Mr. Speaker, it is never too late to rise in the House and defend the great city of Toronto, particularly the waterfront. The waterfront, as we know, is one of the great Liberal legacies to the city of Toronto. The gift of Harbourfront Centre by Pierre Trudeau in the mid-seventies started the rejuvenation of Toronto's waterfront. It laid the groundwork for not just an industrial port, but a recreational place to live and a place to work. The transformation of that waterfront was continued when Jean Chrétien gathered with the premier of the day and the mayor of the day in Toronto and started Waterfront Toronto, a $1 billion-plus investment that has now led to the Queen's Quay being reopened.

I rose in the House about a month and a half ago to discuss this, because the next phase of Waterfront Toronto funding is required. The next phase will transform this great city's waterfront into an even better place to live, to work, to play. Unfortunately, the federal government chose to neglect the waterfront in the last federal budget.

There has been a stated request from all three orders of government to continue this project, but the funding is required and it is time for the federal government to lead.

Therefore, the question I have tonight for the federal government is very simple. The Unilever site is a site almost as big as Canary Wharf in London, millions of square feet of new commercial and residential space, new parks, new retail. There is the opportunity for two new transit lines to be built with the revenue that would come from redeveloping this site.

However, to do it, the flood plain, the naturalized mouth of the Don River has to be invested in. It is about a $1 billion project. All three levels of government have been talking about putting about $325 million each into this project. If they do this, it not only kicks starts and opens up the lower Don to redevelopment and naturalization, and a beautiful opportunity to clean our water and also deliver a clean, green waterfront to the citizens of Toronto, but it also opens up the southern Portlands for the next phase, the third and final phase of the waterfront revitalization.

The question is a very simple one for the federal government and a very important one to the city of Toronto. Is the government, despite the fact it failed to do it in the budget, prepared to put the $325 million being requested by the other two levels of government into this project, into the city to trigger this next stage of waterfront development, or will it withhold that money or play games with that money and try to force the province into spending its transit money all in one site in downtown Toronto and stop waterfront development, turn its back on this great project and actually put the city in harm's way?

What we know about floods in major cities, and we saw it Calgary, is that if we do not do the flood protection, if we do not do the investment in naturalizing waterways and managing the runoff, we have huge challenges that come to the city. They cost billions of dollars later if we do not put the hundreds of millions of dollars in right now. We learned that lesson in Calgary. I hope we will learn it in Toronto. In the last six years, Toronto has had six storms of the century, and we cannot afford to lose the downtown core to a flood. We certainly cannot afford to lose this opportunity.

Will the government commit tonight to putting in the $325 million into Waterfront Toronto, to partner with the province to match those funds and have the city contribute its share as well? Is the federal government prepared to say yes tonight and talk about specifically this one particular project, flood proofing the lower Don, nothing else, just the Don. Is it prepared to do it, yes or no? We can go home early.

Adam Vaughan