Canada National Parks Act

The Canada National Parks Act (French: Loi sur les parcs nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian federal law that regulates protection of natural areas of national significance. As of March 2019, the Canada National Parks Act extended federal protection to 47 national parks and park reserves across the country covering more the 300,000 km² of habitat.^[1][2] The current Canada National Parks Act received royal assent on October 20, 2000 and has been amended since.^[3] The first national parks act in Canada was created in 1887 shortly following the creation of the world's first national park, Yellowstone National Park, in the United States. In 1911, under a renewed national parks act, Canada became the first country in the world to establish their own national parks service.^[4]

Over the course of its history, the predecessor National Parks Act struggled to define the primary intention of national parks by trying to balance parks as places both of conservation and public leisure.^[5] Remarks made by the Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change in 2018 signalled a renewed commitment by the Parks Canada agency to ecological conservation within national parks.^[6] Early legislation in Canada applied exclusionary policies and forcibly removed Indigenous peoples off lands in order to create national parks.^[7] With developments in the legal recognition of Aboriginal title and rights in Canada, provisions have been included within the National Parks Act to extend the right of traditional harvesting activities within national park reserves with some cases altering park management to be shared between the Parks Canada agency and local Indigenous groups.^[3]