Ontario Hansard - 22-September2008 

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: I'm very happy to lend my name to support my colleague Garfield Dunlop for all the work that he has done on this piece of legislation and before. I also want to thank our critic, Toby Barrett, for once again providing this Legislature with a very sound series of readings into this piece of legislation.

I'm very proud of Garfield Dunlop, because he is a great environmentalist, he's a great conservationist, and he has been a great protector of Lake Simcoe in this Legislature. One only has to look back to November 2006 when Mr. Dunlop from Simcoe North brought forward a resolution to this Legislature that spoke of the need of those who live in Barrie and Orillia, to offer a superior environment and quality of life for families to live, to work and to play in. He recognized early on the importance of Lake Simcoe and its part of the heritage and culture not only of the region which he represents but also of this entire province. I think we ought to be very thankful for the work that he has put into this issue.

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I think that we also must recognize the hard work of people like Bruce Stanton, Peter Van Loan, Patrick Brown, Bev Oda and Barry Devolin, who, together with the environment minister federally, John Baird, have contributed over $30 million to the protection of this lake, a very important lake. They were visionary, and I know that they worked very hard with our local champion, our very own Garfield Dunlop.

I just want to conclude with the fact that it was the Conservative Party under the leadership of John Tory and Garfield Dunlop that first recognized the development pressures the Oak Ridges moraine, the greenbelt legislation and the Places to Grow Act have placed on the Lake Simcoe watershed. For that, I'm very proud of my very good friend Garfield Dunlop.