Mr. Speaker, I rise today to deposit a petition on the Rouge National Park.
My constituency is home to the largest part of the current Rouge National Park and the 100-square-kilometre public land assembly surrounding the Rouge River and Duffins Creek. Watersheds in Toronto, Markham, and Pickering are publicly owned federal, provincial, and municipal land, which is home to the endangered Carolinian forest and mixed woodland/plain life zones. It is also the ancestral home of the Mississauga, Huron-Wendat, and Seneca first nations and their sacred burial grounds and village sites.
The petitioners are asking that the Government of Canada protect the irreplaceable 100 square kilometres of public land assembly within a healthy and sustainable Rouge National Park and conduct a rational, scientific, and transparent public planning process to create Rouge National Park's boundaries, legislation, and strategic plan, and to include the first nations and Friends of the Rouge Watershed on a Rouge National Park planning and advisory board.