Marla Bryant says that Gatineau Park isn’t broken. 

It doesn’t need saving from the government; it doesn’t need legislation to protect it, and it doesn’t need a board of executives in suits to preserve it. 

According to her, the residents who live in the park – some families for centuries – are the true stewards of Gatineau Park who will continue to protect the “crown jewel” of the National Capital Region (NCR).

“Most of the protection up here has certainly been by the residents, especially those that have been living here for, you know, sometimes two or three generations,” said Bryant, who has lived on Meech Lake for 41 years. Her late husband’s family has been in Gatineau Park since the 1920s, and she said that residents – not the National Capital Commission (NCC) – are the ones who regularly pick up garbage along the ditches and monitor late-night activities in parking lots, beaches and trails. 

Bryant’s comments come a week after Pontiac MP Sophie Chatel tabled her Gatineau Park Protection Bill in the House of Commons. The bill aims to establish official park boundaries, protect its ecological integrity, prohibit the sale of public lands and allow the NCC to negotiate a right-of-first-refusal with private landowners who already live in the park. 

Private landowners in the park have taken issue with Chatel’s bill, namely the clause around negotiating a right-of-first-refusal with the NCC. Right-of-first-refusal means that if a landowner wants to sell property in the park, the NCC has the first chance to buy it. 

Bryant owns a double lot on Meech Lake road and only one of the lots contains a home. Under the bill’s provisions, Bryant would be forced to first offer her second lot up to the NCC, “at fair market value” by an expert’s appraisal before being sold to a third party.

“People have to wait 60 days every time they want to move a piece of land, or, if they want to sell it to their daughter or somebody, they have to wait 60 days to make sure the NCC decides it doesn’t want it,” said Bryant. “But it isn’t like there’s a lot of vacant land in the park. My assessment of this situation is somebody trying to gain points by saving the park. It doesn’t need saving.”

Bryant’s neighbour Christopher Frank agreed and said that, while protecting the Park from development is a good thing in principle, he’s mostly upset that there was no consultation from Chatel’s office with the landowners who have lived in the park for generations. He said Chatel and Senator Rosa Galvez’s bill didn’t take into account the rights of homeowners who have owned land in the park before it was ever named Gatineau Park.

“This would be a major change in our lives and a major impact on the value of our property and our ability to sell it,” said Frank about the proposed bill. “The right-of-first-refusal expropriates our ability to freely sell our home. The whole thing is very strange for those of us whose [family] members have been here since early in the 20th century. Why we would be treated differently than our neighbours in this part of the world, I just don’t understand.”

The bill, however, does contain exceptions for lands that have residences built on them. According to the bill, in cases where a residence is on land that a property owner wants to sell, the owner has to “notify the [National Capital] Commission of the owner’s intention to dispose of the immovable property. The notice must contain an expert’s appraisal of the immovable property’s value.”

But it’s not just the right-of-first-refusal that Frank has an issue with but a number of protections that he calls “overkill.”

“It’s not just our ability to resell our home, but that is – that’s the main thing, but it touches on so much beneath it,” added Frank. “Our right to use our neighborhood and the lake, for instance; restrictions on  who or what way you might use the lake. It’s a free country.”

The bill, if passed, would authorize the NCC to negotiate a right-of-first-refusal with the property owner, according to Chatel. If no such agreement is made, then the owner must let the NCC know that it intends to sell the property and must include an expert appraisal of the property. 

“If you intend to sell your property, there is a notification that is given to the NCC,” said Chatel about properties with residences on them. “That’s all. You just have to say, ‘Hey, I intend to sell my property.’”

Chatel’s bill was introduced in the Senate on Oct. 10 and will go to second reading sometime in the future. However, if a federal election is triggered, the bill will die on the order table, and Chatel will have to reintroduce it if she’s re-elected. 

Chatel has confirmed that she will run again in the Pontiac and, if elected, will reintroduce the bill. 

Chatel said that without protection, a legislative framework and defined park boundaries, the “crown jewel” of the National Capital Region will never be “a real park.”