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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 79

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 1, 2022 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 79 - Jun/1/22
Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise this evening to speak with respect to Bill C-248, the private member's bill put forward by the member for Windsor West to create a national urban park, Ojibway urban park in particular. I want to start by highlighting that this park would not involve any private property whatsoever. It would connect several pieces of publicly owned lands that, if connected, would create one larger 900-acre national urban park. It is important to pause to share more about why national urban parks are so important. As we have heard, not only are they home in this case to hundreds of endangered species, but they also provide mitigation of flooding due to climate change, providing a natural heritage area that the community can enjoy, appreciate and use with respect to healthy living and ecotourism. It is also worth pausing to reflect on nature deficit disorder, a term that refers to what happens when people are disconnected from their natural surroundings. If we had more national urban parks, I wonder how this might affect the thinking even in this very place. Given the larger systemic challenges we face, such as the climate crisis, if we had more urban green space that Canadians across the country and parliamentarians were enjoying, I wonder how that might affect some of the thinking that goes into decisions we are making with respect to the climate crisis, for example, or decisions we are not making. It is also important to point out how this aligns with what Parks Canada has already put forward with respect to their interests in establishing at least one new national park in every province or territory across the country and how it aligns with existing plans from the governing party and commitments it has made to protect up to 25% of land by 2025 and up to 30% by 2030. It strikes me that we ought to be making the most of every opportunity we have to go more quickly in protecting biodiversity across the country. I also want to pause to give kudos to the member for Windsor West for bringing forward legislation like this. In my view, this is actually how democracy is supposed to function. The member has been advocating with respect to this national urban park since 2013, when he made the first request of the federal government, listening to the interests of those across his community and collaborating with others to find consensus to move forward. I will point out that he has received the support of Caldwell First Nation and of Chief Duckworth in particular in a letter shared on April 11 that encourages all parliamentarians to support Bill C-248. I will point out it has also been unanimously supported by Windsor City Council. In my view, these are exactly the kinds of indications for why a parliamentarian should look to choose a topic such as this, knowing that work has been put in, that consultations have been had, that members here should be listening to their communities first and foremost. It should also be community ahead of party, and that members, based on what they hear, should then be advocating in support of those interests. In my view, that is exactly what the member for Windsor West has done, and doing the same would allow us to move more quickly toward ensuring we have more nationally protected areas and a new national urban park. I am less interested in who gets the credit for it and more in ensuring we support whoever is bringing forward ideas to this place to ensure that we move more quickly to protect urban areas. It is for this reason that the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands and I will both be supporting this legislation. I was encouraged to hear the member for Essex supporting it as well, and I am encouraged to hear a biologist among us, the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, also voicing his support. I will point out that in some ways this has been a difficult day, that there were some votes in which there was not as much alignment as I would have liked, but at least consensus can be achieved on this debate, and I am hopeful that the bill will go to committee as quickly as possible.
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