...a few weeks before the government decided to decimate a landmark. The Paris Agreement is a legally-binding international treaty on climate change. A key aspect of the agreement- save the trees.
House of Commons Ottawa February 26, 2016 The Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.) "Mr. Speaker, we are very delighted that next week the Prime Minister will be sitting down with the premiers of the provinces and the territories to talk about how we are going to tackle climate change together. We believe that we need to be doing this together. The provinces and the territories have shown leadership on climate change, and now is the time for us to step up to the plate and do something because the Conservatives did nothing for 10 years."
"Mr. Speaker, we were elected by Canadians to take action on climate change, something the previous government did nothing on....We are going to take action, and we are going to do this in co-operation with the Provinces and Territories."
House of Commons November 4, 2016 MP Deb Schulte ( King-Vaughn, Lib.) "Mr. Speaker, today the Paris agreement comes into force...A year ago 195 counties came together to tackle climate change. Can the Minister of Environment and Climate Change please update the House on how this historic agreement will support our economy and the environment?"
Hon. Catherine McKenna (Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Lib.) "Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for King-Vaughn and the Chair of House of Commons environment committee for her great question."
"I am extremely proud that on the anniversary of our government, the Paris agreement has come into force. The signs of climate change are clear. Climate change is real, it is man made, and the world is taking action now to address it. We are working hard at home and abroad to tackle climate change and to grow a clean economy."
(In December of 2016 government officials including Catherine McKenna and Yasir Naqvi approved the Sir John Carling site as the location for a new hospital-savecfbrockcliffe.)
The Greber Report of 1950 - "Extensive parks and playgrounds were recommended, including the acquirement of lands in the Laurentian Hills for a National Park and the development of Dow's Lake and its adjacent lands as a recreational centre was strongly urged." (page 199/395.)
House of Commons Ottawa November 4, 1974 The Hon. Pierre De Bane (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs) Liberal. "...I can assure the hon. member that there is no question of replacing the green spaces already existing in the national capital region with buildings...I also wish to remind the hon. member that the NCC will very soon make public its planning concept for the whole region.This document will be studied by a special joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons. The long-term preservation of these resources must be preserved, and at the same time the public must have access to them. A typical example of this of course, the Experimental Farm in the centre of the city of Ottawa."
House of Commons Ottawa March 10, 1986 MP Barry Turner (Ottawa Carleton) Progressive Conservative."...The National Capital Commission will be making a fundamental planning and political error if it recommends to the Government that the Mile Circle be used to house embassies. The local, regional and indeed national outcry of opposition to this proposal should in itself be a proper, clear, concise message to the Commission that it is making a big mistake. The duly-elected members of the four levels of Government directly affected are unanimously opposed to the proposal. Those representatvies are myself, Mr. Gilles Morin, the provincial Member, Mr. Marc Laviolette, the local alderman, and the Reeve of Rockcliffe Village which borders on the site, Mr. Pat Murray."
"The Mile Circle land has been held in trust since 1904 by the federal Government as parkland. I cannot believe that today, in 1986, with all of our collective knowledge and experience that the National Capital Commission is actually threatening to destroy these parklands."
"I cannot accept the arguments that any development will be done in such a way as to maintain open spaces and a parkland setting. That is impossible since thousands and thousands of tons of concrete and steel will be sewn together by architects, engineers and construction workers to build embassies on the Mile Circle."
"My professional background is in conservation and tourism development, and I know what impact infrastructure can have on parklands. If parks are for people, and I truly believe they are, then you put any or all development outside of them. Thomas Keefer meant for the Mile Circle to be used by people-people of all ages and from all places, not just from the National Capital region. I have received letters from across Canada opposed to this proposal, from Canadians who feel that the Commission is compromising one of its fundamental philosophies, namely to conserve many of the natural parkland settings of our great capital."
"As someone who has lived in Ottawa all my life, I am proud to defend the Mile Circle from being raped by the Commission. There are certain sections of our city that are sacrosanct and this is one of them."
(The row of trees on the Sir John Carling Building escarpment will be removed.)
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