The Ottawa Valley chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society has put out the following press release.
The press release encourages people to contact their MP as well as the NCC to express objection to forest cutting along the new highway corridor. I’d support such action but I don’t know that it would have the impact of stopping the highway. Instead, perhaps it would accelerate the renewed legislation that keeps being killed by parliamentary prorogation, thus resulting in established Park boundaries that are clear to everyone.
As noted here at GuideGatineau back in April, as I understand it the NCC didn’t acquire the land within the Meech Creek Valley until the 1990s (the Quebec government had expropriated it from farmers in the 1970s) and even when the NCC did get it, the Quebec Ministry of Transportation already had an established highway right of way which the NCC was obliged to respect.
MEDIA RELEASE
September 14, 2011
For immediate releaseHighway extension violates the only legal boundaries of Gatineau Park
Ottawa ON – Clearing of forest along the eastern boundary of Gatineau Park, near Wakefield for the Highway 5 extension is set to resume this fall. The National Capital Commission (NCC) backed extension, outlined in a Quebec Ministry of Transport report, began in April this year. This project will see 88 hectares of forest cleared for the latest extension of Highway 5, connecting Farm Point in Chelsea to Highway 366 in La Pêche. Much of this is mature forest of white pine, Eastern hemlock, American beech and sugar maple.
Gatineau Park is treasured by Canadians not only for its extensive recreational activities, but also for its serene natural beauty and extraordinary biodiversity. The park provides habitat to 125 species that are of conservation concern in Quebec, of which 23 are listed as endangered. Over 1100 species of plants and 230 species of birds have been observed in the park. Despite its ecological significance, Gatineau Park has no formal protection.
“What many people don’t realize is that Gatineau Park is neither a national nor a provincial park,” says John McDonnell, Executive Director of the Canadian Park and Wilderness Society-Ottawa Valley (CPAWS-OV). “As such, portions of the park have been sold or used for housing development, the construction of shopping centres, and the creation of new roads.”
An NCC 1965 Gatineau Park map shows that the 88 hectares destined to be clear cut for the Highway 5 extension remain inside the park’s only existing legal federal boundary: a boundary that remains in force by virtue of Order in Council PC-1960-579.
“The boundaries of Gatineau Park were legally described for the first time in a 1960 federal Order-in-Council. Over the following five decades a new legal description was not undertaken despite the fact that large parcels of land had been exchanged, sold to developers and used for various urban projects such as new roads,” says Doug Anions, Chair of the CPAWS-OV Gatineau Park Committee. “In 1997, the NCC changed the boundary by a decision of the board of directors. They called it a Boundary Rationalization Exercise. However, a board decision cannot change the boundaries in law”
“However, some of the land continues to be under private ownership, or already exchanged, and there is no metes and bounds description of all the federal lands in a legal instrument. Without being a legal instrument, the 1997 boundaries are invalid.”
The alignment of the new highway will consume an inordinately large amount of hillside forested with mature trees. It will not only fragment vital feeding and living habitats for endangered wildlife, but it will have significant negative impacts on surrounding communities. These concerns were outlined in a January report by CPAWS-OV in response to the Transport Canada December 2010 final environmental screening report on the Highway 5 extension.
“Urbanization will rapidly move out to Wakefield and alter the character of the region,” the CPAWS-OV report states. “The highway project is also a key ingredient for the establishment of a major industrial/commercial park on the doorstep of the village of Wakefield – one of the National Capital Region’s most picturesque villages.”
Development along the park boundaries and a major new highway (Boul. des Allumettières) across the park have resulted in a significant loss of wildlife habitat, landscape connectivity, and reduced public accessibility to popular destinations within the park, affecting the ability for visitors to enjoy the park.
“The Highway 5 extension will further isolate Gatineau Park from its greater ecosystem,” says McDonnell. “Species in the park will be trapped in an island of extinction if we don’t work to establish connections between the park and other natural areas. By enclosing the park with development, we are destroying a sensitive piece of Canadian heritage loved by many for countless reasons.”
The Ottawa Valley Chapter of the Canadian Park and Wilderness Society (CPAWS-OV) urges Canadians to write to their Member of Parliament and to Marie Lemay, CEO of the NCC, to share their views on the development of the Highway 5 extension.
Letter writers can find contact information for their MPs at http://www.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament. Letters to Mme Lemay can be sent to 202–40 Elgin Street, Ottawa ON, K1P 1C7 or [email protected], with copies to CPAWS-OV ([email protected]).
More information, including CPAWS-OV’s report on the highway extension, can be found at: http://www.cpaws-ov-vo.org/.
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) is Canada’s pre-eminent national community-based voice for public wilderness protection. CPAWS-OV works to protect public lands in the National Capital Region and surrounding areas.
The cards that GuideGatineau has begun distributing to promote the website are considered to be highly environmentally responsible due to the fact that the paper used is 100% recycled and is produced using energy from biofuels plus the ink is vegetable based.
Hi Charles,
I agree that in all likelihoodthe highway extension is inevitable. The only reason that it had been delayed is that the MTQ has yet to award the contact. Even though there are the usual arguments about bringing increased traffic to and through the town of Wakefield, perhaps if public opinion can be significantly aligned against the highway extension it will be all the more difficult for the MTQ to award that contract. That is where CPAWS comes in. Its role as a civil society organization is to inform the public about the issues, to raise these matters-of-concern so that citizens can decide what truly is in the public interest.
In this case, it is not so much about the highway extension itself, as you pointed out, but it concerns the need for adequate federal legislation that delineates the Park’s boundaries (hopefully making it as large as possible) as well as mandates the NCC to purchase private lands inside and adjacent to the Park.
Sincerely,
Michael Lait
CPAWS-OV, Gatineau Park Committee
Michael, Charles, it’s confusing,
Are the 88 hectares in question part of the 1960 boundary(as CPAWS claims) or are they part of a later aquisition in the 1990′s(as NCC and GG claim)? I bet it’s not so ‘Cut & Dry’…
It can be confusing, Pete, but the important point to stress is that the NCC has changed the boundaries without changing the law. What they did was procedurally wrong, and civil society organizations – if the NCC is to be transparent and accountable to the public – must propose the necessary solutions so that controversies like this one do not arise again.
The area to be clear-cut is inside the 1960 legal boundaries but falls outside the 1997 administrative ones set by the NCC. We can get bogged down in the details of the exact size, location, and extent of the clear-cut, but this entire issue highlights the need for an amendment to the National Capital Act and a modification of the NCC’s mandate: to more ambitiously expand Gatineau Park according to publicly transparent and accountable methods/procedures. When the NCC changed the boundaries through a closed-doors, board-of-directors decision, the Brown Lake area was excluded, giving way to the current highway expansion. And I think we can all agree that shrinking Gatineau Park directly opposes the public interest.
The NCC is to be praised when it acquires and purchases lands for the Park, but should its decision-makers really be surprised by the public controversy generated by CPAWS and concerned citizens about the highway extension through “former” park-land? Fortunately we – the public – use Gatineau Park and tell each other what is, and has been going on throughout its 88,000 acres…
I think also, in reply to Pete, it isn’t or it’s and.
The NCC often updates the public on new properties acquired through purchase into the park. This I must assume represents land that had fallen within the park boundaries (by whatever definition) but which was actually owned by someone other than the NCC.
So the boundaries must have been “aspirational” as the saying goes these days.
Thanks guys,
So these lands were once included in the Park until the NCC pretended they weren’t? Now CPAWS-OV illustrates that parkland is being clear-cut, but seems somewhat tolerant, so long as it doesn’t happen again? Meanwhile NCC chuckles and reminds itself that this is just what happened last time…
Seriously now, is it fair to have Quebec deal with the nuisance of a Federal Park blocking its proposed highway? It’s Nip & Tuck time, close the door!
I wouldn’t say that CPAWS-OV’s condemnation of the clear-cuts occurring inside Gatineau Park’s 1960 O-I-C Boundary can be equated to a form of tolerance. Acknowledging that the highway is going to proceed, regardless of the public pressure that civil society organizes, is something of a realist position in my opinion.
Residents of Quebec and the Canadian population at large deserve a large and bountiful Gatineau Park, and the NCC’s current mandate is not strong enough to deliver that to them. With the NCC’s forthcoming Vision 2067, “the public” through its various channels (CPAWS-OV, the GPPC, et al.) needs to propose the solutions required for Gatineau Park’s governing body. The legal definition of boundaries should be high on that agenda, I think. This event -and the confusion that it has generated – gives support to this.
Michael posted a piece at his own website, noting an article in the LowDown.
Michael, I disagree; CPAWS-OV’s condemnation is weakened when it won’t bother detailing the specifics of the clear-cut. Instead, the need for Park protection is stressed at the expense of the vulnerable area.
If the cuts are indeed unlawful, the NCC should be held to account, in addition to persuading the public that Park protection, as a whole, is needed. It’s not a trade-off…
That said, CPAWS-OV should still be applauded for bringing this issue to the public.