Health Publications

Loophole Parks - Ontario premier's unusual policy to create national parks - Brief Article

Sierra, Sept, 1999 by Reed McManus

When Premier Mike Harris proposed in March that Ontario create 378 new parks, the announcement seemed to end a fractious two-year debate over the fate of 177,000 square miles of public land in his sprawling province. The expansive plan will increase protected lands by a third, to 12 percent of Ontario's total public acreage. Harris also declared that logging companies have agreed to stay out of several prized old-growth pine forests. "This is Ontario's living legacy," beamed Harris.

Within weeks, however, the plan's industry-friendly details emerged, convincing environmentalists that the forest fight is still on. Under Harris' plan, mineral exploration will be permitted under a system with the bizarre name "rotating protection." If a protected area is found to have high mineral potential, it could be swapped for another site unwanted by industry. "This means that one criterion for parks in Ontario is that they're not good for anything else," says Elizabeth May, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada.

The forest industry is equally pampered. In exchange for losing access to the new parks, loggers will be allowed to cut more intensively on the province's unprotected lands. That sobering news has prompted the Sierra Club of Canada to intensify its effort to convince Ontario to protect at least 30 percent of its public lands, this time without loopholes or exemptions.

For more information about the Sierra Club of Canada's campaign to protect Ontario forests, contact the Eastern Canada Chapter at 237-517 College St., Toronto, Ontario M6G 4A2; (416) 960-9606, or click on www.sierraclub.ca/eastern.>