Provincial parks legislation needs update on pending protected land: NDP Press Release

January 30th, 2020 Halifax — The NDP Caucus will table legislation this upcoming session to strengthen the Provincial Parks Act to ensure pending protected land cannot be delisted without public consultation. The Wilderness Areas Protection Act already requires public consultation when changing designation of significant areas. “As we’ve seen with Owl’s Read more…

LISA ROBERTS: Owl’s Head – or whose list of protected areas will prevail?

MLA Lisa Roberts of the NDP speaks out about the delisting of Owls Head Provincial Park. Originally published on her site on January 16. republished with permission.

I am reluctantly re-emerging from a prolonged holiday break from social media. I know I’m not alone… January is now hitting with force and fury and a full calendar. 

I’m past due to comment on the Owl’s Head story that began emerging on Dec. 18.  That afternoon, I was on my way to a true pre-Christmas break – in a small off-grid cabin at Windhorse Farm – when I heard on CBC radio that the Nova Scotia Liberal cabinet had quietly removed Owl’s Head Provincial Park – as it’s been known since the 1980s – from a list of crown land parcels waiting permanent designation and protection as protected areas. (more…)

NDP’s Gary Burrill on Owls Head

Full Article Here>

Posted by Richard Bell
January 15, 2020, 11:50 AM
Eastern Shore Cooperator

Gary Burrill, head of the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party, told the Cooperator in a phone interview that the NDP intended to challenge the province’s decision to delist Owls Head Provincial Park and sell the land to a golf-course developer, particularly the use of secrecy.

Burrill also dismissed the province’s defense that the land had never actually been protected. “The public in general had a reasonable understanding that these were lands held by province in some kind of special category,” Burrilll said. “ Rankin decided to make a change, from whatever category the land was really in, a change he made without the kind of consultation, of discussion, of sharing information, that a decision of this magnitude always calls for.”

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