Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 24 - Evidence - February 26, 2015
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 26, 2015
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, to which was referred Bill C-40, An Act respecting the Rouge National Urban Park, met this day at 8:06 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Richard Neufeld (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. My name is Richard Neufeld. I represent the province of British Columbia in the Senate, and I am chair of this committee.
I would like to welcome honourable senators, any members of the public with us in the room and viewers all across the country who are watching on television. As a reminder to those watching, these committee hearings are open to the public and also available via webcast on the sen.parl.gc.ca website. You may also find more information on the schedule of witnesses on the website under "Senate Committees."
I would now ask senators around the table to introduce themselves, and I will begin by introducing the deputy chair, Senator Paul Massicotte, from Quebec.
Senator Enverga: Tobias Enverga from Ontario.
Senator Mitchell: Grant Mitchell from Alberta.
[Translation]
Senator Ringuette: Good morning, my name is Pierrette Ringuette, and I am a senator from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Sibbeston: Nick Sibbeston from the Northwest Territories.
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald, Nova Scotia.
Senator Seidman: Judith Seidman from Montreal, Quebec.
Senator Patterson: Dennis Patterson, Nunavut.
Senator Eggleton: Art Eggleton from Toronto.
The Chair: I'd also like to introduce our staff, beginning with the clerk, Lynn Gordon, and our two Library of Parliament analysts, Sam Banks and Marc LeBlanc.
Bill C-40, an Act respecting the Rouge National Urban Park, was introduced on behalf of the Minister of the Environment in the House of Commons on June 13, 2014. The bill was passed by the House of Commons on January 26, 2015, and, following second reading in the Senate, was referred to our committee on February 19.
Rather than amend the Canada National Parks Act to establish the Rouge Park as a national park, the bill creates a new stand-alone act establishing the Rouge National Urban Park, a new type of federal protected area.
Honourable senators, I would like to cover a quick housekeeping item before I introduce the witnesses. Parks Canada has forwarded to the clerk, in response to Senator Ringuette, three memorandums of understanding regarding the land transfer agreements related to the land that the new park will include. As these agreements were only in English, there are no French versions. Does the committee agree that the clerk distribute these copies to members for their information in relation to our consideration of Bill C-40?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Now I am pleased to welcome the following witnesses appearing before us today: Larry Noonan, Chair, Altona Forest Stewardship Committee; Alan Wells, Former Chair, Rouge Park Alliance; and Kim Empringham, Secretary/Treasurer/Director, York Region Federation of Agriculture.
Thank you for being with us today. Please note that we have another committee meeting being held in this room following this meeting, so if you could please adhere to the 10 minutes the clerk advised for your opening statements, we would appreciate that.
We will begin with Mr. Noonan. The floor is yours, sir. After the presentations, we will go to questions and answers.
Larry Noonan, Chair, Altona Forest Stewardship Committee: I'm honoured to be here today to speak to you about Bill C-40. I'm the chair of the Altona Forest Stewardship Committee. Altona Forest is a preserve in Pickering that has provincially significant status. Our committee has designed more than six kilometres of interpretative trails in the forest, as well as accompanying guides and maps. Our projects include the restoration of one wetland and the creation of another, which have resulted in the natural return of five species of amphibians to the forest.
Altona Forest is very close to the Rouge Park and is accessible to Orchard Trail via the hydro corridor.
I have contributed to City of Toronto and Pickering environmental initiatives, served on the Rouge National Urban Park trails committee, and am presently interviewing residents of the Rouge watershed. Some of these families have been there for over 150 years. Some of them arrived in Conestoga covered wagons. The purpose of these interviews is to preserve their stories as part of the cultural heritage and farming tradition of the Rouge watershed and the new Rouge National Urban Park. I was happy to see that both the cultural heritage and the farming communities of the new park are encouraged and supported in Bill C-40.
My connection with the Rouge started about 40 years ago, while I was visiting to see the fall colours and skiing at Caper Valley. About 30 years ago, I started hiking in the Rouge, and, over the last several years, I have made it a point to hike at least once a week on one or two of the trails. I lead adult groups and youth groups and school classes into the Rouge for enjoyment and to study the environment. The latest school group was about 55 Grade 7 students in the autumn.
Previous stewards of the area have done a fine job, especially in assembling watershed land to include within the park. Management, however, has largely been ignored. Months ago, I requested Ontario Minister Duguid to share the amount of money that the Ontario government has spent on managing the park over the last years, but I have received no reply. Personally, I have seen no evidence of any money being spent by Ontario in the maintenance and upkeep of the Rouge Park. The time has come to place an effective level of protection on the Rouge watershed, along with new stewards who have the experience and funding to make a great positive impact on the park.
These new stewards are experts from Parks Canada, which has over 100 years of experience in operating parks, as well as assessing ecological needs, developing and implementing restoration procedures, and managing national parks. This unparalleled expertise of Parks Canada in restoring large natural areas has earned them a deserved worldwide reputation for looking after, enhancing and rehabilitating the environment of natural areas. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has adopted Parks Canada' restoration guidelines as the international standard for restoring degraded natural areas around the world. There is no better agency to put in charge of the Rouge Park. It is time to put our trust in those who have earned it and have the experience to properly care for the Rouge Park. Bill C-40 makes all of this possible.
I have been involved in the planning processes for parks and trails and other environmental initiatives, but rarely have I seen such extensive consultation with the public, stakeholders and regular park visitors as I have seen done here for the Rouge by Parks Canada. The legislation reflects this thorough consultation process.
Some people have questioned why we need a different act for the Rouge. Bill C-40 was written specifically for an urban park. When individuals state that national parks with infrastructure disturbances have ecological integrity and that, therefore, urban national parks should have the same standard, this is misleading. The Rouge wilderness sections are fragmented by many things, from highways to villages to gas pipelines to the largest former garbage dump in the Greater Toronto Area. Seventy-five per cent of the current Rouge Park is disturbed, as opposed to 4 per cent in Banff National Park. When examined in this light, it is clear to see that a new act is needed for urban national parks, one which contains sections such as strategies and timelines that are appropriate for their unique position as parks inside an urban setting. That act is Bill C-40.
Minister Duguid has demanded that the term "ecological integrity" be included in the act. The Canada National Parks Act states that "ecological integrity" includes "supporting processes." As further clarification of this definition, Parks Canada defines ecosystem processes as ". . . engines that make ecosystems work; e.g. fire, flooding . . ." Another supporting process is natural forest regeneration. This process prohibits tree planting, while it takes up to 160 years for a forest to naturally regenerate. Places in the Rouge require faster reforestation than that.
Minister Duguid advocates the importance of ecological integrity, yet the provincial legislation that applies to the current parkland in Ontario does not have ecological integrity as a prime objective. If ecological integrity is so important to the Government of Ontario, why is it not even mentioned in the Greenbelt Act, which governs so much land in Ontario and all of the land that the Ontario government has agreed to transfer to the Rouge National Urban Park?
Ecological integrity cannot be applied to the urban national park. We cannot allow fires and flooding in the Toronto, Markham and Pickering urban environment. The Rouge National Urban Park act cannot have this term included, or there would have to be a list of exceptions to the definition, which could serve to lessen its impact in the Canada National Parks Act. Instead, Bill C-40 refers to the maintenance of its native wildlife and the health of those ecosystems. The Rouge National Urban Park and the management plan lay out strategies for attaining the highest possible level of health for the park's ecosystems. Anne Bell, a director with Ontario Nature, in an email to me dated January 26, 2015, exactly one month ago, said:
Ontario Nature worked closely with all the groups . . . and discussed in great detail potential compromises and alternatives to ecological integrity. We agreed to support alternatives that were being put forward, should they be accepted by the government, including ecological health.
Bill C-40 and the management plan ensure the ecological health of the Rouge.
The Province of Ontario has asked that new legislation meet or exceed existing legislation or other protections. Bill C-40 does this. For example, in the protection and recovery strategies of species at risk, the Rouge Park Management Plan, 1994, states that "rare species will be monitored. Specific protection or recovery programs to ensure their continued presence in the park may be undertaken as necessary." This is moderate protection at best. Clause 60 of Bill C-40 amend the Species at Risk Act, subsection 58(2), to include the Rouge National Urban Park Act and, by this, gives the plants, animals and ecosystems of the Rouge National Urban Park the full protection of the Species at Risk Act. Section 6 of that act states:
"The purposes of this Act are to prevent wildlife species from being extirpated or becoming extinct, to provide for the recovery of wildlife species that are extirpated, endangered or threatened as a result of human activity and to manage species of special concern to prevent them from becoming endangered or threatened."
Section 7(2)(a) states that the appropriate ministers must provide ". . . the preparation and implementation of action plans . . ."
Through a connection with the Species at Risk Act, Bill C-40 requires immediate action to identify species at risk and implementation of a recovery strategy and not just monitoring and action that "may be undertaken." As an example of how this will work in the future, on June 30, 2014, Parks Canada, the Toronto Zoo, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and an environmental group called Earth Rangers took action and reintroduced into the Rouge 10 Blanding's turtles, a provincially and nationally threatened species.
A common concern about the Rouge Park as it is now is that policing and enforcement of rules are not practical with the existing management. A recent example of this, from February 11 of this year, was on a conducted hike, when a hiker discovered an arrow in the fence along Mast Trail. The arrow was at the height of the face of an average 7-year-old child. Section 23 of Bill C-40 provides for policing, and wardens have already been hired. However, they have no authority until Bill C-40 is passed. Then policing will be visible and active in the park every day. This, along with consequences outlined in Bill C-40, makes policing far better than what exists now.
It is clear that the Bill C-40 legislation exceeds old safeguards developed to protect the park.
A concern of farmers is the place of farming in the Rouge. Bill C-40 supports farming as an equal to heritage and the natural environment. Recently, Minister Duguid said:
. . . our government is not looking to preclude farming activities from the park; rather, . . . that an ecological integrity lens forms the first principle in park management.
The farmers are aware that, if this lens is used, a minimum of another 1,700 acres of Class 1 agricultural land will be eliminated. Minister Duguid is not looking to stop farming in the Rouge, just drastically reduce its size to a point that could make it no longer be viable.
For the protection of the Rouge Park — its natural, cultural and farming heritage, please pass Bill C-40 as soon as possible.
Alan Wells, Former Chair, Rouge Park Alliance, as an individual: Thank you for this opportunity to appear before this committee to explain my support for the creation of Rouge National Urban Park. I served for 27 years as an employee of the Regional Municipality of York, including the last seven years as the chief executive officer. I retired in June 2002. After retiring from York, I was a consultant for three years before my appointment in May of 2005 by the cabinet of the Ontario government as Provincial Development Facilitator. In February 2008, I was appointed Chair, Rouge Park Alliance, again by order-in-council and by the Government of Ontario, and I held this position until the alliance was dissolved in July 2012 and replaced by a transition management structure.
I was very honoured to serve the board of directors that included the Honourable Michael Chong, MP; Dr. Helena Jaczek, MPP.; Mayor Gerri Lynn O'Connor, Chair, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority; the heads of council or their appointee from each of the five municipalities within Rouge Park; and both Durham and York regions, as well as a representative from the Toronto Zoo and Save the Rouge Valley System; and, finally, the Honourable Pauline Browes, representing the Toronto Waterfront Regeneration Trust Corporation.
Rouge Park is a beautiful river valley, but the alliance had its problems in 2008 related to park management. I recommended to the board that we should carry out a review of all aspects of the responsibilities managed by the alliance.
The issues faced by the Rouge Park Alliance are best summarized by StrategyCorp, the consulting firm that assisted the board in carrying out this review. They said the Rouge Park Alliance lacked a consolidated, well-defined land base; a comprehensive master plan; a funded implementation strategy; a functional governance model; a known park brand.
The study focused mainly on governance and funding. The review team concluded that Rouge Park Alliance needed about $100 million over the next 10 years for both capital and operating expenditures. This was about 10 times its current annual funding level.
The review evaluated eight park models, including a municipal park, a not-for-profit corporation, a branch of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, a provincial park or a national park against the following criteria: funding, control of land, and authority and expertise.
Recommendations approved by the board of directors included support to create a national park. That report was circulated to each member municipal council and the directors of each agency. They all supported the recommendation to transfer responsibilities to Parks Canada. The Province of Ontario, by letter from the Minister of Natural Resources, also supported this recommendation.
It is now over two years since the federal government included Rouge National Urban Park in its policy statements and budget. Over the past two years, Parks Canada has been involved in the transitional planning to create Rouge National Urban Park. We can review how Parks Canada has addressed the major concerns experienced by the Rouge Park Alliance.
The federal budget now includes a 10-year plan of a total of $143 million to manage the park, thus addressing the funding concerns expressed by the Rouge Park Alliance, who said they need at least $100 million over the 10-year period.
The federal government, through Parks Canada, has submitted clearly mapped boundaries. The proposed area also includes an expansion of approximately 4,800 additional acres known as the "federal airport lands" in Markham. This brings the total park area to over 14,500 acres.
Parks Canada has shown its experience and expertise to manage Canada's first national urban park by placing a planning team on site that has been working with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, the current manager, community groups and stakeholders to produce a draft management plan for consultation.
Parks Canada has recognized the complicated and sensitive issues of agriculture policy and plans, building on the work done in 2010 by the Rouge Park Alliance, who added agriculture to the objectives of the Rouge Park plan. Until 2010, agriculture use was reflected only in the park maps for the Toronto plan, but never shown along with natural heritage, cultural heritage and recreation as a key purpose of the park plan. Parks Canada has continued to recognize agriculture as an important part of the park. Parks Canada's work has gained the confidence of the farming community, both in the park and from regional farm organizations.
Parks Canada has proposed plans that reflect the need to improve the trail system in the park. Draft trail plans included in the draft management plan build on the planning work done recently by the alliance. The number of volunteer hike leaders has increased significantly over the last two years, and there is strong support from recreational users.
Over the last 20 years, culture heritage and the preservation of historical buildings have been neglected due to a lack of funding and commitment. Parks Canada has the mandate, experience and resources to address these issues and has included cultural heritage in Bill C-40. My experience seeing the work of Parks Canada in places like Dawson City, North Battleford, Halifax and Fort William gives me the confidence to know that protection of the cultural heritage of the park will be addressed.
Rouge Park has been regulated by 10 different agencies responsible to protect against abusers of park rules, regulations, firearms offences by illegal hunters and poachers. There have been constant complaints in the past by park users. Requests for additional staff in the past were denied by funders. Since Parks Canada has been involved, there are now three uniformed park wardens on duty and ready to enforce the provisions of the act, when passed.
Parks Canada has developed a draft management plan that outlines the concepts and strategies needed to develop the mandate and protect and enhance Canada's first national urban park. The draft plan clearly outlines how to protect the natural heritage, culture and history, while also recognizing farming as important. Throughout, the plan is an innovative approach to conservation that enhances the park's ecosystem health by maintaining and restoring its native Carolinian and mixed-woodland forests, wetlands, meadows and aquatic ecosystem. The plan calls for further consultation with the Province of Ontario, environment groups and other key stakeholders.
Most importantly, Parks Canada understands how complicated it is to preserve and protect the natural heritage system in Rouge Park. This is a difficult task because the park also accommodates municipal infrastructure, private utilities, hydro lines, provincial highways and federal railways. There are also private homes and businesses in Rouge Park. Despite these barriers, it is beautiful, meaningful and a national treasure. It is appreciated by its neighbours and users. A national urban park will be appreciated by millions of potential park users in the GTA and in Canada. I am confident that Parks Canada will meet these challenges and carry on with its long history as one of the best park systems in the world. Our first national urban park will develop and maintain a healthy park that will still be "wild in the city."
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
Kim Empringham, Secretary/Treasurer/Director, York Region Federation of Agriculture: Thank you on behalf of the York Region Federation of Agriculture for giving me the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of its 700 farmer members in the region, including those farmers in the proposed Rouge National Urban Park. We represent farmers in the region on issues affecting their farms, as well as decisions that will affect them in the future.
The York Region Federation of Agriculture supports Parks Canada's consultation process that engaged over 150 stakeholder groups and thousands of individuals to create the Rouge National Urban Park. We support the integrated approach to balancing natural heritage, sustainable farming, cultural heritage and visitor experience found in both Bill C-40 and the draft management plan. We have confidence that Parks Canada will improve the ecological health of the park while maintaining the farmland in production.
Two of the guiding principles for the Rouge National Urban Park are to maintain and improve ecological health and scientific integrity, and to respect and support sustainable agriculture and other compatible land uses. The draft management plan states:
The protection, conservation, and restoration of the park's natural, cultural and agricultural resources are integral to all decision making related to park management.
The farmland in Rouge National Urban Park, approximately 7,500 acres, is Class 1 agricultural land, meaning it is the best land for agriculture production. Less than 1 per cent of Canada's farmland is Class 1. The farmers in the park have already given up 1,000 acres of productive farmland in the park for reforestation projects completed by the previous Rouge Park.
With the world population expected to increase from 7 billion to 9 billion by 2050, there will continue to be a growing need to protect farmland resources and support food production to meet local and global food needs. Farmland should be protected for its highest and best use, for agriculture and food production. Any tree planting and habitat restoration should be encouraged in areas where farming is not feasible, such as slopes, riparian areas, wet areas or hedgerows between fields. Farmers support the protection of natural heritage areas, but it is important that natural heritage restoration doesn't unnecessarily encroach on productive farm lands.
The farmers in the park use environmental farm plans incorporating best management practices as part of their ongoing stewardship of the farmland they have been taking care of for generations. Farmland provides food production, carbon sequestering, climate regulation, improved air quality, wildlife habitat, hydrological functions, groundwater recharge and buffering protection for natural heritage features.
Whether we are talking about the 51,000 farms across the province of Ontario, the 800 farms in York Region or the 40 farmers in the Rouge National Urban Park, we are talking about family farms, not industrial corporations. Ninety-eight per cent of the farms in Canada are family owned and operated, handed down from generation to generation. But we must remember these family farms are agricultural businesses. The agriculture and food sector is the second-biggest economic driver in the province.
We have an important job to do feeding our neighbours, whether they are in Markham or Toronto, across the province or around the world. Our business is agriculture, but our heart lies with our family and our land.
For the farms to be environmentally and economically sustainable in the park, it will be important to ensure that farmers will not have unnecessary regulations or restrictions placed on them. They cannot be put at a competitive disadvantage compared to other farms across the province.
The farming community in the Rouge National Urban Park is the same farm families that have been caring for the land and growing food for the people of Ontario for the past 200 years. The future of the farms in the park has been in limbo since the farms were expropriated in the 1970s. The farmers who decided to stay on their family farms after they were expropriated had to farm with one-year leases and no certainty in the future or in their ability to make capital improvements on farms that they could be evicted from at any time. The long-term leases outlined in the draft management plan will allow farmers to invest in their farm's future in the park.
Farmers in the Rouge National Urban Park produce 46 different crops. It's important to remember that there are no good or bad crops. Some of these crops are sold fresh to the consumer, while others, such as corn, soybeans and wheat, require some form of processing before being consumed. That does not mean that one is better than the other.
As in other industries, market demand dictates what is produced and how it is marketed, but in agriculture we also have to take climate and soil type into consideration when deciding what crops to grow. With the certainty that comes with long-term leases, you will likely see more diversity in the crops grown or the livestock raised in the park, but also keep in mind that the soil and climate in the park have a long history of being perfect for growing corn and wheat.
I would like to thank you again for the opportunity to speak to you today and would like to reiterate that all of the farmland in the park needs to be protected and preserved so that future generations of farmers can produce food, fibre and fuel for our ever increasing population.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We will now go to questions, and I will begin with the deputy chair, Senator Massicotte.
Senator Massicotte: Thanks to all three of you for being here today. It is much appreciated. This is an important bill to Ontario and the people in Toronto, and we are trying to get it right.
Mr. Noonan, you in particular deal precisely with the wording difference with the Province of Ontario, and all three of you support very much what is being presented in the bill.
Ideally, it would be nice if everybody agreed on a final act and got on side, especially with Ontario contributing over 50 per cent of the land. We wonder, while the arguments are solid to support the as-is scenario, how do we get people to buy into the act? And how do we get people, especially the Province of Ontario, to contribute the lands and resolve the issue?
Mr. Wells, what is the solution, what is the problem and how do we resolve the issue?
Mr. Wells: First, in developing the plans and going forth with them, there were no problems. I reported as chair directly to Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry, and sitting on our board we had the honourable Dr. Helena Jaczek, the provincial member for Oak Ridges—Markham. I checked very carefully that the province supported the forming of a national park.
First, we asked Ontario, being a former junior forest ranger myself, if it was interested in operating the park, and they said it didn't fit their mandate and was too large financially for them to consider. But there was total support from the Ontario government, from the premier's office, for creating a national park. The support was there, always has been there until this fall when Minister Duguid, in consultation with a number of environmental groups, said the park didn't meet the Ontario standards of environmental protection. That was new.
The standards haven't changed over the last two years, and the plans had been perfected, so we have a difference in some opinions of what protection level means, a difference in wording. Bill C-40 and its plans use the words "ecosystem health" because they don't think the park meets the standards of their definition of "ecological integrity," which is defined in law in the Canada National Parks Act. Others use that term in a more generic sense. Mr. Noonan used the example of Ontario Nature saying that all the provincial parks say that the park must meet ecological integrity, therefore the Rouge Park should.
We were told from the beginning that this park has been too disturbed by development and other uses to meet the standards of ecological integrity for Parks Canada, so they use the more generic term "ecosystem health," and those words are almost interchangeable.
To get to your question, I think there has to be a better understanding by the various parties of what level of support is needed. Fortunately, that discussion is coming out. Yesterday the City of Toronto received a staff report analyzing both the bill and the draft plan, and they produced charts as part of that report and draft plan. Those charts clearly say that the proposed park, in its proposed management plan, meet or exceed the standards for ecological health.
For others, such as York Region, where I have worked for their foresters, their experts are quite satisfied, and so are all the other former landowners. The people who know what the park is about, the people who know how to manage a park, say the park plan is fine.
The people who focus in on a narrow area say they prefer another definition and, for various reasons, don't support. Some of those people don't support that plan because the leader of the ecological agency used to plant all of the trees in the park.
Right now, there has not been that degree of restoration going on until we get a new park owner.
The answer to your question is that — and I also am a former facilitator for the Ontario cabinet — the parties have to get together and sit down and work out a definition and put aside the difference in party politics because everyone, up until this fall, thought this was a great idea, and everyone in Ontario, in particular in the GTA, thought it would be great to have a national park. I don't think we're that far apart, and I think we should be able to come to those conclusions. The main thing is, when our board approved that, we knew the reputation and performance of Parks Canada, and we were prepared to say, "This group has the expertise to run this park." I still think that.
Senator Massicotte: If the parties do so or don't even attempt to do so, should we approve the proposed act as recommended, and hopefully the province will contribute the lands a year or 10 years from now?
Mr. Wells: Yes. I would recommend you go ahead because if you stop and don't approve it because of the letter you received from Mr. Duguid — I saw that letter — that would start the process all over again. It would go into a new session. I think you should go ahead and approve the act. I have encouraged Parks Canada to work with the key stakeholders to see if their concerns about protecting the ecological health can be worked out in the management plan, and I will encourage the Province of Ontario. I just finished meeting with some of the MPs, the parliamentary assistant to Mr. Duguid and Helena Jaczek, whom I have mentioned, and I encouraged them to take their concerns that they expressed in the bill and see if the management plan, when approved, meets their concerns. Quite frankly, if it does not meet Ontario's concerns — and I've heard rumours that they want to defer any decisions until next November, for some reason, after the election I guess — then you should still go ahead and approve the bill, and, if a new government comes along and wants to amend the bill, that will be their choice. But why stop this process that has had a lot of momentum and is very strong? We can get the bill in place and work collectively to have a management plan that satisfies all of the groups.
Mr. Noonan: May I add one thing? bill C-40 mandates that the management plan be done within a certain amount of time, and some of the environmental groups are looking forward to taking the concerns that they have and putting them in the management plan. I think a lot of the things in the management plan now, in the draft stage, actually address some of the other concerns that some parties have. When the bill is passed, that management plan then can be done and finished with the input from all of these groups. I think passing the bill is very important, and then getting onto the management plan will help to satisfy a lot of concerns from other parties.
Mr. Wells: The only major stakeholder who has not commented on the management plan, which is one of the reasons it can't be reported, is the Province of Ontario. I know, from formerly working with some of the staff in the environmental agencies, such as Natural Resources, Municipal Affairs and the Ministry of the Environment, that the staff comments are ready, but they have not been forwarded to Parks Canada. As soon as Parks Canada knows what Ontario's position is on the draft bill, they can work with those folks to try to reach a consensus.
Senator Massicotte: Thank you.
Senator Enverga: Thank you for the presentation. It's really nice to hear that we have some people who contributed a vast number of years to ensure that this Rouge National Urban Park comes into reality.
Mr. Noonan, you mentioned that you have been talking to people, a lot of people. Can you give us an example of what they are telling you?
Mr. Noonan: What I'm trying to do is to assemble a history of the Rouge from the stories of people who live there and whose ancestors have lived there for 100 to 200 years. The reason I started to do this was to add information for hikers and other people who are visiting the park. I am an amateur historian. I love history. At the beginning, they were telling me a lot of things about mistrust. They told me things about the federal and provincial governments and how they expropriated them back in the late 1960s and 1970s, but they told me their stories of how their ancestors arrived there, what they were doing with the farming, what the land means to them, for example, how the Whittamore's became a pick-your-own, how some of the streets were named, many, many stories of this type. I have finished 10 documents that are stories about different things, for instance, how Anne of Green Gables is connected to the Rouge. That's one the stories.
I've entitled the whole thing People's Stories for a People's Park. What is coming out is extremely interesting, as far as I'm concerned — how, for instance, the Rouge is connected to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, or how Dr. Jackson was a world-renowned developer of health food before health food was even really considered, back in the 1930s. These types of things are coming to light and are proving to me to be very interesting. I hope they will be very interesting to other people.
Senator Enverga: Mr. Wells, you mentioned that one of the groups that are against this is planning to plant trees. They want ecological integrity, but a definition of ecological integrity mentions that you cannot just plant trees. Does that confuse the people there? It is going against that.
Mr. Wells: One way of improving the ecological health is to do the restoration, and, ever since the Rouge Park was formed, abandoned farmland and other properties have been restored. The group that leads the environmental groups is one of the key tree planters in that group. In the 1980s, the issue was, "Let's work on planting more trees, and we need to do that to improve the air quality by reducing the carbon impact." In the last decade, we have gained much more understanding of the need for protecting food land and near-market farming as well. This is a hub. We have farms around the urban centre, and we shouldn't be taking those farmlands, which are all Class 1 lands, as Ms. Empringham mentioned, and turning them into restoration. Where I live up in Uxbridge, where there is a bunch of sandy soil and poor farmland, that's a good place to plant more trees. It's not a good place to plant them in the middle of viable farms.
There is a blend of things. We need to improve the environmental state and health of the park, and it will take years for the millions of trees that have been planted over the last 20 years to restore back to a forest state. A hundred years from now, you can reassess the ecological integrity of the park, when all of the little trees that I and others have been planting for the last 20 years have matured. It takes 100 years to form a mature forest. You have to go through several cycles. You start planning conifers, and then deciduous grow underneath them. You don't just put on paper that the park meets those standards when there is still a lot of work to be done and a number of years of tree growing to reach that status.
Senator Enverga: To Kim, what do your members think about the set of mandatory best practices that will be implemented for their operations?
Ms. Empringham: I guess, just to clarify the mandatory use, they are already using best management practices, but you can't think of best management practices as set in stone. They are a group of tools that the farmers can use. Just as a teacher might have many different tools to be able to teach a point to a student, one day they might use one and, depending upon what the circumstances are, it will be different.
The same thing works in agriculture. So when we have a different climate, different weather conditions, we won't be able to use the same ones every year. But the fact is they are using best management practices, one versus another, and they have always wanted to do that.
Some of the practices are more expensive than others, and only having a one-year lease — with tile drainage, for instance, there are tile drains, and some of them have been there for over 100 years. They break with frost and with tree roots getting into them. Some of the systems are so old that they need to be replaced. On a one-year lease, with the likelihood that it would take five to 10 years to pay off replacing a tile drain system on a farm, farmers have not been able to do that unless they bite the bullet and hope they would still have the farm. They have not been able to do some of the more expensive practices, but they definitely have been implementing some of the easier ones. Some of them are in their own best interests to use because they not only help the environment but they also help the crop grow better.
Senator Enverga: Can you tell me what you think of the letter sent by Ontario Minister Duguid?
Mr. Noonan: I find the letter very misleading. It says things like "I have consulted with a number of environmental groups," but it doesn't say what those groups have said. Because I consulted with them too, and they didn't know their names were going to be included in any letter. Some of them didn't even know there was going to be a letter.
I have the letter here. It also talks about meeting with people, and one of the groups said they were at that meeting but the topic was not Bill C-40; it was the management plan itself. The inferences are a little different here.
I've already mentioned that Ontario Nature said they are willing to compromise on the term "ecological integrity," but the intent here seems not to say that.
Also, when he talks about the farmers, I also talked to the farmers, and they said that this kind of indicates that they are in agreement with Mr. Duguid, whereas they are not.
The regulations, for instance, are not being followed. My understanding is that regulations are not made until the bill is passed. So the regulations can't be followed; they are not made. I found the whole letter to be insulting to Parks Canada and the people who it says are agreeing with them, and I'm not very happy with this letter.
Mr. Wells: I'm not very happy with the letter as well.
You used the word "misleading." I think Minister Duguid has been misled by several of the environmental groups. When I talk to some of the groups, the most noted group is the national group CPAWS, Canadian Parks and Wilderness. They don't support the definition of "ecological integrity." They support Parks Canada's definition of "ecological health." Their concern was that standards were more vigorous; so there is a difference in degree of support.
I, too, met with Minister Duguid, and I explained in some detail the difference between ecological integrity and ecosystem health in relation to Rouge Park. He didn't mention me in his letter to the Senate, but he did mention that the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority consulted with him. He didn't mention that they didn't agree with his position or the environmental group.
I don't know the purpose of that meeting. I do know there seems to be a strong movement to slow this process down, and it is misleading because it seems to be based on misinformation that the park will be at a lesser standard. One, it has not been proven; and two, it is not reflected in the written documents I have seen.
Senator Ringuette: I come from a farming area, so therefore my interest is certainly in regard to preserving family farms. My question to you, Ms. Empringham, is you thought that there was a draft management plan, and I gather that all the farmers have seen that plan?
Ms. Empringham: Yes.
Senator Ringuette: Is there a draft proposed agreement for lease to the farming community?
Ms. Empringham: There has not been a draft. We have been meeting. Because the farming community is a large group, a small group of us have been meeting with Parks Canada staff in the first steps in developing a leasing strategy. The plan is to have long-term leases. There has not been a set year, but 20 to 25, maybe 30 years. My understanding is that Parks Canada's plan will be to have a standard lease but then to work on specifics for each farm property.
Senator Ringuette: You haven't seen that standard, nor have the farmers?
Ms. Empringham: No, but we have been working with them. It's a new type of lease. Parks Canada hasn't leased to farmers before, so they are trying to understand all of our concerns and issues, what farmers need to be able to farm successfully and what will work best for them as well as for us. We haven't seen it yet, but I know the process we have been going through. It's not ready. We're not upset that we haven't seen it yet; it's a long process.
Senator Ringuette: I can understand it's a long process because the farming community is so important in regard to this concept of a park. I find that the concept is very good; however, I do have concerns, and there is nothing in the bill to appease any concern to the farming community in that regard. You reaffirm that a draft lease has not been agreed upon yet, and to me so many things seem to be up in the air still. In regard to the farming community, the concept is good, the intent is good, but maybe we're really not there yet in regard to this big component, which is the farming community within the Rouge.
Ms. Empringham: I don't know the exact wording in the bill, but I know there is a place that shows that Parks Canada has to make sure that farms are viable. It's their responsibility to make sure that we're economically viable.
Senator Ringuette: That is a very broad concept. There is no definition for "economically viable."
Ms. Empringham: I'm not sure if that is the right word.
Senator Ringuette: I have concerns in regard to the farming community, and hopefully that will be resolved shortly. Thank you.
Senator Mitchell: Thanks for these presentations. I'm quite excited about the fact that we're thinking of an urban park, so I'm pleased to hear that that's the way you're leaning.
I come from an area where farmland is an issue, Edmonton, but it is not that your perspective, Ms. Empringham, is against it. You are quite positive about it. In fact, you think there will be great advantage in the longer run.
Ms. Empringham: Yes.
Senator Mitchell: Mr. Noonan, on the question of history, the name "Rouge" suggests francophone. Does it have a francophone heritage? Would that be some of the historic richness that might come out of it?
Mr. Noonan: The name "Rouge" came from red clay along the banks in certain parts of the river, so it was originally a francophone name for it. A number of explorers and early people went there and used the Rouge, and they did name it. That name has continued.
Senator Mitchell: All of that historical information and richness is the kind of thing that Parks Canada brings out in —
Mr. Noonan: Parks Canada is very much in favour of the heritage. I'm presently doing a lot on the archaeological areas in there. There are a lot of pre-contact Aboriginal villages and so on within the Rouge, quite a few archaeological areas, including Bead Hill, which is a national site. That's inside it as well. There are the Aboriginal, the francophone and the English parts, as well as Dutch and other things like this that go back. It's quite a rich and a varied history.
Senator Mitchell: So that would be protected as well, and it would emphasize the influence of francophone, Quebec and France, right into the heart of Toronto.
Mr. Noonan: Yes.
Senator MacDonald: I have a couple of questions. I couldn't help but pick up, Mr. Noonan, when you talked about expropriation. There's nothing as bullying, in my experience and observation, certainly at home, than a provincial government when it expropriates land. The power of the state seems to be pretty extensive. How much land was expropriated there in the area?
Mr. Noonan: I couldn't tell you the acreage. There was the centre part that was going to be the airport, a doughnut around it that was expropriated by the federal government, and another area around that that was expropriated by the provincial government.
The people there had different experiences with the different governments doing this. Their resentments came from being told what their properties were worth. In one case, in the area of woodland, the provincial government came out and went in the house when the farmers weren't there. They went and hid in the forest because they thought when they were going to be expropriated, they had to be handed it in their hand. They watched the cars come up. The people in the cars went inside their home, put the sales agreement and a cheque on the kitchen table and left. When the people who were there, which were the Lapps and — left the property, they didn't come back until two years ago. I asked them to give me a tour, and they're quite happy that the property will be preserved.
I've noticed a great change in the attitude of people there from when I started interviewing them until now, including the openness of the staff from Parks Canada and the trust that they are now beginning to give the people from them. For instance, when Parks Canada has meetings, many of the farmers in the area are catering those meetings, bringing their homemade pies and other things. It's spectacular for the people who are involved in those meetings. Attitude seems to be changing.
Senator MacDonald: You made the point I was going to make. When people see their land being used for something good, something worthwhile, it changes their attitude towards the expropriation. We lost, in my hometown of Louisbourg. We had 10,000 acres expropriated to rebuild a fortress back in the 1960s. In the western part of the town and five miles west, all kinds of people lost their property.
The government went in, the provincial government did the expropriation and they basically block-busted, gave somebody garbage land, a big chunk of land so he would move, and once one sheet went through the fence, everybody had to go. I'm very familiar with this. I'm gratified to hear this is what's happening, because when people lose their land, they want to see something good come of it.
The other question I have is for Mr. Wells. What has been the involvement of the municipality, city hall? Have they taken any official position, corresponded in any way? Do they have any influence?
Mr. Wells: Rouge Park Alliance was a federation of all the municipalities, plus the provincial and federal governments. Each of the municipalities supported that.
I have a letter with me from a group that we formed of former alliance members and other concerned people. It's a letter to the Honourable Kathleen Wynne urging them to meet with us and help resolve this issue, as we mentioned earlier. The parties have to get together. This letter is signed by the deputy mayor of the City of Toronto, the mayors of Markham, Richmond Hill and Pickering. These are the adjacent landowner cities, municipalities.
All the municipalities and the conservation authority not only support the transfer but also support the draft bill and what they've seen of the management plan. The management plan isn't complete. It still needs to receive comments from the province and some of the environmental groups. In summary, there's complete support from the municipal sector.
Senator MacDonald: That's great. Thank you.
Senator Eggleton: I'm not sure about that municipal support any longer, in view of the current circumstances.
Mr. Wells: This letter is dated February 26.
Senator Eggleton: The deputy mayor of Toronto?
Mr. Wells: The deputy mayor of Toronto, says the signature to that letter.
Senator Eggleton: What's the name on that?
Mr. Wells: Glenn De Baeremaeker is a deputy mayor of Toronto.
Senator Eggleton: A deputy mayor.
I don't think the councils have had an opportunity, since the province pulled its support out and these other organizations indicated their concern about the bill, to review it.
This did start out a few years ago with everybody travelling the same path, all agreeing it needed to be and should be, and it was a big advantage to have an urban national park. Now the province has pulled back. They say the memorandum of agreement is not being met. I know Parks Canada says they think it is, but there's a dispute.
Then we have a number of organizations that have indicated the bill should be amended, and they include the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Friends of the Rouge Watershed, Environmental Defence, STORM Coalition, Nature Canada, Ontario Nature and the David Suzuki Foundation. These are all organizations that agree with the principle of the park but obviously have some difficulties with the way this is proceeding in Bill C-40.
In view of the fact that the province has a considerable amount of the land involved that it's pulling out, greatly diminishing the size of the park, wouldn't it be wise that we pause, but not for a long period of time? I certainly haven't heard anything from people that indicated there's a huge difference between the parties on this. In fact, most people have said they think it's all something that could be pulled together.
Rather than passing this right now and then the whole process starts all over again, which could take years and years, wouldn't it be wise to pause for 60 or 90 days or whatever and suggest these parties get together and have this resolved?
Mr. Wells: Is that addressed to me?
Senator Eggleton: It's for all three of you.
Mr. Wells: I could take a crack at trying to answer that. I also recommended before the House of Commons standing committee that there should be two amendments. I wanted an amendment that "the minister shall" instead of "may" appoint an advisory committee, because that's been a long history of ours.
Senator Eggleton: I agree with that.
Mr. Wells: I also recommended the same recommendations basically as CPAWS made. During that process, I was assured by the CEO of Parks Canada, Alan Latourelle, who also made a presentation there and focused that the issues about of how he defined the degree of environmental protection are more appropriate discussion in the management plan. Indeed, discussions about the details of farm leases and that sort of thing are administrative matters and not legislative matters. I've taken him at his word, and I didn't put those recommendations here. I've already requested informally, and will request formally, that Parks Canada continue to meet with the key stakeholders, whom you've mentioned, in an attempt to reach a consensus on those in the management plan.
A deferment of 30 or 60 or 90 days would take this bill beyond this session, I think. That would take us into the fall. Then, we're looking at starting all over again with a new government and a new session. So I think we're so close to having agreement that we should proceed to pass the bill and work out these disagreements in the final management plan. Even some of the groups that you've mentioned now have agreement with Parks Canada. CPAWS doesn't support the term "ecological integrity" very much. I also work very closely with the David Suzuki Foundation, and I'm a member of Ontario Nature. I'm the president of the North Durham chapter of Ontario Nature, and I work very closely with those folks too. I'm pretty confident that we're not very far apart. Quite frankly, the issue is this: What does Ontario want to do as far as timing of transferring their lands? They've changed their mind on that in the last six months. They were all gung-ho. Parks Canada would not have gone forward if Ontario had not signed the memorandum that said, "We will transfer the lands in that memorandum, under certain conditions." Now they're saying they're not meeting those conditions. In my view, the only condition of the memorandum agreement that isn't being met is the Ontario government's commitment to transfer the land.
Mr. Noonan: I totally agree with what Mr. Wells has said. The management plan can work out the finer points. I think that's what it's for. I think that most of those groups, the ones I've talked to, have said that they're looking forward to that park.
Ms. Empringham: I would agree. The expropriation was a bad thing, but the management groups that have been looking after the leases that the farmers have had to deal with have been worse almost than the expropriation itself. So there is the need to move forward, for them to have the security of long-term leases so that they can plan their businesses for the future. Politics aside, right now, there is the likelihood that if you go ahead and pass this without any amendments, the farmers can get on with their lives. If we have to wait until after the next election, we don't know what that's going to look like. We don't know if there will be a government that will be able to have something enacted. We could be stuck for five years, 10 years. Who knows? Right now, we can get this done. If there's that much of a problem with the bill, it could be changed in the future. Definitely, in terms of the regulations and the management plan, I think the reason they are stalled right now is politics. I think that the province is using the ecological integrity as an excuse. But when you look at the reality of the definitions and how they would look on the ground, it's just a smokescreen that they're standing behind.
Senator Eggleton: We'll hear from some of the groups next week.
Senator Black: I don't have a question. I have an observation for you three. I think this is a tremendous initiative, just a tremendous initiative, and I would actually hope that this type of initiative could be duplicated in other urban centres across Canada. We hope this gets done. We hope you set a fantastic precedent.
What I wanted to observe generally is just to thank you for the commitment that the three of you and your folks and your friends have been making. There's something very good here.
An Hon. Senator: Hear, hear.
Senator Black: When you take the type of time that you have taken, for no compensation, the energy, the commitment that you have given to something you believe in, this is a very strong model for Canadians, and I just want to underline my appreciation for this kind of work. This is the kind of commitment that I hope people watching see because we need more Canadians doing exactly this kind of thing: standing up for something they believe in and trying to get it done. So thank you all very much.
Senator Seidman: I second Senator Black's commendation for the energy and the efforts you've put into something you believe in.
Ms. Empringham, I would like to ask you a little more about the farming aspects in this park. First of all, has there been, to your knowledge, any use of other models of urban parks in trying to find the best way to enhance the role of farming in this park?
Ms. Empringham: I don't know of any other urban parks that have farming.
Mr. Wells: I could answer. There aren't many. There is an American national park in Cleveland, which is similar to this. It's a river valley. It's on a smaller scale, but they've succeeded in operating a natural heritage site along with agriculture. The best example is in Florida, near Naples. Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is run by the National Audubon Society. It is much larger than our Rouge Park. They've kept the perimeter in agriculture, and it serves as a buffer. Then, the natural park that holds dangerous snakes and alligators or whatever is in the interior. But there aren't many examples. One advantage that the agriculture has, if it's part of the design too, is that it's sort of a buffer between the urban and the rare species that you want to protect in the natural heritage part of the park. So this is a real first at this scale in Canada.
Senator Seidman: That's really helpful and interesting.
Ms. Empringham, we heard from you that there are 40 farmers currently in the park — and they're family farms; they're not industrial — and that there are 46 different crops currently. Would any of you be able to help me in understanding the role of farming now in the park and how that will change under this new regime, so to speak, or with this management plan, which refers very specifically to things like sustainable farming practices, for example?
Ms. Empringham: Right. In the park, it won't necessarily change because of the park, but, when you look at the long-term leases, that will enable the farmers to make more investments in their farm, to be able to broaden their scope. We also have an average age of the farmers getting close to 60. In Ontario, the average is 56 to 57. But the farmers who have been there are looking at retiring, which is usually the next step when they're heading to a retirement home. They farm as long as they can. So there will be a natural progression, with either their own family taking over or, as we see in farms across Canada, more of their children heading to the urban side and not staying on the farm. So there will be new farmers, younger farmers, taking over those leases, which then will mean a broadening of the scope of different farming activities. I'm not sure if that answers your question.
Senator Seidman: Could you just describe a little more the kind of farming activities that happen today, just so we can understand better?
Ms. Empringham: Fifty years ago, many of the farms were 100- or 200-acre mixed farming, so you would have seen quite a few more dairy farms, more livestock. They might have done a little bit of everything. But as the agriculture industry across the province has matured and progressed with new innovation, farmers are specializing in one or two things, as opposed to a mix.
Because of the one-year leases — so if you had a dairy farm, to be able to renew it and to keep it modern, it involved a large investment, which the farmers wouldn't want to do. Many of them have transitioned from dairy into corn and soybean production, so their infrastructure is in the field equipment. Farms have been getting larger and larger because of the economy of scale. Farm equipment is much more expensive, so you need to farm for acres to be able to make it pay.
Many of the farmers in the park have maintained their farming operation that they had in the park, but also would be either renting or owning other acres outside of the park. If they're farming corn and soybeans, they can do that with the mobile infrastructure that in the past, if they lost the lease they would have been able to use that equipment somewhere else and not lose.
So that means, with a long-term lease, there will be other ways to use their investments on the properties.
Senator Seidman: I want to ask you something. I live in Montreal. I know more and more farmers in the environs, in the area around Montreal and townships and various places. There's an emphasis on this philosophy of buying local. They try to understand what the urban dwellers require and need, and they develop a program to supply the urban dwellers, weekly, with local products on their doorstep. You can actually put in orders for this. It's quite an interesting development in the agri-industry. We talk about sustainable farming and that kind of thing. That's what comes to my mind, to some extent. I'm wondering if you've thought about this approach, given you're so unique; you're in the centre of the city.
Ms. Empringham: Right. Anywhere around the GTA, the proximity to the population has definitely been a plus for those farmers that would like to supply fresh vegetables or fruit. The GTA is the second-largest food hub in North America. Even when you go past the fresh fruits and vegetables, the processing that's done in Toronto, in the GTA, is phenomenal. The proximity to those processors is just as important as the fresh.
When we talk, though, about the new farmers that will be transitioning onto the leases over time, there's a good likelihood that many of those will want to provide fresh. As far as having it available for sale in the park, it's the same as any other business. You wouldn't want to have six Whittamore Farms in a row. They couldn't compete with each other. I'm not sure anyone coming in could compete next door with the same product. But we do see a good example of a mentorship program that has worked well with Whittamore. One of their employees has set up beside them with their world crops, their ethnic vegetables, for that population, and it's very successful. They could sell likely as much as they could ever produce. One of the models we're looking at is trying different types of mentorship to be able to support the new farmers.
Senator Seidman: So this park, in the end, could be sort of a best-practice model for many other urban parks that could be created in the future. As Mr. Wells said, this is quite a unique situation.
Ms. Empringham: I know that Parks Canada would like to find a farm property once a lease has been given up that could be used as a showcase for educational purposes. We have in Toronto the Black Creek Pioneer Village that shows the pioneer farming methods. With only 2 per cent of the farming population in Canada, agriculture has a huge story to tell. I provided The Real Dirt on Farming magazine to all of you. It's an educational piece that is put together with a number of groups, so that you can understand what modern farming looks like. There are a lot of myths that need to be dispelled that we're not industrial. Even though it might look like it; it's just modern. It's using the scientific methods that everyone else in other industries is allowed to use, but when farmers do it, it looks bad. We don't use the same methods that we did in the 1920s, just as you don't drive the same type of car or use a pencil instead of your computer.
Mr. Noonan: I just wanted to add that as consumers, my wife and I shop and purchase food, produce, from the Rouge Park farmers basically every week, especially corn, fresh that day. Also there's a farmers' market in Pickering, where the farmers in the area come, and we go there and get a variety of different produce. As a consumer, it's wonderful to taste this material, this product, that's fresh that day in many cases. I think that's going to be popular. One other thing is that Parks Canada did talk about having a farmers' market right inside the Rouge Park as a possibility in negotiation with one of the farmers.
Senator Patterson: Mr. Chair, on September 2, 2014, a group of eight environmental groups, which included Ontario Nature, Environmental Defence, Friends of the Rouge Watershed, the David Suzuki Foundation, CPAWS, Nature Canada, Sierra Club Canada and Save the Oak Ridges Moraine Coalition, came out with a very strong statement, which was well publicized. It said basically that the draft bill before us does not prioritize ecological integrity in park management, contrary to provincial Rouge Park policies. It says that the draft bill does not honour a January 2013 memorandum of agreement signed between Parks Canada and the Ontario government requiring written park policies that meet or exceed provincial policies. It calls on the federal government to uphold its commitment in the memorandum of agreement, and it says quite dramatically:
As it stands now, the draft federal legislation threatens to undermine 25 years of consultation, scientific study and provincial policy development that made ecological integrity the main purpose of the park and the top priority for park management.
I think we're fortunate this morning to have, particularly in Mr. Noonan and Mr. Wells, decades of solid experience in the development of this park.
I'm sure that you're familiar with this news release. I wonder if you could assist the committee by making some comments on those strong statements, please.
Mr. Wells: Mr. Chair, do you want me to respond?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr. Wells: First, I will add that I'm currently a member of the Greenbelt Council. This a group appointed by the Minister of Municipal Affairs in Ontario to advise him on how effectively the greenbelt is working. The Greenbelt Plan is one of the acts referred to in that discussion. Currently as the Provincial Development Facilitator, I was involved in working on the growth strategy, which is another act that's referred to in there. I was also on the working group that developed the Oak Ridge Moraine Plan when I worked in York Region. I'm clearly familiar these pieces of legislation.
Dealing with the most specific plan, the Rouge Park plan does not talk about ecological integrity. It does talk about integrity in planning, and the Greenbelt Plan does not talk about ecological integrity. I think Mr. Noonan mentioned that. The Greenbelt Plan's main purpose is to protect farmland in the broader area, and comments were made earlier about the protection of farmland.
The memorandum of agreement states that the park will meet the current standards. The position of Parks Canada is, in its analysis, that it is meeting those standards. The position of the City of Toronto staff who just tabled a report yesterday at their Parks and Environmental Committee says they are meeting those standards.
On March 10, you will hear from Ian Buchanan, and he will say that York Region is concerned that they're meeting those standards, and so will the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. I have informally talked with the staff from the provincial ministries of natural resources, environment, municipal affairs, and each of their staff positions supported the plan. Those positions have never been formally tabled because the world got turned around on September 2 when the minister and the environmental groups came out.
I know most of those environmental groups. They are fine people who work on fine policies, but I will submit that they do not have the background in understanding what Rouge National Urban Park is. At our first meeting in 2008 with the then director of planning for Parks Canada, Mr. Doug Stewart, he said yes, we're interested in pursuing this becoming part of Parks Canada, but let's be assured Rouge Park cannot meet the standards of a national park. That's why it's called Rouge National Urban Park. It can meet those standards. Its integrity as a natural resource has been disturbed for a number of reasons. Farming is one of those reasons, although it is a good disturbance.
There is development. There is a scrapyard in the middle of the park, a zoo in the middle of the park, and it is adjacent to a landfill site. All of those are being restored, but they don't meet the criteria. With the environmental groups, their lawyer analyzed the Canada National Parks Act, provincial parks act and national standards and said it doesn't meet the standards. Everyone involved in the park knew it could not meet those standards, but it can meet a high standard.
I would submit that maybe on one person's criteria they score an A-plus and on another, they can score an A. We don't know; you can argue both sides. We do know overall that Parks Canada can operate this urban park to a high standard.
If we want to find those types of criticism to stop the thing dead, that's one thing. If we want to say yes, we acknowledge you have concerns, the biggest concern is the one you mentioned on setting the priority of what purpose or objective comes first. Kim mentioned this earlier.
CPAWS, which I have a great deal of respect for, says, "Yes, we like the term 'ecosystem health' as the measurement that you would see for how you are meeting standards. But we think all national parks should have protecting the environmental health or ecological integrity as the first priority that overrules all others." It is not practical in Rouge Park. It is practical in a natural setting at a wilderness park where nothing has been disturbed, whether it's an island on the East Coast or land in the Arctic, but not in this park.
You really can't meet that. Some of the environmental groups want this. If you say the top priority is always protecting the natural heritage, then you will come in conflict with running the farms one on one, two on two. We mentioned Bead Hill, which is an Aboriginal burial site. If we say protecting the natural heritage precedes protecting a national historic site, in my mind that's not a good priority.
We didn't mention in the history lesson that the main settlers in Rouge Park were Mennonites who came from Pennsylvania because they did not support the fourth amendment of bearing arms. They came here and stayed here. They have been farming there for 200 years. They are wonderful people. The whole farm is a historic site. The original farms are amazing, not quite as old as in Quebec but a couple hundred years.
If we are going to say that protecting the natural heritage will always win a decision in conflicts with other parks uses, then that would be too bad. I agree it should if it's where you locate a trail, but not when it comes to protecting the culture and agricultural lands.
That's why we have come up with several priorities that are equally important, including culture, agriculture and natural heritage. If you look at the draft plan, natural heritage is always listed first, but it does not have the predominance that it would in a national park. That's by design, and, more important, it's by understanding what Rouge Park is.
I submit that some of the people who are criticizing don't understand it. They have not walked the lands the way others have and don't know the purpose of the park.
Mr. Noonan: I can't add anything to what Mr. Wells said. He said it very eloquently, and I agree with him.
Senator Eggleton: This "ecological integrity" phrase keeps popping up. You mentioned the Greenbelt Plan, but the memorandum of agreement between the province and the federal government says that the park must meet or exceed provincial policies, including the policies set out in the Greenbelt Plan, the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan and the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe. I have excerpts from all three of them, and they all refer to ecological integrity, including the Greenbelt Plan.
It says:
The Natural System policies protect areas of natural heritage, hydrologic and/or landform features . . . which collectively support biodiversity and overall ecological integrity.
That's taken directly out of the Greenbelt Plan.
Everybody realizes that there are different uses on this property. There are farms, there are heritage sites. By the way, Altona Forest, Mr. Noonan's group, put "ecological integrity" into their management plan as well. Everybody understands there are mixed uses here, but why is it you feel that some strict interpretation is going to be made that will apply to all of the properties?
The farming properties have been there for some time. They can be protected by zoning, can they not? Why is this ecological integrity such a threat to what you see as a preservation of what is there?
Mr. Wells: I hesitate to speak on behalf of Parks Canada because they explain this much better.
In the Parks Canada act and literature related to national parks, "ecological integrity" has a very specific meaning and understanding, and literature there gives specific examples of how it should be interpreted. It would be confusing for Parks Canada to be using one term to define two different circumstances, the normal-situation wilderness park and an urban park. They prefer to use the words "ecosystem health." Several of the groups that signed that form also used that definition. Others use it in a more generic sense that says ice cream is good. They don't talk about what flavours of ice cream.
It's a more general term. The Greenbelt Act mentions that, and it also says that in the area of the Rouge Park, the Rouge Park plan will have precedence over the policies of the Greenbelt Act, and the Rouge Park plan does not use the term "ecological integrity." It does at one point mention the word "integrity." Various acts at various times use this term. It's not an absolute scientific term, although Parks Canada has gone to some extent to explain in their literature and in their act what they mean by it.
I think in the whole look at the park, this is one issue, and it has been taken to such a detailed level of discussion that it's muddying the red waters in the Rouge Park. I understand from Parks Canada that they are willing to look at this wording in more detail now and have been. But we haven't seen the benefit of the proposed changes to the draft, and we haven't seen, unfortunately, what the province's position is for change. They are saying, "You are not meeting our standards," but they haven't shared those standards with Parks Canada, so we are sort of spinning our wheels here.
Senator Eggleton: Why do we have to get the parties together to agree on that?
Mr. Wells: A few days ago, I saw Premier Prentice on television, a former Minister of the Environment, and he said — coming from Jim Prentice, I thought this was amazing — that the problem is in Canada that governments aren't working closely together and respecting the other parties' positions to reach reasonable conclusions. This was the day before I came to Ottawa. I said that I wished he had stuck around and said that here. By the way, he would have preferred that Fish Creek, a provincial park in Calgary, became the first urban park — great place.
We should be able to reach solutions on this. This is not that far apart.
Senator Mitchell: Fish Creek would be a great choice, and so would the Edmonton park system, which is fantastic.
I am interested in the politics you referred to, Ms. Empringham. It's pure speculation, but it seems to me that, generally speaking, governments don't fold to environmental group pressures, so there would be some politics there. Are there pressures from development interests that are against this park? What are the politics of the resistance to this park beyond the concerns of certain environmental groupings, which I'm not diminishing?
Ms. Empringham: I don't think it's politics to do with this park. I think it's general politics. I think if Ontario and the federal government could get along better — I have heard that this is the issue that they decided.
Senator Mitchell: If the Premier of Ontario and the Prime Minister could sit down to talk about this perhaps — isn't it interesting that that's not happening?
Ms. Empringham: That's what I wonder. There is a close personal relationship between Minister Duguid and one of the groups. In the first letter that he came out with, he said that he had met with the stakeholders. Well, he hadn't met with the people living in the park; he hadn't met with the farmers. He had met with the small group of environmentalists. After a lot of prodding, he did meet with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, but it was at a round table discussion with the other environmental groups there. That was one meeting, although he did mention us in a letter, and in more recent letters he has said that farming will continue in the park when he's also supporting the one or two environmental groups that would still like the 600-metre corridor to be implemented through the park. If that corridor is implemented, that means cutting a strip right through the farmland.
So he could be correct in saying that farmers won't be evicted, but if you have a 600-metre corridor cut through the middle of your farm, there is not the likelihood that that farm could be sustainable, so he's playing with words, I believe.
Senator Mitchell: Thank you.
Senator Enverga: I would like to follow up on your statement that we have to have this bill passed right away because the farmland has to be taken care of right away and the development of this park.
I know some things have to be done with the wildlife. On your end, Mr. Wells and Mr. Noonan, why do you think we need to pass this right away and that Parks Canada should take over right away? Why should it be happening this way? We don't need any more delay.
Mr. Noonan: My main concern is policing. Right now, there is no policing there. We have witnessed crossbow hunting. A hiker with me two weeks ago found an arrow lodged in a fence right on Mast Trail. As I mentioned, it could have taken a person's eye out. That particular one wouldn't kill a deer, although that type of arrow has been found there before.
There is lot of misuse there. I have seen people poaching fiddleheads. When I called the police, they simply asked if they were there and where they were, and, to be honest, I couldn't tell them where to enter in order to get those people.
There are lots of things happening like that that are totally illegal. To leave this longer will exacerbate this problem.
There are other things. Many of the trails are eroding. I have gone on hikes with people from Parks Canada who said this trail is wrong and has to have this done to it in order to stop the erosion. One trail, for instance, is eroded so deep that when you are walking on it you can barely see over the sides of trail where it used to be. It's eroded that badly. There are measures that could have been taken.
There is a bridge where one part of the end is totally collapsed, and this has been brought to the attention of the Ontario government and nothing has happened. That needs to be fixed before someone is seriously hurt.
There are fishermen in there who are totally irresponsible; many are responsible, but some are not. A dog swallowed a fish hook on a walk with its owner, resulting in a $3,200 medical bill to save the dog's life, and the hook was just dropped by the edge of the river right beside the trail where they were walking.
There are numerous examples of things going on that are illegal, and there are lots of other things that maybe Mr. Wells can talk about. If that's left, it will only get worse.
Mr. Wells: Right now, we formed a group of bylaw enforcement folks in the park. There are three police departments — Toronto, Markham and Pickering. There are three different bylaw enforcements. There are conservation authorities, provincial, and Toronto and Region Conservation Authority is conservation enforcement. There are all these groups, and it's difficult to get the right person there at the right time.
The hunting in the park and the abuse of those privileges are a big issue. But we have a committed budget, and we have a park plan that said we need to build five bridges to reach the goal of having a trail from Lake Ontario to the Oak Ridges Moraine. There is infrastructure; there are parking lots that are closed in the winter because they are too dangerous to use in the City Toronto, for example, Twyn Rivers, part of Scarborough. There are commitments by Parks Canada to work with the provincial government on the water quality, the aqua system protection and other regulations.
My experience has been that when you grind things to a stop, it is hard to get them started again, and it takes a long time to get land transferred.
Ontario Realty Corporation is a pretty unwieldy group. In Uxbridge, we've been trying to get some land that was taken over by the government and stopping development transfer for eight years, and we still haven't managed to do it.
I think it would be really bad to stop this momentum. All the transfer work has been done. It's ready to go. The parties should be able to get together and come up with a definition on the healthy ecosystem that can others can live with. I don't see where this needs to be stopped dead. I think it should go forward and we should get the act passed in this session and get on with working together on the park plan.
For those who are interested in stopping it, if we passed the park plan now, if you pass it, if another government is elected in another term, they can always amend the act, but why stop things? Why park the cart at the side of the road and let it rust when you can drive on to victory?
Senator Eggleton: I'm interested in driving on to victory, but a lot of problems you talk about are on provincial lands, and they are not going to be included in Bill C-40. That's the big problem.
Mr. Wells: If I may, sir, that's a bit of a myth. Those provincial lands, which they have now come back and for some reason taken control of, those lands were turned over to Toronto and Region Conservation Authority over the last 10 years in a variety of different stages. They are lands that were turned over to the City of Markham. What the province says is they have the right of refusal for any further transfer. There was agreement by a woman that I really expect now, the mayor of Brampton, Linda Jeffrey when she was Minister of Natural Resources, to approve the transfer. The recommendations by each ministry were approved. Now, the people who paid for running the park for all these years and were the manager of the park have been told, "Step aside, we're going to take over the management of the park," although they haven't invested in the park or managed the park in the last 10 years. All of a sudden, they want to stop it? Why? When everyone thought, including the province and the premier's office, and someone who is very busy right now in Ottawa and was the chief adviser to Premier McGuinty, these folks all said this is a great idea and it still is a great idea, and I don't see any reason to stop it.
Senator Eggleton: Everybody agrees it's a great idea. It's the legislation.
Senator Massicotte: I have a quick supplementary on what you just said. You said it is a myth that the Ontario lands have been actually assigned, or the authority of those lands is given to the City of Markham?
Mr. Wells: Markham and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority.
Senator Massicotte: Therefore all Ontario had is the right of first refusal to that transfer?
Mr. Wells: There is one parcel that they still own, called the east Markham lands, but the majority of that land has been managed and is registered on deed title to the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority.
Senator Massicotte: My understanding is that Markham is in agreement with the proposed act.
Mr. Wells: Yes, and the City of Toronto owns some land, and they are in agreement with it.
Senator Massicotte: Therefore, even if the Province of Ontario sat aside and says they don't agree, contrary to what I understood, you said a very high percentage of lands would be transferred in spite of the dispute unless the province actually has first right of refusal. Is that accurate?
Mr. Wells: That's right. The City of Toronto owns some of the land outright, but the majority of the lands were transferred to the conservation authority and to the cities to manage and pay and be responsible. Ontario has the first right of refusal on any transfers. They are now exercising that. We use the terms in our letter here that they have control of the lands. If Ontario really wanted to do this, they could take the park back and operate a provincial park and pay for it, but they have also said, "We have no money to do that."
Senator Massicotte: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, folks, for your presentations. They were very interesting. There were good questions and a lot of good answers. The meeting is adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)