An Ottawa Citizen article by Ken Rubin, December 9, 2024: "The National Capital Commission has been in active discussions with Parks Canada for months about creating a national urban park in Ottawa." This deal between the NCC and Parks Canada should be rejected for many reasons:
1.) "Parks Canada to look at divesting highways, bridges, dams---cash strapped agency examining whether to divest non-heritage assets worth $8.3 Billion." CBC News, August 26, 2017. Rideau Canal infrastructure is on the sell-off list--- 52 dams, 47 locks and many bridges.
2.) National Parks in British Columbia may be transferred to the province:
3.) The Greenbelt is protected by federal legislation: MP Pierre Lemieux: "...Bill C-37 introduces the definition of 'National Interest Land Mass'."
4.) National Interest Land Mass properties cannot be sold to foreign entities. However, Canada's urban and national recreation centres are fair game:
House of Commons Ottawa March 19, 1998 MP Rick Laliberte (Churchill River) NDP: "Our parks are a sacred sanctuary, they are part of our national identity. The Canadian Parks Agency is a capitalist form of commercialization of our national parks and eventual privatization...Where the hon. members take their children, enter the Walt Disney national park and come out and negotiate the fee."
House of Commons Ottawa March 19, 1998 MP Nelson Riis (Kamloops, BC.) NDP: "Members can probably tell that I do not support Bill C-29 at this point. This bill involves a great deal of Canada: 31 national parks, 786 historical sites, a number of historical canal systems (for example the Rideau Canal), 661 sites that are managed by third parties that are ecologically and environmentally significant, 165 heritage railway stations and 32 river systems."
MP Howard Hilstrom (Selkirk-Interlake, Manitoba) Reform: "Mr. Speaker, I am quite interested in the financial aspects of this bill. Is there a possibility of foreign interests getting involved in our parks system?"
MP Nelson Riis: "Obviously the answer is yes. We lack a national parks policy, just as we lack a national waterways policy or a national highway policy."
Canada's Capital Greenbelt Master Plan, National Capital Commission, November 2013,page 38/196 "The 20,600 hectare Greenbelt belongs to the People of Canada. Compared to other Greenbelts that tend to have more privately owned than public land, the opportunities are vast to build upon the progress of the last 60 years that led to Canada's Greenbelt of today."
5.)An urban or metropolitan park is a municipal park. The City of Ottawa Corporation wants one quarter of the Greenbelt for residential and commercial purposes: "It is estimated that of the 20,800 ha in the Greenbelt, at least one quarter, 5,560 ha, might be eligible for development if the Greenbelt designation is removed. This estimate assumes that lands currently designated for agriculture and other rural activities that are currently wedged between two adjacent urban areas would be redesignated for urban uses." (City of Ottawa White Paper on Development in the Greenbelt, May 27, 2008.)
House of Commons Ottawa October 26, 2009 Evidence Al Speyers, Alliance to Save Our Greenbelt: "Jacques Greber had no confidence in lower levels of government. He felt that the only way to have a greenbelt and to keep it was that the most senior level of government in Canada would have to establish it, keep it, maintain it and preserve it. Cities are essentially vehicles for development."
6.) The Rouge National Urban Park Act raises many red flags---
- Several different organizations own the Rouge. The citizens of Canada are sole owners of the Greenbelt.
- The Rouge has many wind turbines and highways.
- Promoters want the Ottawa Greenbelt modeled after the Rouge. All the measures that protect the Ottawa land may be removed---the Privy Council Orders-in-Council; National Interest Land Mass designation; Part 1V and Part V of the Ontario Heritage Act. The property cannot be sold, subdivided or given away to settle a land claim. "The Greenbelt is like an Emerald Necklace and exists as a memorial to the Canadians who gave their lives in the Second World War". From: The National Capital Commission--- Have your say about the Greenbelt's Future, June 10, 2009.
7.) "Land forming part of the National Interest Land Mass will be retained by the National Capital Commission on behalf of the government in perpetuity." (Google: 1988-09-re-NCC Land Holdings.)
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