Hon. Michael L. MacDonald: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak as the critic of Bill S-14, An Act to amend the Canada National Parks Act, the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act, the Rouge National Urban Park Act and the National Parks of Canada Fishing Regulations, introduced in the Senate on October 19, 2023, by Senator Gold, the government leader in the Senate.

Colleagues, we gather here today to deliberate a bill that seeks to implement changes in the realm of conservation and preservation of our natural heritage.

Bill S-14 amends the Canada National Parks Act to establish a new park reserve in Labrador. This initiative includes specific provisions concerning its operation and administration.

It also proposes the expansion of the boundaries of no fewer than seven existing national parks and one national park reserve.

The bill aims to strengthen legislation against offences related to the discharge or deposit of harmful substances in a national park or national park reserve.

It will rename one park and modify the Canada National Marine Conservation Areas Act. This portion of the bill focuses on the establishment of the Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area, an initiative that underscores the importance of preserving our precious marine ecosystems.

Covering over 108,000 square kilometres, this park will account for nearly 1.9% of our protected marine areas, serving as a bastion of biodiversity in the eastern Canadian Arctic. This area is not just crucial for its unique biodiversity; it is also vital for the survival and livelihood of the Inuit of the High Arctic. Described as an ecological engine, this park is more than that. It is the heart of an entire ecosystem, a life-giving source supporting not only a wide range of marine species but also the human communities that rely on these waters.

Lastly, the bill amends the Rouge National Urban Park Act, aiming here to strengthen penalties against the discharge or deposit of substances in this urban park, thereby ensuring its protection for future generations.

The government asserts that the purpose of these amendments is to protect and enhance our natural and cultural heritage. National parks are designed to preserve Canada’s representative terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems while allowing the public to enjoy and utilize them sustainably.

As for national marine conservation areas, they protect marine ecosystems while promoting ecologically sustainable use of their resources.

Beyond these objectives, the government aims to achieve ambitious conservation targets, such as conserving 25% of our lands and waters by 2025, and 30% by 2030. Moreover, the goal is to create several new national parks, marine areas and urban parks in the coming years.

Honourable senators, allow me to focus on a critical point: the importance of a more thorough analysis of this bill. We are facing significant issues that require proper and enlightened reflection.

One is the potential impact expanding existing park boundaries might have on the people who live near the parks. Certainly, many of these expanded boundaries are in areas where relatively few people are domiciled, but many are in areas where there are primarily Indigenous people who regularly hunt and fish, and these realities must be accommodated appropriately.

But not all national parks are remote. I grew up beside a national historic park, the Fortress of Louisbourg on the western side of Louisbourg Harbour. In the late 1920s, the land where the fortress itself stood was purchased by the federal government, which designated it a national historic site.

There were only a few homes on that 60-acre site, and they were removed. Except for a nice stone museum and a caretaker’s home that the federal government built in the early 1930s, the entire site was empty. Then in 1961, the Diefenbaker government announced it would partially reconstruct about one quarter of the original fortress.

Even at a young age, I was excited about the plans for the fortress. My mother’s people were from West Louisbourg, so I was often there, and playing around the fortress site was a common pastime. The bombproofs of the original château were exposed, and we’d always climb around on them. The old roads were marked, and some foundations for significant buildings, like the hospital, had been rebuilt over the years. To think that it would be somewhat restored was exciting to the townspeople for sure. The people of Louisbourg were always proud of the town’s unique history, and to see the fortress rise again had a romantic appeal to everyone in the town.

The reconstruction from the early 1960s to the early 1980s was a significant economic generator for the town of Louisbourg and the greater community during that time. Laid-off miners from communities like Glace Bay were retrained to be stonemasons, bricklayers and metalworkers, to name a few trades. In 1966, the Louisbourg Town Council voted to restore the old French spelling to the town itself as a salute to the restoration. Many people built careers for themselves with the reconstruction of the fortress.

That reconstruction became important to me personally, as I worked in archaeology for five summers when I attended university between 1974 and 1978. Of course, I have always loved history, and my hometown has a lot of it, and being able to work there and live at home during my university years was a wonderful gift.

But there were a lot of downsides as well, both immediately and some which became much more evident with time. Ottawa had determined that West Louisbourg — an old, mostly Irish Catholic community dating back to the 1760s which lay outside the incorporated town and included the fortress site — was to be expropriated, as were the communities of Kennington Cove and Deep Cove along the Atlantic Coast west to Gabarus, a distance of about eight miles.

In all, by the time the bureaucrats were finished, over 16,000 acres to the west of the incorporated town were eventually expropriated by the federal authority. All the homes and the people were removed, and the lovely old Stella Maris church in West Louisbourg — which stood directly across from my grandfather Kehoe’s home, where generations of my mother’s family had attended and where all my siblings and I were baptized — was torn down by the government. It was a very sad day. When people ask now why they had to tear the church down, which is nowhere near the fortress site and should never have been destroyed, one can only conclude it must have blocked the view of the fortress from Ottawa.

Many people did not want to move, but Ottawa was determined to expropriate a lot more land than was necessary for the reconstruction. The locals were just a bunch of small-town and rural people who had no leverage and eventually did what they were told to do by the authorities. Some tried to fight it, but most acquiesced and tried to see the good in it.

Now, Louisbourg’s great historic strategic advantage was always as an active seaport. Most of what today is referred to as “industrial Cape Breton” is found around or near Sydney Harbour and its many communities. But they are all found on the northeast side of the island, where the Cabot Strait enters the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Louisbourg itself is located away from industrial Cape Breton, on the southeast coast of Cape Breton, on the Atlantic Ocean. It was chosen by Louis XV and his advisers to be the site for the fortress because of its ice-free harbour — something not available on the Cabot Strait side of the island. That was still important until the 1950s. Louisbourg had been the winter shipping port for all of industrial Cape Breton since the late 1890s — coal and steel going out, iron ore coming in. Only rail connected us to the rest of industrial Cape Breton. The industrial era was coming to an end, but the fortress seemed to compensate for the changes.

However, by the late 1980s, when the reconstruction phase was well over, the community was beginning to atrophy noticeably. Our population began to plummet and all kinds of services disappeared. There used to be four gas stations; now there are none. The credit union is long gone and the bank just closed. Then the high school was gone, then the junior high school was gone and now there are no schools at all. The town lost its incorporation in 1994. No more drugstore, no more doctor, no more much of anything except during tourist season.

Why did the community’s vitality begin to suffer? It is true that many small towns in Canada are in decline, and there might have been some of that at work, but the biggest problem is that the federal government’s land grab to the west of Louisbourg had cut off the town’s access along the western shore road to Gabarus. This is part of what is known locally as “the old French road,” the oldest road on Cape Breton Island. You can’t drive through the community anymore. All of the normal services that you expect in a community dried up because it couldn’t operate normally outside of the tourist season.

The old seaport had become a de facto outport — a dead end, a cul-de-sac. You can’t enter the town from the coastline to the west. All visitors to Cape Breton now have to drive through to industrial Cape Breton and then backtrack to Louisbourg.

This is a cautionary tale. I tell this story because it’s a story of expropriation with no consultation and it resulted in serious unintended consequences. I resent — and I’m not alone in my resentment — the way my hometown was changed for the worse by this massive expropriation of land. So much damage has been done, and most of it was easily avoidable. All they had to do was leave the road to Gabarus open through the park boundaries.

I bring this saga of Louisbourg to the Senate’s attention because I know the effect that massive expropriation without proper consultation can have on communities. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not relatively supportive of the goals outlined in this bill, because I am broadly supportive of the goals of this bill. But let’s make sure that consultation is not a mere formality but, rather, a genuine, respectful and constructive dialogue with any community that is being affected by these proposed changes.

There are important national interests to consider. Our national parks and nature reserves often border areas of energy activities. Decisions related to the management and extension of these protected areas can have a significant impact on access to resources and methods of energy exploitation. Thorough consultation with this sector not only allows for anticipating and managing economic impacts but also innovating towards more sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions.

Tourism, for its part, derives direct value from the beauty and integrity of our natural spaces. National parks and reserves are major attractions for both national and international tourists. It is crucial to assess how our decisions affect this sector, not only in terms of revenue but also in terms of the quality and sustainability of the tourist offering.

Both the energy and tourism sectors are important to our country and to our economy. Each change we make to the management of our parks can have repercussions on these sectors. It is imperative to ensure that all stakeholders have been consulted and that the economic impact has been rigorously assessed.

Moreover, as our country embarks on ambitious conservation goals, we must also consider the costs, both financial and human, associated with these projects. Implementing these new regulations and managing new reserves and parks — all of this requires resources. Do we have a solid plan to deal with this? We cannot afford to make hasty decisions. It is our duty to scrutinize this bill thoroughly in committee to ensure the well-being of our heritage, our citizens and our future generations.

Honourable senators, each of us can attest to the geographical magnificence of our country. We are privileged in Canada to be surrounded by national parks of breathtaking beauty. Protecting these spaces is more than a responsibility; it is a duty to our heritage and a legacy that we must pass on intact to future generations.

I urge the chamber to get this bill to committee as soon as possible so we can give this proposed legislation the due diligence it deserves as quickly as possible. Thank you, colleagues, for your time and attention.