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Vowing to make Ottawa the “greenest, healthiest and best-connected metropolis within the nation,” mayoral candidate Catherine McKenney has promised to work to show the Nationwide Capital Greenbelt right into a nationwide city park if elected.

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“The Ottawa greenbelt is the biggest publicly owned greenbelt on the earth and but the greenbelt right here is commonly underneath the specter of growth,” McKenney stated Tuesday at a media convention held on the entrance to the Pinhey Forest strolling path close to the Nepean Sportsplex.

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McKenney (who makes use of they/them pronouns) promised to work with the Nationwide Capital Fee, Parks Canada and elected officers “in any respect ranges of presidency” to create the park.

“The greenbelt wraps round our metropolis and is accessible to everybody,” McKenney stated. “Turning the greenbelt right into a nationwide city park is environmentally accountable, protects farmland and can make sure the pathways, ski trails and inexperienced area that you just get pleasure from at this time might be right here for you and your loved ones perpetually.”

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The horseshoe-shaped Nationwide Capital Greenbelt surrounds central Ottawa with 200 sq. kilometres of forest, farmland, bush and swamp. It was established as a part of city designer Jacques Gréber’s 1950 plan for the capital and was meant to restrict growth to contained in the greenbelt and restrict city sprawl.

Critics say it’s solely made the issue of sprawl worse since growth jumped over the greenbelt and has continued unabated in Barrhaven, Orléans and Kanata. The greenbelt has lengthened commutes downtown and elevated the price of bringing metropolis companies comparable to sewer and water strains to far-flung developments. However McKenney dismissed these considerations.

“We all know that we have to shield inexperienced area on this metropolis,” McKenney stated. “It’s a manner of making certain that we halt nature loss on this metropolis and it’s an necessary a part of local weather motion.”

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“It is a once-in-a-lifetime alternative to benefit from the federal authorities’s program to ascertain nationwide city parks.”

In 2021, the federal authorities introduced a $130 million fund to ascertain nationwide city parks as a part of its dedication to conserving 25 per cent of land and inland waters and 25 per cent of marine and coastal areas by 2025, growing to 30 per cent by 2030.

The proposed nationwide city park would have advantages for the town tourism trade and assist draw new folks to the capital, McKenney stated.

“It might enhance high quality of life and entry to outside recreation and nature is a key issue when deciding to maneuver to Ottawa.”

McKenney plans one other announcement Thursday for his or her local weather motion plan, adopted by a “local weather rally” on Friday.

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Mark Sutcliffe, one among McKenney’s rivals for the mayor’s chair, dismissed the park plan as a “recycled concept that does not meaningfully sort out points going through Ottawa’s atmosphere.”

The greenbelt is federal land and outdoors the town’s accountability, he stated.

“There is no such thing as a query we should shield the greenbelt, and be sure that growth stays inside the city boundary,” Sutcliffe stated in an announcement responding to McKenney’s announcement. “However taking designated inexperienced area, and calling it one thing new, shouldn’t be severe local weather management.”

Sutcliffe’s personal local weather motion plan, launched in August, comprises greater than 25 factors, together with planting a million timber over the following 4 years, putting in extra electrical automotive and e-bike charging stations, and dealing with the NCC to additional develop and combine ski and climbing trails within the metropolis.

Canada’s first nationwide city park was created alongside the Rouge River in Toronto. Parks Canada has managed and labored to develop Rouge Nationwide City Park since 2011. It covers 79 sq. kilometres of rugged terrain with climbing trails and a campground, stretching from Lake Ontario north to the Oak Ridges Moraine. The park is accessible by transit and is free to make use of.