Hon. Karen Sorensen: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill C-248, An Act to amend the Canada National Parks Act (Ojibway National Urban Park of Canada), proposed to become established in Windsor, Ontario.

As a resident of Banff, Alberta, a municipality located in Banff National Park — Canada’s first national park — you would be hard pressed to find a bigger fan of Canada’s national park system in this chamber. Having served for 17 years on the Town of Banff’s municipal council, with 11 of those years as the Mayor of Banff, you would also be hard pressed to find too many people in this country who better understand the relationship, the policies and the legislation at play when Parks Canada works in partnership with a municipality.

Before I delve into my concerns with this bill, I would like to start by congratulating the bill’s sponsors — Member of Parliament for Windsor West Brian Masse, and my Independent Senators Group colleague Senator Peter Boehm — on their advocacy for this park. Speaking with stakeholders in the Windsor region, I’ve heard how the introduction of this bill has expedited federal land transfers and other processes needed to make Ojibway national urban park a reality. I strongly and unequivocally support the creation of the Ojibway national urban park. It is fantastic that this government, under the watchful eye of Parks Canada, is on the path to creating national urban parks across Canada.

However, based on my understanding of the Canada National Parks Act, and my many years of experience working closely with Parks Canada to govern a municipality within a national park, I have reservations about this bill.

Firstly, it’s important to note that Parks Canada has already committed to creating Ojibway national urban park whether this bill passes or not.

Many of you will be familiar with Rouge National Urban Park in Toronto. Windsor is expected to be the next urban park created under Parks Canada’s National Urban Parks Program, and will inform the creation of other future national urban parks in Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Victoria.

Parks Canada announced a positive decision on feasibility last spring, and then began the planning work to formally establish the park, planned for completion by summer 2025 or earlier.

The MP for Windsor West deserves credit for his work to keep this issue on the front burner, as well as for pushing to secure the transfer of crucial Ojibway Shores lands to Parks Canada, and for securing near unanimous all-party support from his parliamentary colleagues. But, at this stage, Bill C-248 is simply not needed to move this park forward.

The facts are that since this bill passed in the other place, new information has come to light. If you have not seen Bill C-248, I encourage you to have a look. The entire bill — all 14 pages and 32,600 characters — is longitude and latitude coordinates. That is what the bill is — coordinates that lay out where the Ojibway national urban park in Windsor will go, according to this bill.

If this bill is passed as is, these areas will immediately be placed under the control of Parks Canada. Once enshrined into legislation, these boundaries will be difficult to change. The problem is that some of these coordinates are incorrect.

When this bill was voted on in the other place, Parks Canada was working on the required studies of the proposed park lands. Since that time, Parks Canada has confirmed through a Natural Resources Canada survey that there are definitively 16 private parcels of land included in Bill C-248.

During a hearing of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, Mr. Andrew Campbell, Senior Vice-President, Operations of Parks Canada Agency, explained the consequences of including private lands in a bill like this.

If these new boundaries, for example, encroached into someone’s backyard, the homeowner would have to ask permission from the Parks Canada field unit superintendent to make any changes to their property. The homeowner wouldn’t be able to install a doghouse or put out a mousetrap without permission from Parks Canada.

If this bill passes in its current form, the affected landowners will retain the title to their lands, but this title will be meaningless. The result could be court challenges and complex land transfers, which would result in more delays, uncertainty and outcomes that will delay the park becoming a reality.

Conversely, there are also lands that have been earmarked for this park that are not included within the boundaries of this bill. The area that Parks Canada is exploring for Ojibway national urban park could be two and a half times larger than the park created by Bill C-248.

I believe these boundary issues are serious enough that we cannot allow this bill to proceed. I don’t say this lightly, as I strongly believe in respecting the will of our elected colleagues, but when members of Parliament studied and voted on Bill C-248, they simply didn’t have access to the information that we do today. Errors like this are why the Senate was conceived to be a chamber of sober second thought.

The good news is, as I mentioned earlier, Ojibway national urban park will be created with or without this legislation. Parks Canada has been working steadily on this, which leads me to my second concern.

Bill C-248 does not lay out the necessary logistics that need to be put in place before a national urban park can be created, and Parks Canada needs more time to work these details out.

I know that the people of Windsor have been waiting for this park for a long time. The area is an ecological jewel that residents, civil society groups and elected officials at all levels of government have been fighting to protect and preserve. I understand why some may feel that this process is taking too long, but community support for the creation of the park is not the same as assurance that the technical specifications are correct; that all legal implications have been accounted for; and that all parties have been informed of their rights and responsibilities, and agree on how the park should be managed and maintained.

Doing this right takes time, and the unintended consequences of cutting corners could be dire. Considering the National Urban Parks Program was really only launched in 2021, Parks Canada has already made significant progress in making Ojibway national urban park a reality.

Parks Canada is on a measured, yet timely, path — as they need to be — to ensure full consultation, review of legal implications and education to the municipality and surrounding communities.

While Bill C-248 reflects the desire of the Windsor community for an urban park, it doesn’t lay out who will be responsible for garbage pickup, road maintenance and security in the park. It also doesn’t enshrine co-management, job creation or other rights for local Indigenous communities, whom Parks Canada has committed to working with collaboratively.

If you look at the stand-alone legislation that created Canada’s first national urban park, Rouge National Urban Park in the Greater Toronto Area, it spells out very clearly who has authority to make regulations regarding the park, what activities are prohibited within the park, and how pollution is to be addressed, and requires the minister to create and regularly review the park management plan. Bill C-248, once again, is only coordinates.

At this stage, Parks Canada needs more time to negotiate with local governments and other stakeholders on how this park will be managed, as well as to ensure that consultation with Indigenous rights holders meets Canada’s obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

That brings me to my main concern with this bill. It is important to understand that Ojibway national urban park is not a one-off. It is part of a tremendous movement to create a network with a shared vision of conserving nature, connecting people and advancing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. Its creation through a process led by Parks Canada, fully collaborative with Indigenous governments, partners and stakeholders sets a strong precedent for the program as a whole.

A unilateral federal process in this particular park in Windsor may complicate matters for other provinces in the National Urban Parks Program. Each urban park will have different needs, and Parks Canada is committed to a multi-jurisdictional model to support the most appropriate management structure for each park.

Bill C-248, by contrast, will force Parks Canada to create Ojibway national urban park under the Canada National Parks Act rather than their National Urban Parks Program.

Why is this a problem? A national urban park needs to be much more flexible than a national park in order to meet the needs of each particular location. By contrast, the Canada National Parks Act legislation applies equally to all national parks across this country and is prescriptive on a whole host of issues and requirements.

I served three terms as mayor of a town within a national park. I know first-hand how rigid the Canada National Parks Act is and how time-consuming and challenging it was to have to go through the federal government any time the town needed to develop infrastructure or repair a water line.

In the case of Banff, when the park came before the municipality — where the entire town was within park boundaries — that was necessary. But Ojibway national urban park will exist within a complex urban environment with multiple adjacent jurisdictions, which will make basic activities very challenging under the Canada National Parks Act.

If Parks Canada were to acquire full management of the park lands under Bill C-248, the City of Windsor may need to seek permission from Parks Canada to access lands or undertake activities on park lands, including for essential public infrastructure work, such as fixing water-main breaks.

The Canada National Parks Act is not the most appropriate framework to use for a park in an urban area. This was the reason that Rouge National Urban Park was created under its own unique legislation. Managing Ojibway as a national park under the Canada National Parks Act will be much more complex than it needs to be.

Supporters of this bill argue that the Canada National Parks Act provides stronger environmental protections. But Parks Canada has extensive experience protecting and managing lands that are not under the Canada National Parks Act, using other existing federal and provincial legislation and regulations.

National marine conservation areas are created under the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act because the national park legislation would not have been appropriate. Similarly, Rouge National Urban Park was created under the Rouge National Urban Park Act, not the Canada National Parks Act.

For subsequent urban parks, the agency’s current plan is to create them through policy, not legislation. This approach will ensure a high standard of conservation while still allowing for the flexibility needed in an urban environment.

Parks Canada administers some of the greatest national examples of Canada’s natural and cultural heritage and is responsible for maintaining their ecological and commemorative integrity for future generations.

The agency is responsible for operations under multiple pieces of federal legislation and protects over 470,000 square kilometres of Canada’s terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems. It administers over 200 natural and cultural heritage places, many through collaborative management with Indigenous peoples.

Parks Canada’s network of 171 national historic sites, 47 national parks, 5 national marine conservation areas and 1 national urban park is the envy of the world. I encourage us to let the expertise of Parks Canada continue to lead here.

I look forward to studying this bill further at the Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources Committee. I hope my fellow committee members will take their time to consider these issues carefully.

I just don’t believe the committee will have the capacity to correct the boundaries and clarify the management structure. At the highest level, I believe Bill C-248 proposes the wrong tool and the wrong process and creates risks both for the Government of Canada and local stakeholders.

Again, I wholeheartedly support the creation of Ojibway urban national park. Parks Canada is following a tried-and-true process of collaboration with local and provincial governments, Indigenous rights holders and other federal departments to develop and manage this park, and their work is bearing fruit at a rapid rate.

Thank you, hiy hiy.