Megan Leslie

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, October 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Beaches—East York and I were talking about the fact that there is an actual debate happening here. I do not know if anyone noticed that, but it is exciting to talk about real ideas in the House.

In that spirit, I, too, want to believe my colleague across the way when he talks about this park having good legislation around it to keep its ecological integrity and about it being strong, robust legislation.

This is a comment more than a question. It is really hard to trust the government on this file, and it is hard when there is a national parks act that talks about maintaining ecological integrity and then we have one bill about one park that says we will “consider” ecological integrity. I can accept that there might need to be a new standard for urban parks. However, I would feel more comfortable if that new standard were a stand-alone discussion. Maybe there could be an amendment to the parks act that would say that if we have urban parks, we have to consider different things, because it is complicated. I do not know how that would be done, but we would feel more reassured knowing that this was not opening a door for every other forthcoming piece of park legislation and that this was actually about urban parks.

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, October 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we looked at Rouge Park at committee during an urban conservation study. We heard from Parks Canada about the extensive consultation it has done and the way it has worked to try to bring everyone on board. However, as members heard earlier, this is going to be a difficult park to figure out. There are a lot of different interests, one might say competing interests. Parks Canada has done a good job of making sure that everyone is at the table and of trying to find out where the overlap is and how we can move forward with this.

I am in the same position as my colleague for Scarborough—Guildwood when he said earlier that he was surprised to even see that the bill has been tabled. I am surprised that we are still talking about the bill, because we do not know what the park will be. Without the transfer of lands from Ontario, we barely know what we are discussing here.

This is not a partisan question, but I wonder if government is open to taking a step back and pressing pause on this, because I do not know that we are ready to debate a bill when we do not even know what the park will look like.

[Rouge National Urban Park Act, October 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated my colleague's speech, in particular when he was talking about ecological integrity.

I am not an MP from Ontario, so I am interested in what he is hearing on the ground. He talked about the fact that the federal government is supposed to meet or exceed existing environmental legislation. That is part of the land transfer agreement. Now the Ontario government is saying, as we heard, that it may not transfer the land.

It is a complicated thing to be debating in the House when we do not actually know what this park will look like. We are debating a bill about a park, and we do not know what the final result of the park will be.

I am wondering if the member can expand a little on this point and what he is hearing in his community and if he has any particular insight as to how we can even do this if we do not know if the lands will be transferred.

[Petitions, October 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, later today we will be debating a bill about Rouge Park, which is very good timing, because I have a petition about Rouge national park. The signatories say that it is commendable that the Government of Canada plans to create Rouge national park and talk about why it is such an important place, but they point out that the bill ignores the ecological vision and policies of approved Rouge Park plans and ignores the ecological integrity of the existing Rouge Park and true Canadian national parks.

They have great concerns with the bill as presented, and the petitioners and I look forward to the minister's response.

[The Environment, October 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there must be something wrong with the translation there, because the question was on the forestry sector and a report that the minister himself tabled, which showed that the government is not only failing on climate change but that it is also failing the forestry sector.

The minister's report says that climate change threatens the industry, which is responsible for over 500,000 Canadian jobs, yet Canada's single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, the oil and gas sector, is still unregulated by the federal government despite years of consultation and promises. Why is the government putting its oil industry friends ahead of over half a million forestry workers?

[The Environment, October 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Minister of Natural Resources quietly tabled a report on the impact climate change is having on our forests.

The report shows that climate change is completely disrupting boreal forest ecosystems and that the forestry economy has already been adversely affected by climate change.

What is the government doing to protect our boreal forests and mitigate the effects of climate change for forestry workers?

[Business of the House, September 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the government House Leader complained about question period being too full of questions to the government.

The government House Leader seems to misunderstand the basics of our parliamentary system. The Conservatives' job is to govern and then be accountable for their decisions to the House.

There are already rules in place allowing the Speaker to intervene in a question if it is irrelevant. We want that same rule applied to answers.

Will the Conservatives drop the excuses and allow a free vote on our motion?

[Business of the House, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, question period is an opportunity for opposition parties to ask about government business. Common sense dictates that having a period for questions assumes answers. The NDP has proposed a practical motion simply requiring answers to be related to the questions that are asked. To be clear, Conservative ministers would still have the right to be wrong; we are just requiring them to be relevant.

Will the Conservatives now do the right thing, stop their procedural tricks and support our motion to make Parliament more honest and more accountable?

[National Defence, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Canada cannot deal with the humanitarian and security threats that ISIL poses without a clear strategy.

The Conservatives have evaded question after question on the Canadian participation in Iraq. Canada should not sleepwalk into a war that our allies have acknowledged would be years long.

When will the Prime Minister bring Canadian involvement in the military mission in Iraq to a vote in this House?

[National Defence, September 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, in the past week we have heard a great deal from members of the government about Canadian involvement in the mission in Iraq, but unfortunately, none of it was here in this House before members of Parliament.

Canadians have a right to know what their government is planning when it comes to our troops operating on foreign soil. Does the government plan to send Canadian Forces to conduct air strikes in Iraq?