Mr. Speaker, to begin, I want to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Scarborough—Rouge River, who is doing excellent work on the Rouge national urban park. That bill will soon be before the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. I am eager to work with her on the committee because I know she is doing excellent work on that file. She has consulted organizations and stakeholders about the park. Unfortunately, the Rouge park also has some problems, which I mentioned during a speech I gave recently.
I want to focus on the fact that Canada signed the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. That is an important thing to remember because we have obligations. In 2013, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development said this:
Canada’s targets under the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity are key to conserving biodiversity.... Achieving them will require a concerted effort from many players, from governments to businesses to individual Canadians.
The commissioner's report stated that the government needs to do much more than it is currently doing. As I said earlier in one of my answers, the target is 17% by 2020, and we are just at 10%.
This is not just about protecting land. This is about protecting land of significant ecological value because of its biological diversity. As I said, the national conservation plan is very important, and the NDP is very proud to have worked on the plan together with the other parties. What we have to do now is implement the national conservation plan, and we have to do it fast.
Unfortunately, the bills we have seen recently do not truly address what we call ecological integrity, which, I should point out, is part of the Canada National Parks Act. It is very important to remember that we have this problem and that we also have a problem when it comes to actual implementation, be it for the Sable Island park, the Rouge park proposal, or now, the Nááts’ihch’oh park. MPs have raised concerns, but so have the experts, of course.
I would like to go back to something. Of course we are supporting the bill because we are in favour of creating parks. There were a large number of consultations, and we understand that this park is largely a proper response. For years, there were consultations and studies on this. However, we are concerned about the Conservative government's attitude toward parks. Cuts to Parks Canada in the 2012 budget resulted in the elimination of one-third of scientific positions. Clearly, it could be difficult to enforce regulations governing conservation and the development of new parks when one-third of the scientific capacity was cut with one fell swoop in 2012.
As well, we want to give Canadians the opportunity to go to national parks; however, the season has been shortened, services have been reduced in the parks, and fees have been increased. The Conservatives' approach is somewhat odd.
However, according to a report published by the Canadian Parks Council in 2011, Canadian parks support more than 64,000 full-time jobs and generate $2.9 billion in employment income as well as $337 million in revenue for the government.
This shows the importance of national parks and why we need to stop pitting nature against economic development. On the contrary, the environment and the development of new parks will spur economic development, as was mentioned in the report published in 2011 by the Canadian Parks Council.
I mentioned this earlier, but I will say it again: the Commissioner for the Environment and Sustainable Development said that budget cuts at Parks Canada are adversely affecting the integrity of the parks and the environment. Cuts definitely do not help.
This brings me to Bill S-5, the Nááts'ihch'oh national park reserve act. We are disappointed about some aspects of the bill, but we are happy to support it nonetheless, because at least we are adding to the number of national parks.
The bill followed consultations revealing that the public overwhelmingly supported creating a park that is bigger than the one we have now, but the Conservatives ignored that fact. They ignored public opinion and decided to protect only the smallest of the three possible zones. They failed to include some very important wildlife areas, which is really disappointing. We are afraid that the park is not big enough, especially because the vital breeding areas for caribou and some of the headwaters of the Nahanni River are not protected. Those are some of our concerns regarding the creation of this park.
I would like to share a quote from Alison Woodley, the parks program national director for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. During the Senate committee's review of Bill S-5, she said:
Unfortunately, I have to comment today that the park boundary proposed in Bill S-5 will not achieve this conservation goal because it leaves out much of the important habitat for woodland caribou, including critical calving and breeding grounds, as well as for grizzly bears and Dall's sheep. It leaves out a significant part of the Little Nahanni River, which is a major tributary of the South Nahanni River and includes some of the most important habitat in the area. Bill S-5 falls far short of being a significant conservation achievement.
Ms. Woodley specializes in parks and conservation projects.
Earlier I said that this was unfortunate, because it is a good idea and the consultation was done. Unfortunately, the result was a disappointing bill, and it will not help Canada achieve the Aichi targets in the UN Convention on Biological Diversity that we need to meet. We committed to this convention and we signed it. The Conservative government needs to be much more proactive and needs to take more significant action.
I can say that when the NDP takes power in 2015, we will be much more proactive about creating parks, and we will ensure that everything will be based on solid science. We will not cut the number of scientists by one-third. On the contrary, we will invest in science to create new parks and comply with the convention. When we create a new park, we will ensure that it will protect critical habitats and important rivers as much as possible.