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Rouge Valley to become Canada's first Urban National Park
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| Orko |
| quote: | Ottawa pledges more than $140-million to establish first urban national park
The federal government has committed $143.7-million over 10 years to establish a new national park in the Greater Toronto Area, the first urban park in the country’s history.
Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced long-term funding to develop and run the Rouge National Urban Park during a meeting Friday to discuss plans for the new protected area. After 10 years, the east-end park is to get $7.6-million a year in operating funds.
The proposed boundaries extend from Lake Ontario in the south to the Oak Ridges Moraine in the north, a strip of forest and marshland. It will include land within the existing Rouge Park, plus additional federal lands west of the York-Durham town line.
It is accessible by public transit and within easy reach of 7 million people. The government is planning public consultations, and aims to create what it calls a “people’s park.”
The new park was first promised in the Speech from the Throne almost a year ago.
It was also mentioned in the March budget, and although specific funding was not allocated, Parks Canada has been moving forward with it.
The announcement comes as the federal agency is implementing $29-million in budget cuts. Parks Canada is reducing the number of scientists and technical staff who help protect the ecological integrity, or health, of the parks across the country.
This has many experts worried about the future of our national parks.
But Parks Canada is facing another challenge: Attendance is declining, which may have long-term implications for public support. In 1995, 15.3 million Canadians visited a national park, compared to only 12.5 million last year.
The agency is hoping the new park will introduce Canadians to the parks system. |
I'm not sure how I feel about this funding. I think it is great that Rouge is getting more funding, and they are going to purchase more land to make it bigger. On the other hand, we really need to fund ecological testing to know where we stand.
This feels like a bait and switch. Give the largest population base a shiny 'new' park with more funding, but then cut funding to important but less visible work. Out of sight, out of mind.
Rouge is already working, and accessible. I say take the money back and give it to more research. |
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| Dior Homme |
Its still pretty far out of the downtown core. I though it was in the immediate city. It would be cool to have a potential central or downtown park like Central park in NY.
Either way, in the future Toronto will most likely be building outward towards the lake because our room for growth/infrastructure is absolutely horrible. At least that way (and with many many millions of dollars, we can alleviate traffic into the downtown core and spread the accessibility into the city in a different way. We'd also be changing the focus of the downtown core farther south. And yes, I'm talking man made. At one point Union station used to be the 'edge' of toronto where the city limits would end. And as we see it now, its quite extended.
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| Ferg |
| I did volunteer work in the rouge water shed doing forest restoration. Hopefully the people I worked for will be seeing some of this cash, good people |
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