Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise this morning and speak to Bill C-370 introduced by my hon. colleague, the member for Leeds—Grenville.
When I spoke with park experts, they said several times that he was a good friend of St. Lawrence Islands National Park. I want to commend him for that.
I would just like to respond to the previous speaker by saying that this is actually a private member's bill and not a government bill. I know that Parks Canada is struggling with budget cuts, and I know that this particular park is struggling with budget cuts and having to lay off people. This is not a government bill, and I do not want to hold my hon. colleague responsible for these things. I have been told several times that the member is a very good friend of St. Lawrence Islands National Park and the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve.
This is the smallest national park in Canada. It is the oldest national park east of the Rockies.
The park was created in 1904.
Some of the park is in the great riding of Kingston and the Islands. It includes Cedar Island, which is just off Cartwright Point in Kingston and the Islands. On this island is Cathcart Tower, one of four Martello towers that guard the entrance to the harbour in Kingston and that were constructed during the 19th century. This park has a lot of history.
The park stretches from just south of Kingston and the Islands, south of Kingston to Mallorytown, comprising about 20 larger islands, a series of islets and a number of inland properties. Geologically, it is composed of old granite mountaintops in an old hilly strip connecting the Canadian Shield to the Adironack Mountains.
It is an important part of our history. It was settled by aboriginal peoples at the beginning of the Holocene epoch, the epoch that we are now exiting. It was settled about 10,000 years ago because it was a great place to fish and hunt. Wild turkeys still live there. Those wild turkeys were probably the origin of a wild turkey that settled on my mother's backyard porch in the middle of the city of Kingston. It is a very strange thing to imagine in the middle of the city of Kingston. That just points to the biodiversity in the area.
This area was settled by European settlers, especially United Empire Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution. In the early 20th century, this area became a getaway for the rich and famous in North America. A lot of the buildings, the elegant houses and the summer cottages are great sights seen on the various boat cruises of tourist attractions in the region. They are a large and important part of the local economy.
I want to go back to talk about the importance of the area as a reserve of biodiversity. This park is part of the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve, an official United Nations biosphere reserve. The function of the park is to help preserve that biodiversity and to make it available to people, especially to students. The history and the biodiversity are two reasons why this is such an important park for the region and for the country. That is why it is a national park.
I want to talk now about the Thousand Islands region. This is a region that consists of 1,864 islands on the western end of the St. Lawrence Seaway, right in the region of the park.
My personal experience with the Thousand Islands began in my youth. When our family travelled on summer vacations, we would all get in the car and travel around North America. When my parents wanted to explain to people in some other part of North America where we lived, they would just say, “It's near the Thousand Islands”. People always understood what that meant, or at least had heard of the Thousand Islands.
More recently, after being elected to this seat, a lot of the news media in Toronto who wanted to interview me kept referring to my riding as “Kingston and the Thousand Islands”. So the word “thousand islands” is really stuck in people's minds. It is already a brand associated with the region and with tourism. It brings tourists to the region and is very important for our local economy. I want to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville, for putting forward this bill. The idea of changing the name of this park to Thousand Islands National Park is something for which there has been a lot of community consultation. People have thought about this for quite awhile and there is a consensus that this would be a good thing to do. The name is recognized by tourists from all over the world. Nowadays, there are a lot of tourist buses on highway 401. We want them to stop and visit our region and enjoy what it has to offer. It is a very important part of our region's economy and provides a lot of jobs.
There are other reasons for renaming this park. As my hon. colleague has mentioned, the St. Lawrence River goes from Kingston all the way to Quebec and beyond. The St. Lawrence Islands National Park stretches from Kingston to Mallorytown so it really is centred around the Thousand Islands region. We do not want to confuse it with the whole of the St. Lawrence River and all the other islands that are in the St. Lawrence River from Kingston all the way to Quebec City. We also want to distinguish this particular national park from the phrase “parks of the St. Lawrence”, which is used by the Province of Ontario to describe a number of other attractions in the area, for example, Fort Henry which everybody should visit the first chance they get.
I would like to conclude by saying that this has been thought through by the community. This is not rebranding. It is attaching the name of this park to a brand that is very old and well-known throughout the world and something that people naturally talk about when they talk about the region. It would be very important for the economy of the region to attach this park to the brand so that more tourists come and visit. Finally, I would say that the St. Lawrence National Park is struggling with the government's recent cuts to Parks Canada. We will be struggling to protect biodiversity and to pass on the history of the region. I think that the member for Leeds—Grenville and I will be working to mitigate some of the effects of these cuts on what I hope will soon be known as the Thousands Islands National Park of Canada.
