NCC Policies on

Private Property in Gatineau Park

November 24, 2016
Jean-Paul Murray, M.A, trad. a. / C. Tr.

Introduction

This document provides an overview of all National Capital Commissions policies on

acquiring private lands inside Gatineau Park, as well as a discussion on why private lands are
incompatible with a park’s public mission.

We write this at a particularly important time, since the draft Plan for Canada’s Capital
2017–2067 is veering away from the NCC’s long-standing policies regarding private park lands.
From saying in all its master plans that private property must eventually be acquired, the NCC
has now capitulated to private interests, by saying in its latest Plan that “Some privately owned
lands are likely to remain within the Park boundaries,” adding that it wants to “actively
encourage these […] private owners to become stewards of the park” (p. 70).

How did “they must all go” suddenly become they’re “stewards of the land” who will
likely remain forever and continue defiling the Meech Lake shoreline? Don’t NCC planners
realize these “stewards of the land” have built houses on the Meech lakebed, which is public
property, that they have, for decades, been urging politicians and bureaucrats to close public
facilities there, namely Blanchet Beach and the McCloskey Boat Launch? Moreover, they have
built 132 new houses inside the park since 1992.

In 2013 and 2015, the Municipality of Chelsea conducted exhaustive shoreline

inspections, which confirmed that 119 structures had been built without permits at Meech Lake,
and that the majority of those structures, 79 of them, were on the lakebed,1 which belongs to the
federal government by virtue of a 1973 land exchange with the province of Quebec.2

So much for the theory that park residents can be “stewards of the land.”

Saying there will likely always be private lands in the park reverses more than eighty
years of planning efforts and policies: from the Lower Gatineau Woodlands Survey in 1935 (the
park’s founding document, which proposed “gradual land acquisition” over the national park
option), to the 1946, 1947, and 1952 Advisory Committee on Gatineau Park draft master plans.
And it reverses every single NCC Gatineau Park master plan ever written: 1980, 1990, and 2005,
besides making a joke of the National Interest Land Mass, which says all Gatineau Park private
lands must be acquired.

1
“The grass still not greener at Meech: over 100 structures found without a permit,” by
Anastasia Philopoulos, The Low Down to Hull and Back News, September 9–15, 2015, pp. 1
and 13.
2
See section A (2) of the August 1, 1973 “Agreement between the Government of Quebec
and National Capital Commission regarding the transfer of the management and control of
certain public lands in the Quebec portion of the National Capital Region.”
 Although NCC policy has always been to acquire Gatineau Park private lands when they
go up for sale, and to use expropriation when needed to stop major developments, the agency has
unfortunately allowed huge tracts of private land to remain in the park. As a consequence, it has
been forced to expropriate, time and again, at tremendously inflated cost to taxpayers.

There are at least six major Gatineau Park expropriations: the Bourque Brother’s lac la
Pêche subdivision; the Hobbs subdivision at lac la Pêche; the Sully-Woods subdivision in Meech
Creek Valley; the Carl McInnis subdivision near Pink Lake; the Dunn-Woodhouse subdivision at
Kingsmere; the Roderick Fraser Sparks/Ottawa Ski Club development. As well, several other
developers managed to inflate property values inside Gatineau Park by registering subdivisions
and selling lots: Quain at Kingsmere, Grierson at Kingsmere, Franck Lynch at Shawano; Tom
Main at Brown’s Lake.3

Moreover, the Dufour lands at the corner of Notch and Kingsmere Roads remain a very
serious subdivision threat inside the park.

It’s like the NCC never learns, and keeps filling the pockets of private property
speculators. Sharing her views on this “purchasing” process, Department of Justice lawyer Eileen
Mitchell Thomas, QC, the NCC’s legal advisor, said in a March 21, 1975, letter to the NCC
Chairman: “My comment concerning this piecemeal approach is that it is an expensive procedure
(usually under some threat of possible development) because once land has become a potential
housing development, there is a tendency for it to be considered of more value than raw land.”4

But the NCC’s land management problems aren’t limited to expropriations; its policy for
acquiring private properties that go on the market has been a failure as well: according to our
own count, the NCC didn’t buy any of the 11 houses that were for sale in the Meech Lake-
Kingsmere sectors between 2006 and 2016—although it always seems to have $40 million in its
acquisition fund, according to all the recent annual reports I’ve consulted. I have kept a list of
these properties, and I’m certain the NCC missed several other purchase opportunities5.

I note, however, that the NCC has pursued a much more aggressive acquisition strategy
since 2015, given that it has purchased eight park properties in a little less than two years6 …

3
I have taken these examples of expropriations from the first draft of Michael Lait’s PhD
thesis, The Rotting Heart of Gatineau Park (Carleton University, Department of Sociology,
forthcoming).
4
Letter from Department of Justice lawyer Eileen Mitchell Thomas to the NCC Chairman,
“Lotissement et développement dans le parc de la Gatineau,” March 21, 1975. I thank Mike
Lait for bringing this document to my attention.
5
1) 27 Lacharité Road: $1,100,000 (built on a vacant lot in 2006; could have been
purchased for far less); 2)723 Meech Lake Road: $885,000 (built in 1995—NCC should not
have allowed: purchasing it now is far more expensive than purchasing vacant lot 21 years
ago); 3) 872 Meech Lake Road: $950,000 (also built recently: vacant lot could have been
purchased for far less: sold $850,000); 4) 231 Kingsmere Road: $889,000; 5)84 Kingsmere
Road: $374,000; 6) 755 Meech Lake Road, $1,290,000; 7) 817 Meech Lake Road,
$1,290,000, (built in 1999); 8) 23 Lacharité, $525,000; 669 Meech Lake Road: $720,000; 9)
19 Highland Road, Kingsmere; $625,000; 10) 140 Basswood, $595,000; 11) 825 Meech
Lake Road (Perrin Beatty); .
6
NCC ATIP A-2016-00069, November 4, 2016.
while allowing construction of three new houses at Meech Lake since 2014 … one step forward,
two steps backward…

The inflationary effects of allowing private lands to remain are self-evident. In 1969, the
cost of acquiring private park lands (then 9,750 acres) was estimated to be $4.75 million,
according to a memorandum from Assistant General Manager McNiven to Chairman Douglas
Fullerton (or approximately $31 million in 2015 accounting for inflation).7 Today, 380 hectares
of private property remain, and the government, during debate on Bill C-37, claimed the cost for
acquiring them would be about $100 million.

Besides reversing the NCC’s long-standing policy of buying private park lands, we
underline that the Plan for Canada’s Capital 2017–2067 also misleads the public, when it says
the NCC manages Gatineau Park according to Category II of the “International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) protocol” (p. 67). Category II management is equivalent to that of a
national park, and the IUCN clearly underlines that private properties are excluded within such parks.
Accordingly, this NCC claim is pure sophistry.

We also note that the Plan for Canada’s Capital 2017–2067 bungles the so-called Quebec
Lands Question: the map on page 2 misrepresents ownership of 61.5 km2 of Gatineau Park in the
lac la Pêche sector, by shading those lands in white on an otherwise yellow map to indicate the
NCC doesn’t own them. The Quebec government transferred those lands to the NCC, along with
all lake bottoms in the park, by order in council and signed transfer agreement in 19738… For
more information on this, we invite you to consult the documents section at
www.gatineauparc.ca.

So what is to be done? Some, like the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society have been
calling for Gatineau Park to be turned over to Parks Canada; however, that would require
immediate expropriation of all private lands inside it.

But there is a better solution. The Gatineau Park Protection Committee believes that the
history of Gatineau Park is intimately linked with the nation’s capital and that, as such, it should
continue to be managed by the NCC, in accordance with the principles set out in the National
Parks Act, and in accordance with all NCC Gatineau Park master plans.9

Moreover, we believe the NCC should stop talking about its policy for acquiring and
eliminating private properties inside Gatineau Park, and that it should start implementing it more
aggressively. It should also take all measures and tools at its disposal to completely stop
residential construction in the park.

7
“Land Acquisition in Gatineau Park,” Memorandum from the NCC’s Assistant General
Manager for Operations to the NCC Chairman, October 8, 1969. I thank Mike Lait for
bringing this document to my attention.
8
See “Agreement between the Government of Quebec and National Capital Commission
regarding the transfer of the management and control of certain public lands in the Quebec
portion of the National Capital Region,” August 1, 1973.
9
The Honourable Mira Spivak’s Bill S-204 provides, in our view, the best legislative option
for the park.
 This document is divided into two sections. The first provides an overview of reasons
why private lands are detrimental to public parks. The second highlights what various NCC
reports, plans and policies have said regarding the need to acquire all private park lands. We
conclude with a quote from park founder Percy Sparks underlining that private interests have
undermined the park’s public mission, and that they continue to do so.

Problems Caused by Private Inholdings

There is a widely held view throughout North America that private properties are
detrimental to the public purpose of parks, since they create gaping holes that shatter park
integrity and continuity, making it difficult to protect wildlife, as well as natural and cultural
resources. 10

We underline that all Gatineau Park Master Plans express the same view.11

Though private lands make up less than two percent of Gatineau Park—i.e., some 300
properties covering about 1,000 acres12—the handicap they impose and the problems they cause
are way out of proportion with their size.

As a general rule, they cluster around the park’s strategic locations and prime scenic and
cultural attractions like Meech and Kingsmere lakes, seriously impeding public access and
enjoyment of those sites. Private lands also create other problems that include the construction of
access roads, subdivisions, fragmentation and damage to habitat, inholder efforts to prevent the
building of park facilities near their land—and their efforts to close public facilities—conflicts
between owners and visitors, etc.13 And the situation will only get worse over time as more
people want greater access to their park, and begin to express frustration over being crowded out
by residential inholdings.

The cost of acquiring these private properties will escalate, as the NCC continues to
allow construction and gentrification along the lakes and other scenic and cultural locations. At
present, the estimated cost of acquiring all those properties is, according to our calculations,
10
See National Parks Conservation Association, America’s Heritage for Sale: a Lack of
Federal Funds Threatens Loss of Significant National Parklands, Washington, D.C., April
2008; and Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Wilderness Advocate, Ottawa Valley
Chapter newsletter, spring 2009, p. 2.
11
New Woodlands Preservation League, Ibid., pp. 9–15.
12
Johansen, David, Land Management Issues in National Parks and the Gatineau Park,
Library of Parliament, Parliamentary Information and Research Service, 22 March 2005.
Note: the NCC has now revised the number of private lands upwards, arguing that all
properties consist of different “lots.” See also, “NCC ‘violating’ master plan by not
expropriating Gatineau Park land, says group,” by Joanne Laucius, Ottawa Citizen, August
8, 2016.
13
For a thorough discussion on this, see General Report of the Parkway Subcommittee for
the Gatineau Park, Part I, Advisory Committee on Gatineau Park, Federal District
Commission, Ottawa, December 1953, pp. 22–23; and Statement of George B. Hartzog, Jr,
Director, National Park Service, Department of the Interior, before the Subcommittee on
Parks and Recreation of the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, January 18,
1968,
http://www.archive.org/stream/nationalparks00hartrich/nationalparks00hartrich_djvu.txt.
about $31 million14 (the government claims this to be $100 million15). What will it be ten years
from now?

Moreover, in the absence of a proper land management mechanism, the NCC has allowed
the building of 132 new houses in Gatineau Park since 1992. Add to this five new roads built in
violation of master plans, and the need for stronger parliamentary oversight becomes even more
urgent.16

In 2008, the proposed Carman Road development and the muddying of Meech Lake
illustrated the extent of this problem.17 More recent threats to the park include new construction
at Meech Lake, and violation of shoreline protection bylaws perpetrated by 80% of Meech Lake
residents.18

Gatineau Park, Private Property and the NCC

A review of various plans, reports and policies pertaining to Gatineau Park written since
1950 confirms that recommendations for the gradual removal of private properties are a
recurring theme.

The Gréber Plan

In 1950, French urban planner Jacques Gréber wrote his landmark Plan for the National
Capital. Besides making important recommendations on the history and continued development
of Ottawa as Canada’s capital, it also outlined several proposals concerning Gatineau Park.
Arguing that the park should be expanded, Gréber also noted that it should be a public rather
than a private preserve. As well, his Plan said that the proper protection of Gatineau Park would
be a

Continuous undertaking, requiring patience and painstaking effort, if there is to be offset

the encroachment of undesirable selfish interests to the detriment of general betterment,
[adding that] policies of maintenance and restrictions should be enforced […] through
direct ownership, or otherwise [and that there should be] more facilities and
accommodation for the public in general, and less for the individual.19
14
“NCC Misrepresents Cost of Buying Private Lands in Gatineau Park”:
http://ottawastart.com/story/18071.php; « La CCN achète des terrains », Le Droit, le 22 mai
2008, p. 11.
15
See Debates, House of Commons, March 7, 2014, p. 3686.
16
For more details on these developments, see Bill S-210: a Compromise Designed to
Protect Gatineau Park, brief submitted to the Senate Committee on Energy, the
Environment and Natural Resources, New Woodlands Preservation League, March 22,
2007, pp. 4-6: http://www.gatineauparc.ca/documents_en.html.
17
See “NCC to buy Gatineau Park property,” The Ottawa Citizen, May 22, 2008, pp. C-1, C-
6; “Group fears new homes are muddying Meech,” The Ottawa Citizen, July 29, 2008, p. C-
1.
18
“Chipping Away at Gatineau Park,” by Mohammed Adam, The Ottawa Citizen, June 18,
2012; « Inspection des berges du lac Meech, rapport préliminaire, Municipalité de Chelsea,
été 2013: http://www.scribd.com/doc/209143703/Meech-Rapport-MRC-137-09
19
Gréber, Jacques, Plan for the National Capital, General Report, Ottawa, 1950, p. 248.
The Advisory Committee on Gatineau Park

In 1952, the Gatineau Park Advisory Committee, chaired by Roderick Percy Sparks,
wrote the Report on the Master Plan for the Development of the Gatineau Park. This Report was
the first official master plan—the FDC adopted it in principle—outlining a vision for the park,
and recommending the building of administrative headquarters, parkways, trails, beaches,
campsites, etc.

This document provided the first comprehensive blueprint for the park; however, it also
lay bare conflicting visions about the role private property should play within it. Although the
majority of the Advisory Committee supported the acquisition of all private property in the park,
a minority dissented,20 a difference of opinion that would boil over a few years later.

The 1952 Gréber Report on Gatineau Park

Following submission of the Advisory Committee’s 1952 Report on a Master Plan, the
Federal District Commission asked Jacques Gréber to comment on various aspects of the
document, including private ownership within the park.

In his report, Mr. Gréber argued that it was most desirable that enjoyment of Gatineau
Park “should not be hampered by private encroachments, and that the ultimate conditions of the
ideal achievement of the park is the elimination of all private property within its limits.”21 In
particular, Mr. Gréber noted that Meech Lake was the nearest lake to the capital, and that it “must
be gradually freed of all obstacles to a fully organized public enjoyment.”

The 1953 Gatineau Parkway Subcommittee Report

In 1953, the Advisory Committee on Gatineau Park struck a subcommittee to examine

various issues pertaining to the planning and construction of parkways through Gatineau Park.
The Report dedicated several pages to private property, noting that, among its members, “opinion
was emphatic and unanimous that it would prove impossible to properly develop a plan of this
character unless all privately owned land and buildings within the boundaries of the park […]
were acquired.” It also recommended that steps “be taken immediately to prevent further
settlement or building development.”22

R. P. Sparks’s 1956 Memorandum to the Special Joint Committee on the FDC

The clash of visions over private property in the park, that had begun to emerge in the
1952 Advisory Committee Report, came to a head in the mid-fifties in an exchange of
correspondence between Roderick Percy Sparks and Federal District Commission Chairman
Howard Kennedy. This exchange was widely reported in Ottawa papers, and a summary of it can
20
Ibid., pp. 12, 22-25.
21
Gréber, Jacques, Report on Gatineau Park, submitted to the Federal District Commission, Paris, September 1952,
pp. 5-6 (NAC, RG 34, vol. 272, File 190-G-1(1)).
22
Advisory Committee on Gatineau Park, General Report of the Parkway Subcommittee for the Gatineau Park, Part
I, Federal District Commission, Ottawa, December 1953, p. 24.
be found in Sparks’ 1956 Memorandum to the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of
Commons on the Federal District Commission.23

As well, Sparks’s submission urged the government to obtain all lands in the park either
by direct purchase or expropriation. He also explained that certain influential people—including
Major General Kennedy, who owned a cottage on Kingsmere Lake—were holding up
development of the park for selfish reasons.

Sparks also charged that the lack of an adequate development policy and the building of a
parkway through land not yet acquired by the government had inflated property values and
turned the southern edge of the park into a paradise for speculators. He concluded that the park
would only be completed, and available for the enjoyment of all citizens, once the government
had eliminated all private property inside it.

Subsequent Gatineau Park Master Plans and the NILM

A review of the last three Gatineau Park Master Plans and the 1989 and 200824 task force
reports on private lands confirms that the NCC has been consistent in its commitments to acquire
private property, particularly in the park’s most heavily used areas around Meech and Kingsmere
Lakes. Moreover, the 1988 National Interest Land Mass (NILM) designation clearly instructs the
NCC to consolidate the park’s entire land mass.

The 1980 Gatineau Park Master Plan argued that private lands within the park limited the
possibilities of developing it for the benefit of visitors.25 To remedy the situation, it
recommended the purchase of private properties, particularly those around Meech Lake.

In 1988, the federal government established the NILM to designate properties in the
National Capital Region considered essential to the integrity, symbolism and interpretation of the
capital. NILM lands—including all private properties in Gatineau Park—are either owned by the
federal government, or considered essential and earmarked for eventual acquisition.

Following in the footsteps of the 1980 Master Plan and the 1988 NILM, the NCC set up a
task force in 1989 to establish criteria and a strategy to acquire private property in Gatineau Park.
Identifying all private properties in the park, the Task Force on Private Lands drew up a list of
those to be purchased on a priority basis.26

The 1990 Master Plan, for its part, underlined that private properties in the park created
conflicts between residents and visitors and that the NCC should work towards acquiring them27
while the 2005 Master Plan noted that nearly 300 private properties remained in the park, and

23
Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons on the Federal District Commission, Minutes of
Proceedings and Evidence, no. 18, Tuesday, June 26, 1956, pp. 833-874.
24
In 2008, the NCC also issued a task force report reiterating property acquisition priorities
and policies, Vers une stratégie d’acquisition, Commission de la capitale nationale, Ottawa,
2008, NCC ATIP A-20010/11-0001.
25
Gatineau Park Master Plan, National Capital Commission, Ottawa, 1980, p. 35.
26
NCC ATIP A-95/96-026, pp. 55-56.
27
Gatineau Park: a Master Plan for the ’90s and Beyond, National Capital Commission, Ottawa, 1990, p. 29.
that their presence made controlling park use difficult. Acquiring them, said the latter, remained
the NCC’s long-term goal.28

Although the 1980 Master Plan did not designate comprehensive categories for acquiring
private property in Gatineau Park, its 1990 and 2005 successors did. The former recommended
that the NCC place a high priority on properties subject to multi-unit developments, those that
were environmentally sensitive, and those that were considered harmful to key park resources
and assets.29 As for the 2005 plan, it recommended that properties of ten or more acres and those
located on waterfront be acquired on a priority basis.30

In a June 2008 task force report, the NCC drew up a list of maps outlining priority
acquisitions according to the master plan, and reiterated the 1989 Task Force recommendations.31

Order in Council PC 2008-1604

On September 5, 2008, the federal government passed an order in council giving the
NCC much greater latitude in acquiring private properties, as a result of public outcry over the
Carman Road development. The wording of this executive order leaves no doubt as to the
government’s intentions:

“Her Excellency the Governor General in Council […] hereby approves the acquisition
by the National Capital Commission of any or all privately owned real property within
the 1997 boundaries of the Gatineau Park, Quebec, on terms satisfactory to the National
Capital Commission.”

Conclusion

The history of Gatineau Park planning and management confirms that removal of private
properties has always been the ultimate objective. Unfortunately, while the NCC has had mostly
sound policies in this regard, it has been extremely negligent in implementing them. Evidence of
NCC failure in this regard can be seen in its allowing residential proliferation to run wild through
the park: 11 new houses at Meech Lake since 2006, and 132 new houses in the park overall since
1992. Not to mention that the major expropriations it has carried out have tremendously inflated
the cost of acquiring all private lands within a reasonable time frame.

And now, the NCC is trying to legitimize its failure by reversing its philosophy on
Gatineau Park land acquisitions in its Plan for Canada’s Capital 2017–2067. The only possible
explanation for this is that the NCC is now admitting it has always been the handmaiden to
members of the Meech Lake Residents’ Association, by allowing them to run roughshod over all
its Gatineau Park plans, and dictate its land management policies.

28
Gatineau Park Master Plan, National Capital Commission, Ottawa, 2005, p. 52.
29
Gatineau Park: a Master Plan for the ’90s and Beyond, ibid, p. 9.
30
Gatineau Park Master Plan, National Capital Commission, Ottawa, 2005, p. 52.
31
Vers une stratégie d’acquisition, Commission de la capitale nationale, Ottawa, 2008, NCC
ATIP A-20010/11-0001.
 For a detailed history of the relationship between the FDC/NCC and the Kingsmere and
Meech Lake residents’ associations, see Michael Lait’s PhD thesis: The Rotting Heart of
Gatineau Park (Carleton University, Department of Sociology, forthcoming).

Percy Sparks’s final public statement on Gatineau Park, below, underlines the undue
influence of private property owners on the park management, and how little has changed in over
60 years:

The public interest has been largely overlooked in respect to the land policy and in
policies generally, of the […] Commission, in planning Gatineau Park. I suggest that
personal, financial and political interests of land owners in the area exercises undue
influence in the making of policy in respect to this great project. I am hopeful that as a
result of giving publicity to these facts, the […] Commission will reconsider their present
policies and in future regard the public interest as their only guide.”32

We know Mr. Sparks would agree with the following words from former US
Parks Service Director Newton B. Drury, whom he quoted to good effect in his writings:

“The solution of these and all in-holdings rests chiefly with the realization that the
national parks, monuments and historical areas are vital economic and social assets to
the nation, and that the government holdings within their boundaries should be unified
and complete.”33

32
Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons on the Federal District
Commission, Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, no. 18, Tuesday, June 26, 1956, p. 873.
33
Newton B. Drury, “Private Lands in National Parks,” National Parks Magazine, April-June
1947.