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Proposed Park Act changes are contrary to public trust

Viewing from afar, this appears to be a slippery slope, indeed.

In the US, the Mining Act of 1890 or so permits exploration and development of mines within wilderness areas, a monstrous hole in the Wilderness Protection Act. I have hiked past a couple defunct exploration sites, and they are just downright ugly, not to mention the damage to streams from toxic minerals released from exploratory mines. Totally antithetical to any wilderness concept or parks recreational use.
 
There's nothing in this proposed bill that is a direct threat to parks. It's how it may be open to interpretation that scares me. Feasibility studies for research sound innocuous, but consider that the entire Japanese whaling industry is undertaken on the basis of "research"...
 
jk said:
There's nothing in this proposed bill that is a direct threat to parks.
Click to expand...

JK,
Section 9.3.2.d is the direct threat to parks. Once this amendment is written into law, the legal avenue would be in place to allow the Legislature to move the boundaries of a park at will. Need a coal mine in Strathcona? Move the boundaries of the park so that a mine can operate outside the protected area. Does a proposed pipeline bisect a park? No problem if the park's property line can now be moved to accommodate.

I didn't see it at first either but Mary Polack (our Minister of Environment) was on CFAX 1070 last week and did a terrible job of concealing Bill 4's intention.
 
Well, they don't need Bill 4 to move boundaries of parks. They do it all the time. But yeah, I see a mounting sense of dread when that language is combined with "a prescribed project or a project in a prescribed class of projects" -- language so vague it allows almost everything to qualify. It sounds like this bill is laying the groundwork so that pipelines, hydro lines and such won't be impeded by parks. And this after announcing a whole new whack of parkland last week! One step forward, two steps back.
 
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