Our national parks and national marine conservation areas provide Canadians with access to our wondrous natural heritage, preserve outstanding examples of our country’s natural landscapes, and generate significant economic activity by attracting visitors from Canada and abroad.

In recognition of the importance of these areas to Canada and Canadians, Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced a significant expansion of Rouge National Urban Park which is located in the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario.

Under the announcement, the Government of Canada will more than double its initial contribution by adding an additional 21 square kilometres of new lands to the urban park, which will increase the boundaries of Canada’s first national urban park by over 36 per cent.

The new lands, which include forests, meadows, streams, creeks, important archaeological sites and large tracts of farmland, are located in the City of Pickering and the Township of Uxbridge. They will be under the protection of Parks Canada and preserved for the enjoyment of Canadian families and international visitors. The Rouge National Urban Park will be afforded the strongest protections of any urban park in the world, with its very own legislation – the historic Rouge National Urban Park Act – providing multi-million dollar investments to conserve and restore it, and ensure year-round enforcement.

The expansion of Rouge National Urban Park was informed by broad consultations with municipal, regional, provincial, Aboriginal and community stakeholders. The urban park will provide real and significant benefits to Canada’s environment, including protecting drinking water, agricultural lands, rare ecosystems such as some of the best remaining examples of Carolinian forests and wetlands in the Greater Toronto Area, and rich biodiversity including over 1,700 species of plants and animals.

Rouge National Urban Park’s close proximity to 20 per cent of Canada’s population will create unprecedented opportunities in the Greater Toronto Area for a broad diversity of Canadians to learn about and connect with Canada’s natural, cultural and agricultural heritage, serving as a gateway for discovering Canada’s incredible network of protected heritage areas.

In Economic Action Plan 2012, the Government of Canada provided $143.7 million over 10 years, and $7.6 million annually thereafter, to create Canada’s first national urban park in the Rouge Valley near Toronto.

Government Efforts to Expand Parks and Protected Areas

Since 2006, the Government has taken steps to add more than 220,000 square kilometres to federal parks and marine protected areas – an increase of more than 58 per cent. Examples include the Government’s six-fold expansion of the Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Northwest Territories, and the formal creation of Canada’s 44^th national park – Nááts'ihch'oh National Park Reserve – also in the Northwest Territories, as well as the protection of the Gwaii Haanas marine area and Haida Heritage Site under the Canada National Marine Conservation Area Act.

We have also created three National Wildlife Areas (Akpait, Ninginganiq and Qaqulluit) in Nunavut, protecting 4,554 km2 of marine, coastal and terrestrial habitats including the world’s sanctuary for bowhead whales.

The Government is further expanding our protected areas and will be taking the final steps, in the near future, to establish Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area – the world’s largest freshwater marine conservation area – and the Qausuittuq National Park on Bathurst Island in Nunavut. The Government has also taken steps to protect globally unique glass sponge reefs off the coast of British Columbia. The Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound Glass Sponge Reefs Marine Protected Areas Regulations were pre-published on June 27, 2015 in Canada Gazette, Part 1, for a 30-day public comment period.

National Conservation Plan

On May 15, 2014, Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched the National Conservation Plan (NCP), which provides a more coordinated approach to conservation efforts across the country with an emphasis on enabling Canadians to conserve and restore lands and waters in and around their communities, and making it easier for citizens living in cities to connect with nature.

The NCP includes significant additional investments over five years to secure ecologically-sensitive lands, support voluntary conservation and restoration actions, and strengthen marine and coastal conservation. In addition, it will contain new initiatives designed to restore wetlands and to encourage Canadians to connect with nature close to home through protected areas and green spaces located in or near urban areas.

The NCP includes funding of $252 million, primarily over a five-year period (2014 to 2019) for a variety of conservation initiatives:

• $100 million over five years to the Nature Conservancy of Canada to secure ecologically sensitive lands;
• $37 million over five years to strengthen marine and coastal conservation;
• $3.2 million over five years to support the development of a complete national inventory of conserved areas in Canada;
• $50 million over five years to restore wetlands;
• $50 million over five years to support voluntary actions to restore and conserve species and their habitats;
• $9.2 million over five years to connect urban Canadians to nature;
• $3 million over three years to Earth Rangers to expand family-oriented conservation programming.

The NCP complements the proposed 2020 Biodiversity Goals and Targets for Canada, which were developed together with our conservation partners, as part of our participation in the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. NCP initiatives will help us make progress on many of the targets. The goals and targets will also help to measure and report on progress for some areas of the NCP.

Real Action

Since 2006, our Government has focused on real action that is balanced and built on meaningful partnerships with those who share our vision for a healthy environment. In keeping with this, we have taken other important steps to conserve and restore our country’s natural environment and connect Canadians to our rich natural heritage:

• We have designated three new Marine Protected Areas under the Oceans Act: Musquash Estuary in New Brunswick, Bowie Seamount off the coast of British Columbia, and Tarium Niryutait in the Beaufort Sea.
• We have invested nearly $6 million under the Recreational Fisheries Conservation Partnerships Program to support 94 fisheries habitat restoration projects across Canada. Funding to support up to an additional 128 projects, for a total of up to $5.5 million, is underway.
• We have taken steps to improve water quality in the Great Lakes, Lake Simcoe, and Lake Winnipeg, rehabilitated recreational fisheries habitat, and are working to clean up contaminated sites.
• We have supported partners in the delivery of hundreds of local projects to protect species at risk and their habitats, for example:
• Under the Habitat Stewardship Program, we have invested over $86 million to support 1,467 local conservation projects, benefitting the habitat of 431 species at risk.
• In 2010 alone, EcoAction provided more than $2 million to support 58 local biodiversity conservation and restoration projects in communities across Canada.
• We have successfully expanded the population of Blanding’s turtles in KejimkujikNational Park and are assisting in the recovery of Garry oak ecosystems in Gulf Islands National Park Reserve and Fort Rodd Hill National Historic Site.
• Under the Aboriginal Fund for Species at Risk program, we have invested over $23 million to support more than 680 local aquatic and terrestrial conservation projects, benefitting the recovery needs of 287 species at risk.
• We have advanced marine protected area network development in five priority bioregions.
• We continue to make progress towards the designation of three new marine protected areas under the Oceans Act.
• We have collaborated with First Nations, academia, and industry to improve the management and monitoring of marine protected areas.

As part of the balanced approach it has adopted, the Government has also designed and implemented its environmental strategy and strong conservation policies in a manner that respects the legitimate economic aspirations of local residents and focuses on building a strong economy from coast to coast to coast.