It is unconstitutional, for a municipal hospital and a business to take over an Agriculture Canada property in Ottawa.

 The Central Experimental Farm is a National Interest Land Mass. Municipal, provincial and private endeavours are banned on NILM properties. The only buildings permitted on the CEF are Agriculture Canada laboratories, museums, greenhouses, barns, silos, heritage buildings and visitor's centres. 

The National Interest. (From: The Annual Report of the NCC 1975-1976 - page 9/52.) Up until recent years, the NCC and its predecessors were in effect the only long-range planners for the National Capital Region. But as Ottawa, Hull and their surrounding communities grew, other jurisdictions began to assume their own and proper responsibilities for planning. Naturally, administrative conflicts have resulted.

Under the National Capital Act, the Commission is responsible for protecting and promoting the national interest in the Capital. The objectives and purposes of the Commission are set out in the Act: "To prepare plans for and assist in the development, conservation and improvement of the National Capital Region in order that the nature and character of the seat of the government of Canada may be in accordance with its national significance."

It has been argued by some that only municipal authorities have the responsibility for promulgating and implementing region-wide planning in the National Capital Region. The Commission holds that this view is unconstitional. 

Provincial and municipal authorities have responsibility for local concerns in their respective jurisdictions in the Region. But their responsibilities cannot be construed as representing the national interest. Neither can they be substituted for national concerns and interests. If Parliament had not wanted to see a national character for the Capital, it would not have created a national agency for that purpose, and there has been such an agency since 1899.

An important aspect of this agency-now the NCC-has always been its non-partisan character. The agency has always enjoyed the confidence of succesive Parliaments and governments since Laurier's day and progress in the National Capital has never been identified with the policies of a particular government. The resultant continuity and stability are at least partly responsible for the quality of development so far.

The Commission has functions different from those of a government department. Its special advisory committees - on planning, on design and on property transactions - are able to assess federal projects in the Region from a national viewpoint. The committee, like the 20 Commissioners themselves, are drawn from all regions and provinces of Canada and they give Parliament and the government independent professional advice in the fields of architecture, urban planning, environment, transportation and land use and development. 

The Hartwell Locks are part of the Rideau Canal National Historic Site, and the Rideau Canal UNESCO World Heritage Site. The buffer zones cannot be breached, the Lockstation and trees removed, or the docks altered to facilitate tourism activities.

A satellite image of the Fletcher Wildlife Garden.