Completing the national parks system

National park or reserve

Region represented

Region with interim protection

Region not represented

Lands withdrawn for future national park

National park areas of interest

Jasper

Pukaskwa

P.E.I.

Mealy Mountains

Canada’s national parks system is 69 per cent complete.

In 1968 the federal government announced that it wanted to create 40 to 60 new national parks as part of a strategy to better protect Canada’s environment. Canadians were calling for federal action to deal with a number of growing threats, such as pollution and loss of natural areas, and an expanded national parks system was part of the solution.

Parks Canada decided to use a scientific approach for identifying candidate national parks. The department divided Canada into 39 distinct natural regions and received a mandate to establish at least one national park in each of these regions. Each new national park is designed to capture the broad range of physical, biological and geographical themes that define its region.

To date national parks are present in 27 of the 39 regions. Park proposals in the remaining 12 regions of Canada are at various stages of progress. In September 2002, the Liberal government made a big step forward when they promised to create 10 new national parks and expand three existing parksas part of their five-year National Parks Action Plan.

Nature Canada is passionately committed to completing Canada’s national parks system. We currently see four new parks, in particular, as top priority: Mealy Mountains in Labrador, Northern Bathurst Island in Nunavut, the Manitoba Lowlands, and Yukon’s Wolf Lake.