Tougher protection sought for Rouge lands

The environmental protections for the future Rouge National Urban Park will be less strict than those that currently exist, says a group of environmental organizations in a letter that was sent to Premier Dalton McGuinty earlier this month.

The groups are urging the provincial government to insist on five conditions before signing away large tracts of land on Toronto's eastern edge to the federal government, which will establish Canada's first urban national park.

“The draft National Park Concept is critically inconsistent with the public vision, planning, scientific and legislative framework developed over the last 23 years,” says the letter, signed by the heads of Environmental Defence, Ontario Nature and Friends of the Rouge Watershed groups.

Rouge Park is currently a hodgepodge of lands cobbled together from municipal and provincial governments totalling almost 40 square kilometres in Toronto and Markham.

The future national park will add just under 20 sq. km of federal land, but can't be established until Ontario officially cedes land to Ottawa and Parks Canada.

“The province is in a really strong position because it owns roughly two-thirds of the lands,” said Erin Shapero, land and water program manager at Environmental Defence.

The groups want Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Bob Chiarelli, who is heading the transfer process, to obtain more robust environmental guarantees for the future park.

“We want to keep the same protections that we have on the land now, and we're going to do whatever we can through the land transfer process to put conditions on the transfer,” said Shapero.

Phil Donelson, a representative from the premier's office, said the provincial government is committed to keeping strong environmental protections in place in the Rouge.

“We are actively working with the federal government to ensure environmental protections will remain at our high standard. Those discussions have been positive and are ongoing,” he said in a statement emailed to the Star.

The groups would like to see the study area of the park expanded from 57 to 100 sq. km to preserve the integrity of a wildlife corridor from Lake Ontario to the Oak Ridges Moraine.

They also want to see aboriginal and environmental groups represented on the future park's advisory board.

“It's critical that the protections that are in place today stand, and I think it's everyone's expectation that under the national park rubric we would have something even stronger,” Shapero said.

Toronto City Council unanimously adopted a motion last month that uses much of the same language urging the federal government to expand the park's study area and ensure it is “protected and flourishing as an ecosystem in perpetuity.”

The conservation group's letter also urged the province to get a guarantee from the federal government that all farming in the park will be sustainable. More than 60 per cent of the future park is slated to be leased to farmers and closed to the public.