Government urged to amend parks legislation, clarify what’s permitted on protected land

Nadine Hunt has lived through two recent battles to protect the West Mabou Beach Provincial Park from an on-site golf course development.
She doesn’t want to do it again.

“I can’t understand it,” Hunt said. 

“It should be an easy thing for the government to go ahead with. I can’t see that it would be controversial at all.

“All it seemingly requires is a little bit of language change, wording to strengthen the (Provincial) Parks Act so that certain activities are just not permitted in certain parks. I don’t think it’s a major ask, I don’t think it’s controversial and I don’t think it’s that difficult to do. I don’t know why the will is not there to do it.”

A provincial government Parks and Protected Areas Plan from a decade ago called for a review and update of the act and associated regulations by 2013 to ensure that protection of heritage values is a priority.

Natural Resources Minister Tory Rushton said Tuesday that the review and update is not pending as the fall session of the House moves into its final days.

“Right now we’re focused on the plan on properties from 2013 and right now we’re working with the Environment and Climate Change (Department) to finish off that list of streamed properties . . . and we look forward to announcing those very soon,” Rushton said.

That parks plan provided for the protection of 13 per cent of the  province’s outstanding landmass by 2015. 

At that time, the plan document stated that if all lands included in the parks and protected areas were legally protected, it would result in the addition of four new provincial parks, 44 new wilderness areas and 118 new nature reserves, along with the expansion of 12 provincial parks, 31 wilderness areas and 11 nature reserves.

20 per cent

The Progressive Conservative election platform for the 2021 election promised to protect 20 per cent of the province’s land and water by 2030, a vow cemented in the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act that passed in October 2021.

Rushton said “at this time” no further clarification or update of the Provincial Parks Act is necessary.

“We’re focusing our energy on the 2013 list.”

Hunt, a retired high school biology teacher who has resided for years in West Mabou, worries that she will have to focus her future energy to yet again fend off further approaches by Cabot Cape Breton in its hope to build an 18-hole golf course on land it proposed to lease in the 275-hectare protected provincial park.

Cabot renewed its push for such an arrangement more than a year ago, the second time in five years it had proposed building another golf course on the protected park land.

It was April 20 before Rushton said in an interview “there is not going to be a golf course application for a golf course going forward.”

‘Not fair’

“Thankfully each of those governments (in the past five years) made the decision that they did to protect the park but the fact that we have to go through a six-month waiting period for the government to come out and say something is just so unfair to the communities,” Hunt said.

“Our committees and our groups that function cohesively within our communities, stuff like this creates dissension and it renders a lot of community groups less effective. It’s just not fair for the government to allow this kind of thing to fester. There’s an easy, easy way to put a stop to it right away.”

The dissension pitted neighbour against neighbour, with those in favour of the development saying it would create jobs in an economically challenged area and those against saying that the ecological diversity of the park would be destroyed and, that if Cabot wanted to build another golf course in the area, the company could purchase private land and tee up the project.

“It’s not fair that the local people have to stand up and mount a campaign to protect a park that is a natural environment provincial park,” Hunt said. 

“We shouldn’t have to stand up and justify the protection of a place like that. The legislation should be doing that for us.”

The dissension often turned personal on social media.

Legislation clear

Rushton said the legislation is already very clear.

“As minister, I could not have granted access to anybody applying for a purchase of a protected park,” Rushton said. 

“It’s very clear the minister cannot do that. That has to be an order in council, but as we have seen in previous governments, even orders in council can override some pieces of legislation but, as it stands right now, we’re interested in the 2013 (Parks and Protected Areas Plan) and that is where we are focusing our energy to get to that 20 per cent before we make any other further changes.”

Environmental groups Ecology Action Centre and Nature Nova Scotia are mounting a campaign to try to push the government to make changes to the parks act that would leave no doubt about what is and what isn’t acceptable activity on protected properties.

“Legislation updating or strengthening is part of the Parks and Protected Areas Plan,” which the PCs promised to do in their election campaign, said Ray Plourde, senior wilderness co-ordinator with the Ecology Action Centre.

“In terms of what really needs to be done, they just need to make a few surgical amendments to delineate the three different types of parks that we have today, which are roadside picnic parks, camping parks and larger natural environment parks that have been brought on since the last time the act was updated in the late 1980s,” Plourde said.

“Delineate the three different types of parks to clarify what is and is not allowed in each type of park and to confirm in the legislation that the primary purpose of nature-based parks, like West Mabou and Cape Chignecto and Owls Head and also the park reserves, are the protection of biodiversity and our natural heritage and low-impact recreation.”

Plourde said the legislative change would not have budget implications.

“It’s very simple, a  few surgical amendments and they would provide greater clarity for everyone to better protect our parks.”

Lindsay Lee, project officer for provincial parks with Nature Nova Scotia, said she has talked to a lot of concerned people about the issue.

“They are asking why isn’t the government doing this, is it because they are trying to sell off a provincial park or are they doing something behind the scenes that we are not aware of, and that’s because the trust in government has been eroded,” Lee said.

“There is a simple way to fix that so that people don’t have to keep fighting the same fight over and over again, especially when amending this legislation is a very simple solution. It’s good for government and it’s good for people.”