Mr. Speaker, replying to the first part of the minister's question, I hope to see in committee study an amendment proposed to remove ecological integrity from Bill C-18 for all of the reasons I have just listed. The principal reason I have said in a number of ways.
I have quoted leading conservationists who have, through the Rouge Park Alliance, dedicated conservationists. These include deputy mayors, mayors and councillors of Toronto, Markham, Vaughan region, York region. They have agreed that ecological integrity, while defined traditionally in terms of our wilderness parks like Banff, Jasper, Nahanni, and Nááts'ihch'oh, and Sable Island, which we added, requires the sensitivity and the willingness to allow nature to take its course, uncontrolled, uncontained, and unrestrained, except where it threatens human populations or infrastructure, like in the case of Banff, Jasper, the Trans-Canada Highway. This is entirely inappropriate in this unique new setting of an urban national park.
In the case of the Rouge National Urban Park, unlike Banff where only 4% of the wilderness area has been disrupted by man, more than 75% was former landfill sites as well as aboriginal heritage sites. A major highway, the major cross-Canada rail line, sewer lines and residential houses literally on the very borders of the park would allow forest fires or floods to continue uncontrolled. This is completely unreasonable, impractical and, in fact, dangerous.