The National Capital Commission informs me as follows:
(a) The 1990 Gatineau Park master plan identified the need for the NCC to rationalize the legal boundary of the park to make it compatible with the various natural or geographic realities and to simplify daily management and park administration. As a result, several land parcels were severed from the park that no longer had a role in achieving the NCC’s mandate and were not essential within the context of the federal land use plan.
Following the 1993 construction of the Wakefield by-pass portion of autoroute 5, three (3) parcels of vacant land, totalling an area of approximately 50.35ha and also an improved parcel of approximately 62.5ha, which was being leased to Vorlage Ski and Recreation Area Limited, were severed from Gatineau Park. Vorlage Ski and Recreation Area Limited purchased the lands for the purposes of continuing the ski centre’s operations and activities.
The proposed disposals were consistent with the environmental impact assessment performed for the transaction and approval was given under the federal land use process.
The NCC has legislative authority for the disposal pursuant to subsection 15(2) of the National Capital Act and subsection 99(2) of the Financial Administration Act .
(b) On November 17, 1994, the NCC sold approximately 112.85 ha of land to the Vorlage Ski and Recreation Area Limited at a price of $296,616. This land sale comprised three parcels of vacant land, totaling approximately 50.35 ha, and of an improved parcel of leased land to the club totaling approximately 62.5 ha.
During the original transfer in 1994, an inadvertent omission of a part of the Vorlage Ski Club property occurred in the legal description. As a result, on November 8, 1995, the NCC completed the sale by transferring a parcel of vacant land having an area of approximately 0.3876 ha. It was sold for a nominal consideration to the Vorlage Ski and Recreation Area Limited since it was part and parcel of the original land description and the NCC had already been paid for the land.
(c) and (d) The NCC did not submit this sale to public consultation and did not inform the public about the sale since Vorlage Ski and Recreation Area Limited was the adjacent owner, it was already leasing over 55 % of the Vorlage Ski Club property and it owned the improvements situated on the leased parcel. These improvements were built by different tenants for purposes of operating the ski club, as early as 1963 and with NCC approval. However, the 1990 Gatineau Park master plan, which recommended a review of the park legal boundary in the context of a rationalization of park properties, was submitted to public consultations