring the land because they had some concerns with ecological integrity.

Never had they mentioned this before. The province had signed an agreement with us. The transfer was to happen. We were to move forward with a management plan that was working with the province and the stakeholders in the area. Then this came. Coincidentally, everything is held up until November 2015, after the next federal election. It is truly shameful.

It is worth remembering that these are the same provincial Liberals that had before requested, not ecological integrity, but money for the lands it was going to transfer. They wanted to be bought out. Therefore, when they asked for I think it was $120 million, they had no concerns with what they were seeing then. Their concern was that they wanted to be bought out of their position in the lands; “Give us a hundred million dollars and we'll transfer it to you, no problem”.

It was highlighted by people like Alan Wells, who was the final chair of the Rouge Park Alliance, that this had never been the case. Governments had transferred lands to the Rouge Park for a very limited amount, I believe for $1. The provincial government had done that before. The provincial government of Mike Harris transferred lands to the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority so that it could be managed. That was pointed out to the minister, but they needed to get their $100 million.

I really want to reiterate what the provincial Liberals' proposal would do. In his letter to the Minister of the Environment, he highlighted what the member for Scarborough—Guildwood and the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands talked about. It is worth noting that the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, the member for Scarborough—Rouge River, the member for Markham—Unionville, and I am not sure if anyone else, submitted petitions to the House supporting a 1994 framework, saying that this park could not go ahead unless the 1994 framework was supported. However, as I said earlier, the 1994 framework would cause 1,700 acres of class 1 farmland to be taken out of production. It would mean the eviction of farmers and would probably mean the closure of one of our most successful farms in the area, Whittamore's Farm.

To say that the farmers do not trust the provincial Liberal government on this is an understatement because they have seen this before. There was a park called Bob Hunter Memorial Park, where 600 acres of class 1 farmland was taken away from farmers. People who had lived there for 33 years were evicted. Trees were planted across this class 1 farmland. Millions of dollars were put into it. There was no consultation. It was done and forced upon these farmers. Therefore, the farmers do not trust the provincial government. Quite frankly, governments at the federal level have never undertaken a consultation process like we have on this, and that is all governments. The Conservative and Liberal governments in the past have never done what we have done now.

While I agree that the southern part of this extraordinary ecosystem needs to be protected, and that is what our legislation does, I do not agree that means sacrificing thousands of acres of class 1 farmland in order to create a Rouge national urban park.

I hope that members of the House will work with us to create a park that we can all be proud of and give the millions of people who live in this area access to a treasure that we will be able to brag about because we helped create it.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary kept bringing up farmers over and over again. He made numerous references to the 1972 expropriation of land by the federal government and then the one-year leases that have since followed. Many of the farms that the member was speaking about are actually outside of the land that was expropriated.

There are still some farms today, but there is actually only one family farm that is left from that original era when the land was expropriated. It is owned by the Tapscotts, who folks in Scarborough will know quite well. They immigrated from Scarborough to Pickering to farm that land and they have been sitting on those one-year leases ever since.

The member made reference to how horrible it was that all that land was stripped away, but then successive governments, both Liberal and Conservative, have continued to ignore that problem. He is worried about the loss of a bit of farmland upstream from the area that he thinks needs to be protected. If the land upstream is not protected, then the land downstream will not be protected either.

We have class 1 farmland in that expropriated land that could be turned to farming today. It is laying fallow. Why does the government not want to address that issue, which would also help the park, instead of continuing with this plan? It hurt farmers again when the government reannounced plans for the airport that we are not sure we need.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is wrong. The vast majority of the land in that area is actually farmed as part of an agricultural preserve. In fact, I hazard to say all of it is farmed on one-year leases, unfortunately.

This is the problem that we have. By supporting the 1994 framework, farmers have to be evicted and 1,700 acres of class 1 farmland have to be taken out of production, at a minimum. I do not agree with that. I am sorry but I do not agree with that. I think we could do both. We could protect the ecological integrity of the park, we could also protect farmers, and we could create something that would be of benefit to all Canadians and certainly of extraordinary benefit to the people in the GTA.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been in and around this issue for quite a number of years. I have gone to quite a number of public meetings and met with a number of farmers, though not a huge number. I know the area intimately because my family had a farm a little west of there. We would drive through the Reesor Road and the Reesor farm. We know the Whittamores and Tapscotts, et cetera.

I realize I am advancing in my years, but my memory still occasionally serves me. I do not recollect any conversation in which it was stated that the farmers are going to be evicted or are somehow or other going to be circumscribed. In fact, were the plan to have been presented by the government, we might have actually gotten 5, 10 or 15-year leases that would give the stabilization that the hon. member wishes the farmers to have.

I think the conversation with the farmers has consisted of the management of watersheds, the kinds of pesticides or not that are put on the land, the kind of phosphorous or not that is put on the land, public access, things of that nature. I see the conversation with the farmers as relatively mature. I think, frankly, the hon. member 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.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we cannot fulfill the promise that the member has just talked about.

The member is talking about the 1994 framework for the Rouge. We cannot fulfill that promise. We cannot take 1,700 acres of class 1 farmland out of production without evicting farmers. It is impossible to do. With 1,700 acres of land, farmers would have to be evicted. We saw this through the creation of the Bob Hunter Memorial Park.

Whether we like the Bob Hunter Memorial Park or not is not the issue. The reality is that it was 1,600 acres of class 1 farmland taken away from farmers with no notice. People who had lived there for 33 years were evicted from their homes. Therefore, we cannot do what the member is suggesting without evicting farmers.

I read for members, and I am happy to table it, the letter from the York Region Federation of Agriculture supporting the process that we are putting in place and highlighting the fears its members have. The fears they have come from decades of being treated poorly, decades of being removed from their lands, and decades of not being listened to.

We have an opportunity to listen to farmers and protect the ecological integrity, natural beauty and heritage of the park. We can do that through this Parliament. We can stop playing political games, as I would suggest Minister Duguid and the provincial Liberals are doing, and we can create a good park.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister for his excellent speech and also for his passion in defending farmers.

The member gave us a bit of a history lesson that is important to reiterate. It was under the Trudeau Liberals in the 1970s that farmers were evicted from their lands and given these short-term one-year leases for this important class 1 farmland.

Now we see that the provincial Liberals, and it appears the federal Liberals, are endorsing a plan for the Rouge Valley that would completely evict farmers from class 1 farmland. As the member said, this is land that has been farmed for hundreds of years. Our first nations farmed this land. Now, under threat from the Liberals, they want to evict these farmers, these hard-working Canadians who have been there for years.

I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could take some time to explain a little more to our colleagues who obviously do not understand the bill and have not read it. How does the bill support our hard-working farmers?

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again, Parks Canada has been talking to our farmers.

The bill seeks to give our farmers long-term leases so that they could make investments on the land and use best farming practices to continue to do what they have been doing for years, as did the Wendat people, as the member said.

I would again encourage members to take a look at the movie, Curse of the Axe. They can Google it and see what the Wendat people were doing in this area. It is absolutely extraordinary. Members should also take the time to go to the Canadian Museum of History and see some of the artifacts from this area. It is stunning what they accomplished. It completely changes our attitudes on how our first nations farmed and interacted with other people.

This is a $140 million commitment to create a Rouge national urban park. It is a commitment to protect the ecological integrity of the park. It is a commitment to restore the dignity of our farmers, give them the long-term leases that they deserve and allow us to create something very special in an area that is home to some five million people.

I think we can get it done and I am looking forward to members supporting the bill and creating the Rouge national urban park.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, we looked at Rouge Park at committee during an urban conservation study. We heard from Parks Canada about the extensive consultation it has done and the way it has worked to try to bring everyone on board. However, as members heard earlier, this is going to be a difficult park to figure out. There are a lot of different interests, one might say competing interests. Parks Canada has done a good job of making sure that everyone is at the table and of trying to find out where the overlap is and how we can move forward with this.

I am in the same position as my colleague for Scarborough—Guildwood when he said earlier that he was surprised to even see that the bill has been tabled. I am surprised that we are still talking about the bill, because we do not know what the park will be. Without the transfer of lands from Ontario, we barely know what we are discussing here.

This is not a partisan question, but I wonder if government is open to taking a step back and pressing pause on this, because I do not know that we are ready to debate a bill when we do not even know what the park will look like.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is right. Parks Canada has done a very good job. It is world-renowned in the work it does to protect and manage our parks.

We are going ahead with the bill because it is important to do so. The door will remain open to the Province of Ontario to transfer its lands. The door will remain open, as it always has, but we have to move forward with protecting the farmers in the area and protecting those lands that are owned by Markham. The current federal airport lands can be taken out of the airport reserve and put into a farming preserve. I do not think that anybody in the House would disagree that removing thousands of acres from a future potential airport and putting it into farming is a bad idea. It is a good idea, and we would protect our farmers.

Moving forward, we will leave the door open to the Province of Ontario, if it becomes satisfied with what it sees, if it decides to stop playing politics. I would be more interested in what the province had to say if it had not picked an arbitrary date of November 2015 and had not at one point said, “Give us $100 million and it's yours”. I do not trust that the provincial government wants to create a park with the highest ecological standards. However, I think if we can remove it and continue with the bill, we would protect the farm lands by taking that out of any future potential airport. Even at that, it is a win for my area and the environment.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak on a bill that deals with my hometown of Scarborough.

The possibilities and, as the parliamentary secretary said, the promise of this national urban park is certainly something for all of us to get excited about. It is a new type of park for a new era. With 80% of Canadians now living in urban environments, we need to have some national urban parks. This is really the test bed, the thing that any future endeavour is going to be measured against. It is incredibly important for us to get it right from the beginning.

The member was talking about political games being played by the provincial government, having delayed the decision until November 2015. This was an election promise that the Conservatives made in 2011. It was in the throne speech, and yet it has taken three years to get here.

Just like many other items, including trade deals, the Conservatives are announcing that the mission is accomplished before they have all the ducks in a row, before they have got the land from the province.

When my colleague from Halifax asked the question about hitting the pause button until we actually know what park we are dealing with, she asked a very relevant question. Given all the uncertainties, I am not sure how, once we get past second reading, into committee, and then come back for third reading, any member in this House could turn around and vote in favour of a park when we do not even know what the boundaries would be, without resolving this issue with the provincial government first.

If all the concerns can be addressed and a deal reached, then that would be the appropriate time to continue to move forward with the bill.

I find it interesting that we are hearing all these accusations of political games, when the Conservatives are playing the same games.

Over and over again, we heard about the Trudeau government in the 1970s expropriating land from the farmers and how much it hurt farmers. After Trudeau there was Joe Clark, and after Joe Clark there was Turner, and after Turner there was Mulroney, and after Mulroney there was Chrétien, and then Paul Martin. Now we have had eight years of the current Conservative government, and none of them have taken the steps to address that harm to the farmers that happened 40 years ago. None of them have taken the time to address those issues and to actually get that land farmed.

The member incorrectly stated that most of the land in the Pickering airport lands is being farmed right now. I would recommend that he take a drive around the area again, because most of the land is lying fallow. Many of the homes are falling down because the government has not maintained its responsibility to keep them in good repair. It is ignoring it.

The member should speak to Land Over Landings and take a drive around with its members. They are not scary people.

I know the government likes to play the game of friends and enemies game, and the game of “you are with us or you are against us”.

When the member for Oshawa was introducing the bill, and when I asked questions about the Friends of the Rouge Watershed's concerns that the protections would not match what is there now, he completely ignored it and dismissed the Friends of the Rouge Watershed as a fringe group.

Nothing will ever be accomplished in Rouge Park without buy-in from the Friends of the Rouge Watershed. They are the ones who have been there on the ground. They are the volunteers who have cared for and loved that park for 40 years. They are not going to let it be torn apart. They are not the fringe. They are the stakeholders. They are the people who are invested in that park already and have been for generations. Getting them onside is also critically important.

They went to the provincial government because they found there was nobody at the federal level who was willing to listen to them. I wish the provincial government had made this point before the last provincial election. That would have been a good time to make a stand on this and would have pushed all the leaders of the parties on that issue, and would have brought a really important Scarborough issue to the forefront.

I think that would have been really good for the debate and for making sure that this park that is going to be created is actually going to be the park we want and the park we need.

I have some personal experience with the park over the years, from visiting there as a child with my grandmother. Probably not many members of this House know, but for the first five years that I worked, from age 15 to 20, I worked in a daycare. I worked for Not Your Average Daycare in Scarborough. It has several locations across Scarborough.

They really had an innovative program. During the summertime, they used to take all the school-age programs from the different daycares and put them into one central location to basically create a summer camp. For the vast majority of the kids who were attending daycare, it was far beyond their families' financial means to send them away to camp, to have that experience in nature. By bringing all these school-age programs together, we would be able to give them a summer camp. It was still in the city and it was in a school, but we were able to take them to different places, so they could have some of those experiences.

One of the most important trips was the one out to Rouge Park. It is just magnificent when one comes into the park, because one sees that blend of urban and rural, of park and city. At the entrance to the park, it is abutted against the CN tracks, and then there is a beach. There is the fabulous Rouge beach. There is the lake, the beach, and then the train tracks, and of course all the myriad sounds that go with it.

On the other side are magnificent wetlands and a pond that are just spectacular. Individuals could be in a canoe and close their eyes and feel they are in Algonquin Park or hundreds of kilometres away outside the city. They could decide to paddle up or down the Rouge River. People who have spent time in a canoe know the sounds of rapids and waterfalls, and they have to be alert because they do not want to encounter any of those when they are in a canoe. On the Rouge, they do not have that, but as they approach highway overpasses and roads, they get a very similar sound from the cars going across the roadway. It sounds very much like rushing water. They can actually merge the two forums here.

It presents unique challenges, because there are not too many national parks that have to deal with city-sized infrastructure, whether we are talking about sewers, roadways, or electrification. Rouge Park, I would think, would certainly be the park with the best cellphone access that we can imagine, and that presents challenges to enjoying nature, but it also presents opportunities and new mediums to educate the population. I am thrilled that Parks Canada is working on an interpretive program based on a cellphone app that would actually give people self-guided tours in Rouge Park, one of those ways to actually harness technology to enhance the experience within the park.

I spent a lot of time there myself, growing up, and I also like taking the train whenever possible in my travels between Toronto and Ottawa, but certainly I used GO Transit back and forth, visiting friends and family all across the east end of Toronto.

One of the most spectacular sights I have ever seen in Toronto—my colleague, the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, skated on it—is that pond in the wintertime when it is frozen, and all of a sudden Canada's national obsession takes over and a couple of nets get placed down and we get shinny and a skating rink on the pond, inside the boundaries of Toronto. It is a unique experience to have pond hockey happening in Toronto in the wintertime. It is not something anybody would think of, but it is just one of those unique facets of the park that make it a multi-use facility all year round.

There are also snowshoeing excursions in the wintertime, and my one experience of trying to do that did not result in much success, not because of the snowshoes and my falling down, although that would have happened many times, but actually because of one of the barriers to the park. Back then, I did not have a vehicle. My partner and I intended to take public transit on a Sunday to get there. The subway does not open until 9:00 a.m. on Sundays and the bus takes a long time, even from east-end Toronto, not even downtown or the west end. To get all the way out to Rouge Park via public transit can take two hours from the east end of town.

That is another problem that would have to be addressed, the public transit access to the park, because one of the main features is supposed to be public transit access. The public transit file is an absolute mess in Toronto these days, and certainly in the municipal election, one would have hoped that many new and great ideas would come forward.

Unfortunately two of the candidates, John Tory and Doug Ford, both have transit plans that end at the Scarborough Town Centre, that do not address anything in the eastern half of Scarborough. They do not even come close to addressing better transit access to the Rouge Park.

The only candidate who does have a plan that addresses improved transit in eastern Scarborough is Olivia Chow, the one person who uses public transit, and always has. She has never owned a car and every time she visits east Toronto, she takes transit out there, and I know how long it takes from all my years of using public transit.

Transit presents some unique challenges as well as some unique opportunities for the use of the park.

Other issues have come up.

I am sure that part of the reason why the province has decided to potentially hold up transferring this land, beyond the political games, is the environmental changes the Conservative government has made that have degraded environmental protections, in particular, the Navigable Waters Act.

Rouge River used to be a protected waterway, but it no longer has that protected status. Municipal infrastructure criss-crosses the park in different places. Line 9B pipeline crosses through the park. A few years ago there was an erosion where parts of the pipe were exposed. It took three days to get access to the pipeline. This means that if we ever have a spill at some point and it takes days before people get there to start to address the problem, then we need much more stringent environmental protections, even something as having stop valves on each side of the river.

If the Rouge River still had navigable waters protection, stop valves would be a required change with the reversing of the flow. We are dealing with a 40-year old pipeline and we have no additional protections. Approval has been given to run oil the other way and at a higher psi. This is problematic on old pipe.

Looking ahead at any other projects that might come forward, whether it is Energy East or anything else, we have to ensure that the strongest protections and measures are in place so that when pipelines cross crucial environmentally sensitive areas like the Rouge River, they will minimize and mitigate as much of the risk as is humanely possible.

It is just a fact of life that it is impossible to eliminate all risks in all situations, but we can do a lot to prevent problems from happening rather than simply picking up the pieces after a problem occurs. Unfortunately, with the changes to the Navigable Waters Act, this is the situation in which the federal government has left us. More effort is going to be put into cleaning up a problem than into preventing one from happening in the first place.

There are fish species in the river and there are migratory birds and endangered species. The endangered Carolinian forest is a very unique bit of forest in southern Ontario. The Rouge River is one of the only places in Canada that has that type of forest.

It is incredibly important that we do what we can to get things right. It is important that we have the right framework, the right protections in place to ensure that the park serves for generations to come. It is important that it set a really high standard that can be met for future national urban parks or even provincial and municipal urban parks that would follow.

Lots of folks on the other side forget that the federal government has a role to play with respect to leadership.The federal government should be ahead of the provinces and the municipalities when it comes to its thinking on environmental protection, so that thinking can filter down to other levels of government. We do not have that and we see that across the board with the Conservatives.

The Conservatives opposed a $15 minimum wage that would have sent a strong message toward fighting inequality in our country. They opposed it because they did not think it would impact a lot of people. It would not impact their people is more of the reason why they would oppose that.

I again bring attention to the fact that when introducing the bill, the member for Oshawa dismissed the Friends of the Rouge Watershed as an outright nuisance group and as radicals, as members on the other side so often do. Now that is coming back to bite them, because they now have a supporter in the provincial government.

The Conservatives want to lay blame at Trudeau's feet. Let us lay the blame at the feet of every Liberal and Conservative government that has followed for not addressing the issues of farmers for the last 40 years in that area.

My colleague from Beaches—East York, our agriculture critic and I toured the Pickering airport lands last year as part of a fact finding mission to see what we should do with this land. It is a tremendous track of green space. It is class A farmland that should be used for farming. It was taken away and has, in many cases, laid fallow for a really long time.

As I said, there is only one family farm left there, belonging to the Tapscotts, who emigrated from Scarborough many years ago. They have not updated any of their equipment or introduced any new practices in the last 40 years because the land could be taken away from them at any moment. As a result, they do not run as efficiently or as ecologically as they could, because successive Liberal and Conservative governments have failed to address the issue or at least give them the opportunity for a 10 or 15-year lease where they can invest back into the land that has provided for their family for generations. We would like to see that addressed at some point as well.

All of this consternation has really left us wondering if this park will ever be created. Under existing legislation, the province states that the protections are higher than those the federal government would put in place with the introduction of this park. Maybe the federal government could go back and talk to the provincial government to see about addressing these concerns. We will raise them here, and we will raise them in committee, but it is up to the Conservative government to act. It is the government.

The government is forging ahead without an agreement with the largest stakeholder in the province, which controls a huge amount of the land for this park. It is just incredible that it would steam ahead without having that agreement in place with the province. The parliamentary secretary said that we had an agreement, and that there was a memorandum of understanding. The province now thinks that the federal government is not upholding that standard and that the protections that would be put in place would not as good as what is there now.

The government is going say that it is better. Why does it not take the time to explain to Canadians why it thinks it is better than what is there now? Have those conversations with the provincial government.

I do not know why the government always seems to have so many problems discussing things with the provinces. It does not matter whether we are talking to health care, the environment or parks. It just seems to like to roughshod over everybody else. Frankly, the leader knows best, they will put it in place and everyone just has to trust them.

As one of my colleagues said, “just trust us” is not enough. That is not the barometer for any transparent or accountable government in our country. I would even argue that a future NDP government has to have opposition, effective critics and people on all sides of the argument, ensuring that they are coming together, because that is what makes bills and legislation.

In this case, it will make for a better park. Hearing from all sides and addressing as many of the concerns as humanly possible will ensure that we have a park that meets the best environmental standards. It will ensure that the farming continues to be allowed but that it is done in the most ecological manner possible, with the least amounts of phosphates and pesticides, and the most organic products available.

Let us use that area as a best example that we can share with other jurisdictions about how to coexist between farm and urban settings.We will need to have more of this in the future as more of Canada becomes urbanized and as we require more food to be developed locally. It is important for the future of our planet to ensure that more food is developed and produced locally so as to have fewer environmentally negative impacts.

We have a lot of problems with the bill as it is. I will be happy to see my colleagues in the environment committee eventually see this and study it further. I hope for once that we can actually see some compromise from the government so we can achieve what we all want to achieve, which is a national urban park in the Rouge Valley.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and for Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about Land Over Landings. Looking at a number of its tweets, it talks about how it is able, through the agricultural preserve in this area, to feed the people of Toronto.

The member talks about the land not being farmed. I live there, and as I drive to Ottawa every Sunday night and come back from Ottawa every Friday night, I drive through this area that is all farmed. Every acre of it is farmed. The acres that are not farmed are the ones that were taken away from farmers and reforested.

I ask a very simple question for the member. The 1994 protocol calls for a 600-metre corridor. Jim Robb, Friends of the Rouge Watershed, suggested that at a minimum 1,700 acres of class 1 farmland would be taken out of production to create this corridor. That means farmers will be evicted. Is that what the member supports?

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I brought up the land that is not being farmed, which is the much larger tract of land. The member speaks of 1,700 acres. Thousands of acres are not being farmed right now as part of the reserved lands for the Pickering Airport.

We can find a way to have our cake and eat it too. Yes, those farmers have been there for many years and in some cases for hundreds of years. If we cannot find a way for them to continue to farm there ecologically in a way that is sustainable and that will not be a nuisance to the future park, the federal government has ample land that it could let them farm right next door. They can have a corridor—

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

It's already farmed.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, not the land inside the park. He just said the land inside the reserved area is not.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

No I didn't. I said it's all farmed, every acre.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. The hon. member for Scarborough Southwest has the floor. It is sure difficult for members to understand when the conversation goes back and forth. I encourage members to direct their commentary to the Chair, and that sometimes avoids that sort of thing.

The hon. member for Scarborough Southwest will finish his comment.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I really do wish at times that the microphones would pick up more of that other side of the conversation because they would really hear how nonsensical some of the things they say in response to us are.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister is trying to say that all the land within the reserve of the Pickering Airport land is being farmed right now. It is not. There is one family farm left, and that is the Tapscotts. There are other farms, but there are entire ghost towns in that area that the current government and other governments have continued to ignore. We could be used as farmland.

If we cannot find a way to work out the differences between Friends of the Rouge Watershed and the farmers, there are alternatives there. However, I think solutions can be found.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think it was Bismarck who said that there are two things in life we should not actually see. One is the making of sausages and the second is the making of legislation. This does seem to be the situation here today. I do not know what is out in the lounge to eat this afternoon, but I hope it is not sausages.

Let us concede that the parliamentary secretary has a concern about his farmers, and some of those farmers are on provincial lands and some of them are on federal lands. If in fact he is concerned about security of tenure, which is a legitimate concern, presumably the federal government could unilaterally set in place longer-term leases, set ecological standards for the management of the land and make it consistent with Parks Canada standards.

That would leave the farmers, over which he has some direct control, some ability to farm in an ecologically and commercially sustainable fashion. I would be interested in the hon. member's comments.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for making sense, unlike our colleagues on the other side. That is exactly what must happen. The member is hung up on 1994. It has been 20 years and there are changes required and things that need to be updated. Until Friends of the Rouge Watershed hears a better plan from the government, which it has not yet, it will hold on to the plan that was there. It would be happy to negotiate an updated framework for 2014 if it was engaged on the issue. That is what is missing. The government has cast it off as an enemy and will not listen to anything it has to say.