Christopher Trider worked for the Department of Natural Resources (now known as Lands and Forestry) for 21 years. One of Christopher Trider’s roles during his time with the provincial government was “the assessment of coastal properties for acquisition by the province.” (Michael Gorman, CBC). Christopher has first-hand knowledge: “I know how hard [these coastal properties] are to find, I know how hard they are to come by. I know how important these properties are for the long-term public good.”
Christopher Trider worked as a park planner for 21 years. He designed well-loved coastal parks including MacCormacks Beach, Rainbow Haven, Lawrencetown, Pomquet Beach, and many more. I have received a number of messages from members of our group asking how to visit and access Owls Head Provincial Park. You deserve Read more…
In Court on April 1, Judge Brothers asked Jamie Simpson to explain:
If Canadian courts were to recognize the public trust doctrine, then future Ministers of Lands & Forestry could more easily be held responsible if they failed to consult the public on critical decisions that appeared to be in violation of the public trust.
Owls Head Goes to Court by Richard Bell
So it was not surprising that Judge Brothers asked Simpson to explain, “Why should I be the first judge in Canada” to rely on the public trust doctrine, given the reluctance thus far of other Canadian judges to cite the doctrine. Simpson went through statements of Canadian judges from a series of cases arguing for the benefits of incorporating public interest doctrine into Canadian law; from their perspective, the common law is not a fixed, unchanging entity, but something that has changed over time in order to deal with changes in the world at large.
I can answer Judge Brothers’s question: because somebody has to be the first.
Our Premier supposedly represents all Nova Scotians, so when he talks about “quality of life” and “sustainability” we assume he means for all citizens, not just the wealthy few. So I am struggling with his government’s determination to proceed with the sale of the park lands at Owls Head to Read more…
If you have a few seconds, read what the Nova Scotia Government tells the world on its official website about protected areas like Owls Head Provincial Park, site #694.
You will note at no point do they say ” we will secretly negotiate to remove selected protected areas in the plan when approached by lobbyists for wealthy American developers who feel they need golf courses instead of important ecological areas. “At no point do they say, ” we will lie about the history of any protected area we select, and sanitize our websites of any record of it to facilitate its sale for the profit and enjoyment of the few.”
Owls Head Provincial Park is one of the very few remaining pristine natural publicly owned coastal properties in Nova Scotia. Large undisturbed coastal areas are not well represented in the Protected areas plan so they are valuable to the biodiversity of our province. The park lands are home to an Read more…
On April 1, the government of Nova Scotia — Premier Rankin’s government — will be arguing against the people of the province in favour of a secret deal to sell the 700-acre public park at Owls Head to a private development company. They are essentially fighting the public interest in Read more…
Here’s another gem from the government website on Our Parks and Protected Areas Plan:
Our parks and protected areas contribute to our economy by:
So now, on April 1, we have to go to Court and fight the government, Premier Rankin’s government, to protect the public interest in the significant, large, coastal protected area referred to as Owls Head Provincial Park.
(more…)Bob Rosborough’s Feb. 20 opinion piece, “Sick of critics taking swings at golf development,” leaves out a number of significant aspects of the current debate on Owls Head. These aspects are important to understanding the widespread and growing public opposition to the secret removal of the property, referred to as Owls Head Provincial Park, from the Parks and Protected Areas Plan, and offering it for sale to a private developer.
Owls Head has a long history of protection that can be traced back to the intense public discussions of the mid-1970s around the creation of a potential national park on the Eastern Shore. The large, unique coastal Crown block survived that process as a natural environment park component in the Eastern Shore Seaside Park System. It was recognized as a park by public agencies for 45 years and was included in the final 2013 plan that identified the sites to be designated for protection to meet the province’s 13 per cent target as site #694.