Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Halifax for her excellent speech on this topic. It clearly goes to show how vested she is in protecting this beautiful park, which is in my backyard. A large part of the current park is in my riding of Scarborough—Rouge River.
The current Rouge Park is protected under a patchwork system of over 10 different plans. For example, there is the Rouge Park management plan of 1994, the Rouge Park north management plan, the provincial Greenbelt plan, the Toronto Lake Ontario area of concern remedial action plan, and the Rouge River watershed plan. There is a patchwork of plans protecting the Rouge Valley, the larger ecosystem, and the parklands.
In committee, we heard the minister and many other people say that this is a patchwork system but that the bill would be better at protecting the lands and the park. In January 2013, the federal government signed a memorandum agreeing to meet or exceed Ontario's existing policies of protecting the greenbelt and Oak Ridges Moraine conservation plans.
However, we are now seeing in the media release and letter sent to all members of Parliament from seven different organizations on the ground, in the community as well as national organizations, that the bill is not good: the bill would not protect the park more than what already exists.
My question to my hon. colleague is on whether there is anything else that we could have done to make sure that this park is actually protected by federal legislation.