The Editor,
On Oct. 1, Chelsea Mayor Brian Nolan appeared before a Senate committee studying Bill S-229, a bill intended to strengthen protection of Gatineau Park. Much of his testimony, however, had remarkably little to do with protecting the park.
When Senator Rosa Galvez asked about environmental degradation, Nolan replied: “Again, I’m going to come back to money.” He then talked about NCC [National Capital Commission] payments, a municipal road and parking fees.
La Pêche Mayor Guillaume Lamoureux asked the same question[and] spoke about algae blooms, wastewater, water quality, resilience and biodiversity. The contrast was hard to miss.
Nolan later told senators that Chelsea had “probably lost $25,000 or $30,000 of tax” when the NCC bought the former Dunnderosa golf course, adding: “We’ll never see that money again.”
But where was the rest of the calculation? He never told the committee what grant or compensation, if any, followed the federal acquisition. He also suggested Chelsea would receive only “40 cents on the dollar,” even though there is no general rule fixing compensation at 40 per cent.
Dunnderosa is a good example of the problem. The NCC bought the property for conservation. Nolan spoke of it mainly as taxable land Chelsea had lost.
Then he said the quiet part out loud: “We’re trying to protect our tax base here.”
There is nothing wrong with a mayor worrying about municipal revenues. But that is not the same thing as protecting Gatineau Park.
The contradiction becomes even clearer when Nolan argues that private properties should be excluded from the park’s legal boundary. Private land can remain privately owned, remain taxable by Chelsea and still lie within Gatineau Park. Nolan himself acknowledged that Chelsea collects property tax from private property in the park.
So, removing private land from the statutory boundary would not solve Chelsea’s financial complaint. It would simply redraw the park according to who owns each parcel. That makes little ecological sense. Habitats, watersheds and wildlife corridors do not stop at [boundary] lines.
Nolan summed up his own testimony better than any critic could: “It all comes back to money.” For far too much of Chelsea’s Oct. 1 presentation on S-229, it did.
Trevor Myles
Gatineau, QC
