Madam Speaker, the Rouge National Urban Park is extremely important, since it is about an hour’s drive away for almost 20% of residents of the Greater Toronto Area. Everyone in the GTA will thus have ready access to the park. That too is important.
National parks are often remote and inaccessible, but this one is very close. People will be able to enjoy nature. It is increasingly important for people to get close to nature so that they can protect our environment more effectively.
We should note that in this park, there are 23 species considered at risk by the federal government, 800 species of plants and 55 species of fish. This demonstrates the richness of the park’s ecosystem and the importance of protecting it.
On the other hand, I deplore once again the fact that the government has no comprehensive plan for achieving the Aichi targets, which are to preserve 17% of land areas and 10% of marine areas by 2020. We are a long way from that.
In addition, the Green Budget Coalition stated that the federal government should establish six new parks, and nothing has been done so far, unfortunately.