Thank you and good afternoon, Madam Chair, distinguished members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen.
It’s an honour to be with you today to share how Parks Canada Agency protects and presents nationally significant examples of Canada’s natural and cultural heritage, including one of Canada’s smallest and most visited national parks, Prince Edward Island National Park.
I’ll first provide you with a brief contextual summary of the characteristics of our national park and the environment in which it is located. I will then share with you examples of how we work with our local stakeholders and communities to address challenges and explore opportunities of mutual interest.
Established in 1937, Prince Edward Island National Park encompasses an area of approximately 22.2 square kilometres. This includes 16.4 square kilometres of land that has already been protected under the Canada National Parks Act, as well as an additional 5.8 square kilometres of land on the Greenwich peninsula, which will be protected under the act within the next 10 years. An additional 13.3 square kilometres of federal crown land adjacent to the park is also managed by Parks Canada. Since the 1950s, Parks Canada has been acquiring these adjacent lands in order to buffer the park from development and to compensate for the loss of coastal lands that are eroding from natural causes.
The park hugs the north shore of Prince Edward Island in three distinct sections: Cavendish in the west, Brackley-Dalvay in the centre, and Greenwich in the east. Parcels of adjacent federal crown land in the Cavendish area of the park are leased to local farmers to farm, contributing to the cultural landscape characteristic of Prince Edward Island.
Known for its warm sandy beaches, beautiful scenery, network of trails, and popular campgrounds, Prince Edward National Park is a major tourism attraction on Prince Edward Island. The beaches in the park are the premier attraction and have been valued as recreational areas for more than a century. The park also includes Dalvay-by-the-Sea National Historic Site, as well as Green Gables Heritage Place, the inspiration for Lucy Maud Montgomery’s internationally renowned Anne of Green Gables. On average, the park hosts more than 450,000 visitors annually, concentrated within an 8- to 10-week period during the peak summer season.
Developing new and innovative programs and services allows more Canadians, including youth and newcomers, to experience the outdoors and learn about our environment and history. For example, hiking and cycling have increased in popularity within the park with the development of an extensive network of trails.
As Canada’s largest provider of natural and cultural tourism, Parks Canada’s destinations form important cornerstones for Canada’s local, regional, and national tourism industry, and this is certainly true in Prince Edward Island. Given that tourism represents close to 7% of the gross domestic product of P.E.I.’s seasonal economy, Parks Canada plays a critical role within this sector.
I would now like to share with you examples of how we work with our local stakeholders and communities to address challenges and explore opportunities of mutual interest.
There are two partner Mi’kmaq first nations on Prince Edward Island. The Lennox Island and the Abegweit bands together have incorporated as the Mi’kmaq Confederacy of Prince Edward Island to work on their behalf and advance their common goals.
Parks Canada is privileged to partner with the Mi’kmaq Confederacy through an memorandum of understanding. We enjoy a highly collaborative relationship where we cost-share a salaried position, meet regularly to discuss issues and opportunities, and define joint projects to undertake.
One of the more recent high-profile joint initiatives is the very successful travelling exhibition entitled “Ni’n na L’nu: The Mi’kmaq of Prince Edward Island”. The Canadian Museum of History has honoured this exhibition by including it in its prestigious international travelling exhibition catalogue.
Another example is the staging of Mi'kmaq Legends in the park, a performance-based interpretative experience developed and delivered by first nations youth.
In 2013, Parks Canada created the Parks Canada-Tourism Industry Association of Prince Edward Island advisory group to facilitate effective and timely communications, as well as to provide a regularized forum for strategic engagement. All new visitor experience investment initiatives are developed within a fully integrated framework.
A prime example of that approach is the recently completed Robinsons Island multi-use trail. This initiative saw the decommissioning of an old 1950s campground, restoration of the land, and the creation of an eight-kilometre looped trail designed to attract young families. The trail includes mountain biking technical features, interactive interpretive nodes conveying Mi’kmaq connection to the land, key natural and cultural heritage features, and stakeholder stories.
The trail was designed in consultation with the Mi’kmaq Confederacy of Prince Edward Island, stakeholders, and special interest groups such as Cycling PEI, the International Mountain Bicycling Association, Island Nature Trust, and Nature PEI.
We have engaged youth groups, including the Girl Guides and environmental study students from the University of Prince Edward Island, as volunteers in the planting of thousands of tree seedlings as part of the effort to restore the Acadian forest on Robinsons Island and throughout the national park.
In 2015, Parks Canada entered into a memorandum of understanding with the University of Prince Edward Island. Undergraduate students, faculty, and graduate researchers in the areas of environmental studies, climate change, and sustainable design engineering engage with our staff to use the park as a living laboratory. Together with the university, we continue to explore how we may build on this very successful collaboration to enable evidence-based decisions that advance adaptive management and resilience of cultural and natural ecosystems in a dynamic coastal environment.
Finally, Madam Chair, I will address the ecological integrity of the national park.
Maintenance and restoration of ecological integrity is the first priority of national parks. Studies have indicated that between 1990 and 2010, due to coastal erosion, we have lost approximately 9.3 hectares of gazetted parkland per year, for a total of 186 hectares. The term “coastal squeeze” best describes the impact of a coastline that is migrating inland while infrastructure remains static.
Prince Edward Island National Park is reducing the impacts of visitation and infrastructure footprint by concentrating investments on improving those facilities most used by visitors or required for operations, repurposing or decommissioning the remainder, and restoring the land.
Since 2008, the infrastructure footprint has been reduced in the forested ecosystem by 156,000 square metres and in the coastal ecosystem by 3,200 square metres.
Parks Canada is currently in the process of consulting with Canadians on a new 10-year Prince Edward Island National Park management plan.
Parks Canada's many partners and stakeholders, including the Mi'kmaq first nations, have helped to create the draft plan, which sets clear strategic direction for the management and operation of the park by articulating a vision, key strategies, and objectives. It recognizes that improved park stewardship can only be truly achieved by working together, by creating connections for visitors and Canadians to the natural and cultural environment, and by embracing new and innovative approaches to sharing the stories of the people, the sea, and the land.
Once consultations have been completed in the fall of 2016, the plan will be revised and the final version will be tabled in Parliament in the spring of 2017.
In conclusion, Madam Chair, I trust that committee members will acknowledge that while Prince Edward Island National Park is a small national park within a small province, it undoubtedly has a large span of influence and consequence from both the cultural and natural heritage protection and the socio-economic perspectives.
Canada's national parks and national historic sites enable Canadians to experience their rich history and heritage in a special way, and these will play a big part in the celebration of Canada's 150th birthday next year.
Thank you for the privilege of presenting today.