Mr. Speaker, on the Island of Montreal, there is an extraordinary place known as TechnoparcOiseaux or Champ des monarques. A site rich in biodiversity, it is home to 193,000 species of birds and an essential feeding ground for the monarch butterfly, which has been declared an endangered species. This site is also at risk because the Montreal airports authority, Aéroports de Montréal, wants to use and develop the space.
However, Aéroports de Montréal does not own the land; Transport Canada does. It is public land that belongs to us. Hundreds of citizens, along with a dozen municipalities on the Island of Montreal, are asking the federal government to modify the lease with Aéroports de Montréal in order to create a national park. We need to protect this highly biodiverse natural space, one of the rare wetlands on the Island of Montreal, and preserve it for future generations.