Conclusion

Abstract

AbstractThis study of Gatineau Park governance documented the planning and management issues that have been introduced by private land ownership in a near-urban protected area. Ironically the history of Gatineau Park could have been otherwise: it was supposed to be the first near-urban national park in Canada and the first in a nation-wide system. When championing the Gatineau Park proposal, the Commissioner of the Dominion Parks Branch, JB Harkin (1913), claimed that the system of near-urban national parks would have brought Canada to the “forefront of civilization.” Instead, Canada has one near-urban national park, the Rouge National Park near Toronto, Ontario. Further, Parks Canada has not published any details about a future systematization of near-urban national parks, nor are there active discussions around the next Rouge. Nonetheless, as national parks and protected areas will be critical tools with which to address the climate and biodiversity crises, it is not an either/or with respect to how closely they are situated to cities. Today, in North America, national parks and protected areas tend to be located far away from urban centers. Yet it remains key that governments give the public controlled access to nature, with the attendant recreational, education, and psychological benefits that are derived from people's experience of natural places. The Conclusion reviews the historical creation of Gatineau Park by and for the cottage communities at Kingsmere and Meech Lake, and how cottagers worked behind the scenes with the federal government in order to ensure that their communities were maintained. As cottagers were making progress towards this goal, planners were conceiving of Gatineau Park as the capital's national park. The status quo of private ownership at Kingsmere and Meech Lake was the defining issue of the Federal District Commission's Gatineau Park Advisory Committee which ultimately dissolved over the issue. Previous chapters revealed that the transistion from the FDC to the park's current governing body, the National Capital Commission did not result in any substantive change to the park's governance and overall development policy, such that the NCC continued the piecemeal land acquisition program that relies on negotiated purchase. This research reveals the numerous expropriations that the NCC has carried out in order to prevent incompatible developments on privately-owned lands, including hotels, marinas, and subdivisions. Despite NCC officials being aware, early on, of the inherent problems with the land acquisition policy, they failed to persuade leadership to take decisive action. In light of this remarkable continuity in the governance history, three lessons are drawn concerning the establishment and protection of near-urban wilderness areas: (1) sort jurisdiction early – by introducing multiple layers of jurisdiction, private land ownership complicates park management and territorial control, and is intimately linked to the interests of local government, including the quasi-local governments of the Kingsmere Property Owners' Association and Meech Lake Association; (2) give clearly defined boundaries and land acquisition mechanisms – legislators failed to give Gatineau Park adequate protection not only by neglecting to include a park mandate statement in the National Capital Act, they also failed to codify the park boundaries in law and the NCC subsequently took advantage of this through a boundary rationalization exercise, completed without public consultation; and (3) the need for timely action on land acquisitions through a well-funded Property Acquisitions department that is provided with specific goals and timeframes, acquisition priorities, and scientific guidance on ecological corridors and other areas of ecological significance. In addition to the lessons that can be drawn from the case study, the Conclusion endorses the consensus view on Gatineau Park legislation specifically in mandating the NCC to complete the land acquisition program while giving it the right of first refusal. Following the phronetic approach, it also outlines what a National Conservation Agency dedicated to the protection of near-urban ecological areas could look like.