Park Governance Under the National Capital Commission

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter provides an account of Gatineau Park governance when the National Capital Commission assumed responsibility from its predecessor planning body, the Federal District Commission. The account reveals there to be continuity in the park’s governance despite the enlarged scope and powers of the NCC. After recounting the NCC’s role and responsibilities vis-à-vis the National Capital Region and Gatineau Park, the chapter proceeds to examine the activities of the reconstituted Gatineau Park Advisory Committee, which restarted the planning of the Gatineau Parkway and retained the land acquisition policy of negotiated purchase on a willing seller basis. The NCC’s policy was immediately tested as Meech Lake Road landowners were reported to be planning new developments, prompting the NCC to expropriate the lands. The third section details the subsequent negotiations between the NCC, federal, and provincial governments, as Québec responded to protests of Meech Lake Road landowners by insisting on a pause of all NCC expropriations in the province. The expropriations cast a shadow over the intergovernmental negotiations concerning the Gatineau Park land exchange, leading to their suspension in the 1960s. The fourth section documents another failure of the NCC’s land policy as it expropriated 571 acres in the La Pêche Lake area to prevent a new residential subdivision. As shown in subsequent chapters, the NCC would be forced into lengthy and costly expropriations as a result of the piecemeal approach to land acquisitions, which NCC officials recognized not only to be flawed, but also as a concession to park residents at Kingsmere and Meech Lake.