Mr. Speaker, I rise today to deposit two petitions. The first is on behalf of many environmental enthusiasts in the community in support this week of celebrating World Wetlands Day.
The petitioners are calling on the federal government to respect a 100 square kilometre public land assembly surrounding the Rouge River and Duffins Creek Watershed in Toronto, Markham, and Pickering. They are saying that publicly owned land, whether federal, municipal, or provincial, is predominantly designated to the provincial greenbelt and natural heritage system. So they are asking the Government of Canada to protect the irreplaceable 100 square kilometres of public land assembly within a healthy and sustainable Rouge national park.
The petitioners are also asking the government to protect and restore the 600-metre-wide wooded main ecological corridor linking Lake Ontario to the Oak Ridges Moraine in the future Rouge national park. They are very concerned about the future of this national park.