Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge Park for his kind remarks and for stealing all my thunder. He has been a tireless advocate for this park since he arrived here. This is a good day for both him and me and it is a good day for all of us in the eastern GTA area. Many folks have worked hard on this park.
Up front I want to declare a conflict of interest. I live about five kilometres away from the mouth of the Rouge River and I use this park quite regularly. I and my family enjoy the Rouge Park and all of its amenities. On Thanksgiving weekend my wife Carolyn and my children Caitlin, Rachael, and Sarah and their respective husbands and boyfriends and my grandchildren Nolan, Quinn, and Thatcher all went for a walk on one of the trails in the Rouge Park on a glorious fall day where we kicked leaves around. Those of us who are fortunate to live in that area know what it is to literally bike to the front of the park and start walking or bike right through the park. It is a wonderful treasure that we really do need to preserve.
The evolution of the park and for us to get to this day has been really driven by a citizens movement that actually does move politicians to do things. This did not happen over the course of the last decade or the last two decades or even the last three decades. It has been in some instances almost a lifetime to preserve this area of the eastern GTA for future generations, such as my own grandchildren. Without those dedicated folks, many of whom were mentioned by my hon. colleague from Scarborough—Rouge Park, we would not be here today. It simply would have been paved over or built upon or filled in or something egregious. These lands are very valuable lands. Those farms are very valuable pieces of acreage. We are in a fortunate situation to be able to even talk about having a large urban park in this area.
There are a couple of names that my colleague missed, I am surprised, but I want to add into the names that he did mention Professor Bruce Kidd from the University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus. Both Centennial and Scarborough Campuses at UTSC have been immense contributors and will continue to be immense contributors to the whole concept of how we do ecological integrity in this park.
In addition, I want to mention a number of politicians who have been quite helpful in the creation of this park. One of my predecessors, a former Conservative environment minister, Pauline Browes, the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills, and Toronto's perfect mayor David Crombie, who I believe was a Conservative. Members may have noticed that I just mentioned three Conservative politicians, all of whom can make a legitimate claim to participating in the creation of this park. In addition, councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker and, as my hon. colleague has said, the minister for the Ontario government Minister Brad Duguid, who stood firm when this legislation was initially proposed by the previous government that frankly did not get it done.
Regardless of how management evolves on this park, this will be a challenge to ecological integrity. If I may I would like to take a moment to just walk members up from Lake Ontario north through the park. The first thing one would notice when walking north through the park is that the CN rail tracks and a GO train run through it.
Next up is Highway 401. Next up from that is Steeles Avenue. Next up from that are the CN tracks that come down from north Markham, through the park, and then out through Pickering. Next up from that after Steeles Avenue is Highway 407. Next up from that is Highway 7.
I mention all of this because these will be challenges for any park management and will be challenges for the whole concept of ecological integrity. Contained within the park, we have mentioned farms, but there are also businesses, and there is also a landfill site. That is going to be a challenge in and of itself. The Toronto Zoo is within the confines of the park. This will be a considerable challenge for whoever ends up with the responsibility to manage this park.
Ideally, this legislation would have been completed with the last government, but the previous government's stubborn insistence on a watered-down ecological integrity scared off the key partner to this endeavour, namely the Government of Ontario, and it basically torpedoed the legislation. At this point, the park is more of a parkette than anything else, and this is where the limitations of the House rules are such that I cannot show members what actual lands are in the park as we speak this very day. However it does not amount to much more than maybe two or three square kilometres. With this legislation, we would be adding a further 17 square kilometres, and with this legislation and the framework and the content of the legislation, the Government of Ontario would convey its land, as would the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and other owners of the various lands throughout.
It is a pity that I cannot show this because it does show, in a very dramatic fashion, the immense amount of land that would flow from just a simple change to the legislation. I remember being in this House in the last Parliament and saying for the member for Wellington—Halton Hills that this is a simple amendment that can be done in a heartbeat. Yet the stubborn insistence of the previous government of not doing it meant that essentially what came out the other end of the framework legislation was a parkette rather than a park.
I also want to thank my Scarborough caucus colleagues, at both the provincial level and the federal level, for hanging tough through this. It is an important initiative for the eastern GTA, and I would say this is where political integrity meets ecological integrity.
As the Rouge park is the first national urban park in Canada, Parks Canada has welcomed the feedback of more than 20,000 Canadians and 200 organizations. This legislation would ensure that the park would have its ecological integrity as the first priority. As I said earlier, that is going to be a challenge, given all of the incursions and intrusions into the park.
The location of this park is the entrance point to the eastern element of Toronto. On one side we have Toronto, and on the other side we have Durham Region. Certainly thousands of people and possibly tens of thousands of people cross the park each and every day, so it would be a challenge to maintain ecological integrity. I do not doubt it. However it is absolutely necessary to do so. If we do not set the bar high, the pressures on the park to compromise on building permits, to compromise on roads, and to compromise on various other issues that will inevitably come up would be a challenge for anyone, no matter how willing he or she is to do the right thing.
For those who feel that we could have done better, let us not make perfection the enemy of the greater good. We have come a long way. Citizens have moved governments, and governments get us to where we are today.