| Historical Information |
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| This post is about a previous Session of Parliament. Any legislation here that did not receive Royal Assent has been terminated. |
C-76 – An Act to amend the Canada National Parks Act – sets up the ability for Jasper to take control of their own land use planning and development.
Background
So interesting thing I didn’t know about, it looks like because of Jasper’s location land use there falls under the jurisdiction of Parks Canada. They don’t actually have the ability to make their own decisions on land use/zoning/etc. There’s been talks for a while about giving them the ability to make their own choices for land use, but it was ultimately the wildfires last year that really kicked this off. The Liberals decided it would help speed up the rebuilding process if Jasper didn’t have to go through Parks Canada on everything, so C-76 was finally created.
Changes to the Canada National Parks Act
This one’s pretty straightforward. Instead of a whole pile of legislation carving out Jasper as its own thing there’s just an exemption to the normal regulations in the Canada National Parks Act that allows them to do what they want. Of course this also means that if they wanted to do so the federal government could revoke the abilities they’re giving Jasper here. That’s noteworthy because municipalities fall under the jurisdiction of the provinces, so if Alberta ever does something in Jasper that the feds don’t like they can put back some or all of these regulations.
This Act also doesn’t come into effect until Jasper passes its own by-laws regarding planning and development. They’ll also need to settle anything required between them and the province.
Progress of C-76
Easy one here. Back in September C-76 was given unanimous consent to just count as completing every step in the House and move straight to the Senate. The Senate then passed it as is, and on October 3 it was given Royal Assent.
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