Recommendations to the NCC Mandate Review Panel
Action Chelsea for the Respect of the Environment
November 14, 2006
In summary
ACRE recommends that:
The mandate of the NCC be changed to remove the inherent conflict that currently exists between conservation and development, and to focus on stewardship, conservation and celebration of the natural and cultural values of the NCR as the primary mandate.
The governance of the NCC be enhanced through the establishment of a science advisory body, and a legal framework for Gatineau Park that focuses on ecological integrity as the first priority for management;
The NCC develop a more open, engaged approach to implementing this renewed conservation mandate including working in partnership with interested institutions and individuals;
Once the mandate, governance, and institutional culture have been reformed, adequate funds are allocated to ensure that the NCC can effectively implement a renewed stewardship, conservation and celebration mandate.
About ACRE
Action Chelsea for the Respect of the Environment (ACRE) is a community based not-for-profit organization made up of concerned citizens working towards an environmentally healthy community. Our mission is to protect the ecological integrity of Chelsea, Quebec, and to encourage an understanding and awareness of ecological integrity and its importance in enhancing quality of life.
Context
Our submission to the NCC Mandate Review includes insights and recommendations within the context of our mission, which is to strengthen environmental stewardship in Chelsea. Our comments include recommendations on the NCC's mandate, governance and funding followed by recommendations and observations on how the mandate, governance and funding issues relate directly to Gatineau Park. Gatineau Park covers 60 percent of the land area of Chelsea, and is a core part of the ecological and cultural fabric of our community, thus its long term ecological health is of particular importance to ACRE.
Mandate
The mandate of the NCC as laid out in the NCC Act, includes development, conservation and improvement of the National Capital Region (NCR). Development and conservation goals are often in direct conflict, and "improvement" is a nebulous term that means vastly different things depending on one's perspective. This unclear and conflicting mandate has inevitably led to planning and decision-making challenges for the agency, and confusion for the public about NCC decisions. With such a conflicting mandate, compromises between development and conservation occur regularly, which will lead, over the long run, to a "death by a thousand cuts" erosion of the natural and cultural values of the NCR.
ACRE recommends that the NCC mandate be amended to focus clearly on the priority of stewardship, conservation, and celebration of the natural and socio-cultural values of the National Capital Region for present and future generations of Canadians. All decisions on "development" and "improvement" should be made within a primary mandate of stewardship and conservation in order to protect and enhance the region for the future.
Governance
An important element that is missing from the governance of the NCC is a source of scientific expertise to support the agency's role in protecting the ecological values of the region. None of the current Commissioners has significant expertise or experience in nature conservation, nor is there an advisory body to the NCC as a whole that includes this expertise. And yet, a core part of the current responsibilities of the NCC is the management of green space, including a major federal protected natural area - Gatineau Park.
ACRE supports the recommendation that the NCC establish a science advisory committee that would include environmental and conservation science expertise to support the NCC in implementing its environmental conservation mandate. We understand that there have been repeated offers of help from the scientific community in the Ottawa region and beyond. It is difficult to understand why the NCC has not accepted these offers to increase its scientific capacity at no additional cost to taxpayers.
Linked to the above recommendation, ACRE also supports the calls for increased transparency and public engagement in NCC operations.
The NCC has a reputation for being difficult to engage as a partner, even when such partnerships would further the agency's own goals, and when considerable resources are being offered at no cost. ACRE is aware of several serious and specific partnership proposals, assistance offers from universities and assistance offers from government agencies which were never welcomed or followed up. Regrettably, the NCC attitude has been defensive and isolationist.
One example involves ACRE directly. ACRE is a partner with the University of Ottawa and the Municipality of Chelsea in a community-based monitoring program called H20 Chelsea. This program has been a huge success and has won awards at the local, provincial and national levels, including most recently from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. The program is supported by more than 100 volunteers in Chelsea, who are involved in a range of activities, including regular scientific monitoring of water quality in Meech and Kingsmere Lakes, and Chelsea and Meech Creeks within Gatineau Park. ACRE, a local non-profit organization, has provided over $200K to support this project. The University of Ottawa has provided significant scientific capacity as well as financial and in kind support. The Municipality has provided financial and in kind support. The National Capital Commission has only provided permission to sample within its boundaries, but no financial or in kind support in spite of repeated efforts to engage them in the sampling process.
This lack of willingness or capacity to work with others has resulted in a huge loss of potential benefit to the NCC, which is a great shame, and a source of frustration to those of us working to enhance the natural values of our community, which includes Gatineau Park. A cultural shift is required to move from a defensive approach to management to a more proactive, engaged way of operating as a part of the greater community. We believe that a clearer, more focused mandate and a stronger capacity to perform the Commission's environmental protection functions will help to support this shift in organizational culture.
Funding
A clear mandate of conservation and stewardship, and the governance structure to support this, along with a cultural shift to support a more focused mandate and more openness and transparency should be prerequisites to new funding for the NCC. More resources are likely needed to ensure that the NCR's and Gatineau Park's values are monitored, managed and protected. But the NCC's reluctance to accept offers of free assistance to support its programs indicates that there are other more significant barriers to success beyond a simple shortage of funds.
In 2000, the blue ribbon "Panel on the Ecological Integrity of Canada's National Parks" also identified barriers that needed to be overcome prior to additional funding being allocated to the Parks Canada Agency. These recommendations related in large part to the Parks Canada organizational culture and science capacity:
"The strengthening of natural and social science capacity, and the interpretation and partnership programs recommended by the Panel will require substantial additional financial resources. This new money is a necessary condition for giving a more rigorous focus to ecological integrity, but money alone will not suffice. Several "first steps" are needed to improve the broader management framework for ecological integrity in Parks Canada that should be implemented before the allocation of any new funds."1
These "first steps" to implement improved management and accountability for ecological integrity (EI) in national parks were chosen to set a new direction at both symbolic and operational levels and included, among other recommendations:
enhancing science advisory capacity to the CEO and Executive Board;
development of an Agency Charter that lays out the core values of the organization relating to EI;
a staff training and orientation program focused on EI;
revisions to planning guidelines to make EI the overarching theme of park management plans;
Enhancing public transparency on spending of resources on ecosystem research, monitoring and management etc;
Written guidelines to re-focus marketing efforts from mass tourism to social marketing and messages on EI;
A strategic plan to move beyond first steps to address long term re-orientation of the Agency towards EI;
Specific accountability goals for the EI mandate, including regional integration;
Several years after the Panel's recommendations were submitted, the Agency had made substantive progress, such that the Chair of the Panel supported their efforts to secure additional funds, as did the broad environmental community in Canada. In 2003, the Agency received a substantial investment of public funds to start to implement its clarified EI mandate.
The approach of the "EI Panel" in identifying key barriers that needed to be addressed prior to additional funding being allocated could provide an interesting model for the NCC Mandate Review Panel to consider, and we suggest that panel members review this report when considering their recommendations.
Gatineau Park
Having provided general comments on the mandate review of the NCC, we would like to focus on some specific recommendations regarding how the broad mandate and governance issues manifest themselves in the management of Gatineau Park, which is the NCC responsibility that most directly impacts on Chelsea.
Context:
Gatineau Park is a nationally significant landscape on the doorstep of the nation's capital. It has a very high level of biodiversity, and has more species at risk living within its boundaries than any other park in Quebec.
The park is also one of the most heavily visited parks in Canada with 1.7 million visits per year, greatly exceeding the intensity of visitation of Banff National Park in terms of visits per square kilometre.
The challenge facing the federal government is how to maintain the ecosystem health of Gatineau Park for future generations of Canadians, while encouraging Canadians from the region and across Canada to enjoy its natural and cultural values.
With the population of the NCR growing, threats to the park's ecosystem health are increasing. These include pressures from growing numbers of visitors, as well as the increasing ecological isolation of the park as an "island" in an urban, near-urban and agricultural landscape.
The 2005 Master Plan identifies significant threats to the park and makes recommendations to address them. ACRE supports the new Master Plan's clear identification of conservation as the priority mandate of the park. The Master Plan provides a solid roadmap for the next decade of park management. However, ACRE does not believe that the Plan can be effectively implemented without significant adjustments to the governance framework of the NCC and park.
The NCC does not have the ecological science and protected areas professional capacity to implement the plan, nor is there a legal framework to support the Master Plan implementation or the enforcement of necessary rules. The science capacity issue was addressed earlier in this submission for the NCC generally, and will also have to be enhanced at the park level as well. The need for legal protection of the park itself is addressed below.
Legal Protection:
ACRE strongly recommends that a legal framework be developed for Gatineau Park that:
Identifies the maintenance and restoration of ecological integrity as the first priority in managing the park;
Establishes the boundaries of the park in law, and does not allow lands to be removed from the park without an Act of Parliament (while allowing lands to be added without an act of Parliament);
Ensures accountability for implementing park management plans;
Highlights the need to work collaboratively within the broader region to ensure the health of the "Greater Park Ecosystem".
A federal legal tool already exists that incorporates all of these principles - the Canada National Parks Act. The option of transferring Gatineau Park to the authority of the Parks Canada Agency should be thoroughly explored, including an analysis of the protected areas management capacity and support systems that this option would offer, along with the opportunity to showcase Canada's national parks system on the doorstep of the nation's capital.
ACRE recommends that Gatineau Park be legally protected using either the Canada National Parks Act or an equivalent level of legal protection that focuses as a first priority on protecting the park's ecological integrity, and that the federal government ensure that the ecosystem science capacity is in place to implement this legal mandate.
Current private member bills before the Senate and House of Commons were tabled with the best of intentions but we believe that they focus too strongly on removing private landowners from the park without adequate consideration of the primary goal of maintaining and restoring the park's ecological integrity. While there are challenges inherent in having private residences and associated infrastructure inside the park, the greater challenge to the park's ecosystem health comes from its growing fragmentation, visitor use, and increasing ecological isolation. Focusing on ridding the park of private residences risks creating a contentious political environment that could jeopardize any legal protection framework from being put in place. While we recognize the value in acquiring private lands within the park over time, we suggest that this can be done on a willing seller - willing buyer basis, and that a fund be set up to support these purchases as they become available. We suggest that park residents and local municipalities should be engaged in ensuring that municipal policies and programs are compatible with the park's mandate.
In our submission to the Municipality of Chelsea's "Plan d'urbanisme" in 2004, ACRE recommended that the Municipality plan on a whole ecosystem basis by cooperating with Gatineau Park and adjacent municipalities for nature conservation and biodiversity conservation. As a first step towards implementing this approach, ACRE has taken on the task of a preliminary mapping of the conservation values of the lands within Chelsea, outside the park. We are interested in working with the NCC and the Municipality of Chelsea to protect neighbouring lands of high conservation value as a means of supporting the health of the Gatineau Park greater ecosystem.
Contact
For more information:
Alison Woodley
Director
819-827-4092
sawoodley@sympatico.ca
Garry Donaldson
Director
819-827-5989
1. Parks Canada Agency (2000). Unimpaired for Future Generations? Protecting Ecological Integrity with Canada's National Parks. Vol II. Report of the Panel on the Ecological Integrity of Canada's National Parks. Ottawa, ON. Page 1-10.
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