The Ecology Action Centre is happy to see the Nova Scotia government say no to a golf course being built on a provincial park in West Mabou. However, they want the province to do more to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Raymond Plourde is the Senior Wilderness Coordinator for the EAC. He says that the park’s contribution to the environment is immense and building a golf course on it would be the wrong decision.
“To have it privatized for an American billionaire’s vanity project is offensive in the extreme and inappropriate, given that the park is doing its job in contributing to halting the incredible decline in biodiversity,” said Plourde.
Plourde wants the government to amend the provincial parks act to better protect them from private industry. The act allows buildings and businesses to be built on park lands so long as they are “for the convenience or benefit of the public” according to the legislation.
Plourde says that the province had souvenir shops or snack shacks in mind when creating that portion of the act, not massive golf courses.
“The provincial government now needs to quickly amend the provincial parks legislation to provide greater protection for our provincial parks, and to reduce the broad discretion that is built into the act that developers keep trying to exploit,” said Plourde.
He feels that without the proper legislation, more and more cases of private industry looking to build on our parks will happen.
In the meantime, Plourde thinks that Nova Scotians, particularly the residents of Inverness Country, deserve an apology from the company that tried to build on its protected land.
“They’ve caused a lot of upset in the local community, and right across the province, and those hurt feelings, those feelings of division and anger, on either side, that they’ve created will linger for many, many years to come,” said Plourde.
