44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 8, 2023 02:00PM
Madam Speaker, Parks Canada does have a process. Can the member provide assurances to the House today that Caldwell First Nation, in particular, does not want to follow the Parks Canada process, but, rather, to support the member's legislation? Is it fully supportive of the legislation or does it want to follow process that has been established by Parks Canada? Can the member specifically tell us what Walpole Island First Nation is saying about the legislation?
The member has talked about the importance of reconciliation and doing the consultation with indigenous people. I am wondering if he could provide his comments on both of those points.
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Madam Speaker, I wish the member would read the packages he gets, because Caldwell First Nation has provided him and his office, a number of times, a letter of support for this and they are unequivocally behind it. Chief Mary Duckworth has been here several times with me, including appearing at the environment committee in front of members saying she supports the legislation.
I can keep quoting all those things and providing letters. They are the ones who actually have the treaty rights of the area. We are letting them work with Walpole Island First Nation, which is also part of the consultation program.
Most importantly, there is no higher level of consultation than the National Parks Act itself, as opposed to the Liberal plan right now, which is a draft and is made up with no meanings in terms of accountability and no public access to some of the things they are doing, and it does not have the regular money for financing the proper stewardship that is necessary for the future.
We are doing it the right way. They are doing it the short way.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's contributions and question.
On June 23 of last year, the Parliament of Canada, on its Facebook page, posted the following: “Did you know that national parks are created through Acts of Parliament? On this day in 1887, Parliament passed the Rocky Mountain Parks Act, which established what is now Banff as the first national park in Canada.”
I actually read something from the Parks Canada site. They have a draft process for these urban parks they are doing right now where they do not have any public notifications of meetings, timelines or time frames. It is on their website as a draft process.
We are not going to wait around for them to act as we watch all these endangered species in our communities suffer. We want to go forward with accountability and create what is richly deserved as a proper national urban park for everybody with the highest degree of accountability and consultation, with Caldwell First Nation and others, like the City of Windsor. All the owners of this land want it to move forward.
The only problem has been with the federal government. It still cannot even transfer a piece of property from the port to Environment Canada. I have been going on about this for four years, and it will not even transfer that one environmentally sensitive property. We need to do it now. We cannot wait any longer.
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Madam Speaker, as one can tell, when we talk about how our communities benefit and thrive because of national parks, it can be a very emotional issue. Many members of Parliament take a great sense of pride in how we might achieve having more national parks.
For example, there is The Forks National Historic Site. It is not necessarily a park, but for that site, I can recall the way in which people came together from many different sectors and ultimately developed this beautiful treasure in the city of Winnipeg. Today, it attracts more tourists than any other site in Winnipeg and arguably the province of Manitoba.
There is also Riding Mountain National Park, which has had an impact not only on the people who live in and around it but also those who use it.
I would absolutely agree that these are important issues for the House of Commons. The government is definitely interested in and wants to see continuing progress with the Ojibway National Urban Park or Windsor National Urban Park.
My understanding of the legislation, and I look to the member, is that it is more about coordinates. It is about where the park is going to be. To what degree did the member actually have a formal process that incorporated a wide spectrum of opinions and did the work Parks Canada is obligated to do by law?
I am eager about national parks too. I want to see more. I would like to see a national park in the city of Winnipeg, but I do not think it is just up to me to be able to say what the boundaries are, to say what it is I want and then just go out and solicit support for it. There needs to be a process that considers a wide spectrum of things.
The Province of Ontario might look at the bill and say that it is nice legislation, but my understanding is it wants to continue with the process Parks Canada has in place. If that is true, I would suggest members should be advised before they vote on the legislation to confirm that.
I raised the question about Caldwell First Nation. I applaud the chief and council and those individuals who have provided the remarks to the member.
Mr. Brian Masse: You are trying to speak on their behalf.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: He says that he is speaking on their behalf.
Mr. Brian Masse: No, I said you are trying to speak on their behalf.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, for me, it is important to have consultation and work in progress with Parks Canada, the City of Windsor, indigenous communities and the Province of Ontario.
The member has told us about all the people who support it, but where was the process to ensure there was an actual consultation equivalent to what Parks Canada would have provided? I have not seen that. I was here during second reading also.
There might have been a lot of talk about the park. I can assure members that I have had many talks. I have talked, for example, about how I would love to see some sort of a management system for Winnipeg's waterways that would involve the different levels of government and the indigenous community.
There are four or five rivers in Manitoba: the Red River or the “Mighty Red”, the Assiniboine River, the Seine River and a couple of others. We believe there is great potential for a national park. I could list some people and organizations I have talked to that have shown substantial support, and I suspect my list is relatively small. I suspect we would find many members of the chamber on both sides of the House who have ideas on national parks and projects they would like to see.
We know for a fact that the government has been working with stakeholders, and they incorporate the ones I have mentioned. We know that back in 2021 there were formal agreements being put into place. There are ongoing consultations. There is indeed a process that ensures there has been appropriate consultation with the many groups out there that have a vested interest, whether they are the leadership of indigenous communities, the provincial or national governments, or community members who live in Windsor, the surrounding areas, or anywhere along where the park is being proposed. There are also other stakeholders, including environmentalists, who have concerns about wildlife and endangered species in general.
They all have a role to play. That is why we established the process. It is not to say that this particular member from Windsor is the one who has to acquire credit by bringing forward the legislation and saying it was their idea. No one owns the idea. This has been talked about for a great length of time. There are many individuals who have dedicated resources, whether financial or personal time and effort. It all needs to be taken into consideration.
That is not to say that this particular member is not passionate about it. I listened to him speak, not only this time but I believe also during second reading on this legislation. I will give him that. He is passionate. I will say that he has talked to a good number of people. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the standing committee. I do know that at the standing committee there was an attempt to make some changes. The member kind of mocked the government, in its moving amendments and this and that.
It is because it does not matter what side of the House one is on, we recognize true value. If there are things that could be done to further this along in the process, which could provide the assurances that Parks Canada has put into place, I suspect there would be greater support.
My concern is that it is not government versus opposition members. It is about whether or not, if members genuinely believe in issues like reconciliation, if they genuinely believe in the importance of having adequate and proper processes, then I would question why it is they might be voting in favour of this legislation.
If members vote for this, that would tell me that anyone who comes before the House and says they have consulted with 25, 30 or whatever stakeholders, and have built up some good letters of support and so forth, but they have not followed the formal process that has been established through legislation or regulation, we should trust them. Even if goes to committee, and it is not to devalue the opinions, advice and recommendations of so many who have already contributed to the debate, it is a vote of confidence in the people who work at Parks Canada, the people who are obligated to do what we have asked them to do, and establish that process to ensure that there is free and open a consultation that ensures that those vested parties are in fact being consulted in the most appropriate way.
This legislation does not deal with the issue of process. I think members need to be aware of that. If they want to believe in the institution of Parks Canada, and the process process, I would suggest they should vote against the legislation.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent for his speech because at the very end he mentioned Alexander Graham Bell and Baddeck. That is the historic site from which the plane took off in February 1909. I just have to say it was my grandmother's cousin who was piloting that plane. His name was J.A.D. McCurdy. I wanted to get that in there, as I am proud of that heritage, and I am glad the member brought it up here in the House.
I am also proud to rise to speak to Bill C-248 here this evening. It is a bill that would create Ojibway national urban park near Windsor, Ontario, and it was put forward by the wonderful member for Windsor West, who has been working so hard and passionately on this for a decade now. I did speak to this bill when it was at second reading some time ago, but I would like to go over that ground again and really dive into why the bill is so important and why Ojibway national urban park is such an important initiative that we need to get done.
This proposal would combine lands that are owned by all levels of government, the federal government, the provincial government and the City of Windsor, and combine them into a really priceless package that would protect an endangered ecosystem that is unique in Canada. That is why this should be a national park. It is a small area. It is only 900 acres, or something like that, but it is so important from the national perspective and from the environmental perspective, that it would really be a fabulous addition to our national park system.
I would also like to thank the member for Windsor West, as I mentioned before, for inviting me down to Windsor a few years ago to visit this area. I had never been to Windsor. It was great to tour around the city and see the urban sprawl of Detroit right there across the river. It is such a vibrant place.
I toured the Ojibway Shores area, where the member told me all these stories, and each story was about the battles he had been through to protect this important area from various plans for development. He brought the community together, and he brought Caldwell first nation, other community groups, naturalist groups, biologists and even developers together to say it would be such a wonderful addition to not just the local area, but also to Canada.
We were there on a beautiful day in September. We hiked along some of the trails through beautiful grasslands. The big bluestem grass was full of the late summer flowers, such as asters and other beautiful flowers. There were birds, of course. That is my thing. I am always looking for rare birds, and there are a lot of birds there. We walked through the groves of oaks. This is kind of a savannah habitat. We saw a lot of people enjoying these trails. It was clear that this was a popular place for the locals to come on the weekends, get out of the urban habitats and enjoy nature.
I think that has even amplified since the pandemic. We have seen a huge increase. I have not been back to Ojibway Shores, but around my home, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of people getting out on trails and enjoying nature, just because people have discovered that. They had nowhere else to go during the pandemic, and suddenly they have discovered that here in Canada we all live in beautiful places. Ojibway Shores is one of those places, and this area would protect three really important ecosystems: the tallgrass prairie; the oak savannah, as I mentioned; and the Carolinian forest.
In my previous life, as some members know, I was a biologist, and a lot of the work I did in that career was centred around endangered ecosystems and species at risk.
There are four ecosystems in this country that are consistently listed as the most endangered. There are the Garry oak savannahs of southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands in British Columbia. We have the desert grasslands in the South Okanagan area of British Columbia, which is where I come from, my home habitat. There is the Carolinian forest of southern Ontario, which is a deciduous forest. They are found throughout the eastern United States and squeak into Canada in southern Ontario. There is the tall grass prairie in southern Manitoba and parts of southern Ontario as well. The Ojibway national urban park would protect two of these important ecosystems, the tall grass prairie and the Carolinian forest.
We do not often think of Ontario as a prairie province, but it once had extensive tall grass prairies. Those have been largely wiped out over the last two centuries through agriculture and urban development. Only about 1% of these habitats still exist. In Ontario, there are only three areas larger than a few acres that represent this habitat. One of those is Ojibway Shores.
Endangered ecosystems, almost by definition, are home to a lot of species at risk. That is what makes them species at risk: Their ecosystems are endangered. There are almost 200 rare and endangered species in Ojibway Shores. There is no other area in Ontario that would come close to that length of a list for endangered and rare species, and only one or two areas in Canada would come close. One, as I mentioned before, is my home habitat in the desert grasslands of the Okanagan.
There are endangered plant communities. There are endangered insect communities. We do not know a lot about some of these things. I would just say in passing that one thing the government could do is spend a bit of money doing an inventory and a survey of some of our endangered species. We might find them in a lot more places or we might find that they are truly endangered. It would be a good investment.
In a previous speech, I mentioned the beautiful damselfly, the giant spreadwing, which is found in Canada only in Ojibway Shores. That is the only place it is known. There are also endangered reptiles, like the Massasauga rattlesnake. In my hometown, we have rattlesnakes that are threatened as well. Here, the Massasauga rattlesnake is found in a small population that is 300 kilometres away from the next population. It is isolated and endangered. There is the bobwhite quail, a really iconic species of small game bird that is found in Canada only in extreme southwestern Ontario. It used to be in Ojibway Shores. Now it is found only in Walpole Island, which is nearby. If we protect these areas, then we can talk about bringing some of these species back, but we need to protect them first.
This is not an area like Banff, Jasper, Kluane or Ivvavik, which are big, wild parks. This is an urban national park that is special. It is built in a mosaic of properties that are close to Windsor. It would be an integral part of that urban population. We have to make sure those properties connect habitats correctly so these species can thrive even in the small areas. We have a similar proposal in the South Okanagan to create a national park in a similar area, a mosaic of different lands.
Once again, I want to thank the member for Windsor West for his work on this. I congratulate him for all his effort and I hope everyone here joins us in voting for this very important bill.
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Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent point of order and well taken.
The Parks Canada process is the best path forward for one major reason. It prioritizes, from the very start, community consultation with our community and also with indigenous communities like Caldwell and Walpole Island, which have historic ties to Ojibway.
Consultation with first nations from the start on the design of the Ojibway national urban park is especially important, not only because Canada has a constitutional duty to consult with indigenous communities on the creation of national parks, but because Ojibway provides a genuine opportunity to strengthen our relationship with indigenous peoples and advance reconciliation.
Imagine an innovative made-in-Windsor model where indigenous communities and environmental groups co-design an Ojibway national urban park and share stewardship of an Ojibway national urban park. Imagine a process that allows other community groups to have a real voice in the design of an Ojibway national urban park. In the spirit of Black History Month, we want to hear from the Amherstburg Freedom Museum or the Essex County Black Historical Research Society, to connect Ojibway to the story of the Underground Railroad.
Again, I want to recognize my colleague, the MP for Windsor West, for being a passionate champion of Ojibway all these years. His contribution to this work cannot be overstated.
However, Bill C-248 bypasses community consultation, falls short of our duty to consult with first nations and creates a duplicate process that could jeopardize the progress and partnerships already developed by Parks Canada.
Here are some of the most significant concerns I have with Bill C-248—
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