Potential national urban park designation process in Halifax passes key milestone, receives funding

Every Canadian would love to have access to a park nearby. The Government of Canada continues to invest in accessible natural areas in Canada’s largest urban centres to bring the benefits of time spent in nature to more and more Canadians across the country.

Today, Ms. Lena Metlege Diab, Member of Parliament for Halifax West, on behalf of the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, announced the achievement of three key milestones through the National Urban Parks Program toward the designation of a potential national urban park at Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes in Halifax.

An ongoing collaboration with the local Indigenous communities, this project includes lands and waters that are historically and culturally significant to the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia and their ancestors who have stewarded them for millennia.

Parks Canada has now completed a pre-feasibility report showing that the candidate site has met Parks Canada’s initial requirements of the national urban park process. With this key milestone, Parks Canada and its partners, including the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia, the Halifax Regional Municipality, the Province of Nova Scotia, and the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, are now advancing to the planning phase of the project, focused on the partner lands. The planning stage represents an important opportunity to further refine and plan key park components, including governance models and park boundaries as well as detailed planning for trails, public access, and infrastructure needs.

To launch the project planning phase, the Parks Canada National Urban Parks Program is providing more than $2.1 million which will enable the province of Nova Scotia, the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, and the Halifax Regional Municipality to assess opportunities for the conservation of nature and enhanced access to urban greenspace in Halifax.

The network of protected areas in Canada, including new national urban parks, plays an important role in the recovery of species at risk and in helping to mitigate the impacts of the changing climate. The Government of Canada is committed to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and to collaborating with partners, stakeholders, and other levels of government, to protect biodiversity and to conserve 25 percent of lands and waters in Canada by 2025, and 30 percent by 2030.