Protection requested
for Technoparc Ecosystem
Green Coalition asks Leaders of Canada’s political parties to pledge Permanent Protective Status
April 3, 2025
Green Coalition’s Technoparc Team is writing an important letter to each of the Leaders of Canada’s political parties. The text of Green Coalition’s letter to each of the Leaders is the same, as follows:
April 3, 2025
Honourable Leader:
We at Green Coalition, a non-partisan Montreal environmental organization, are asking you to do something well within the power of the Canadian government — to save Montreal’s last remaining wetland ecosystem, the Technoparc marshes, meadows and forests! We ask now for your pledge that you will do so, should you be successful on April 28.
The Canadian Government will grant permanent protective status to the Technoparc Ecosystem north of Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.
Most fortunately, you and the federal government can act boldly to protect the ecosystem on Montreal Island without spending a single cent of public money. Why? Because the Technoparc ecosystem is public land held in trust by the Government of Canada on behalf of all Canadians.
Let us explain.
North of Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport lies Montreal’s very last unprotected ecosystem, 215 hectares of irreplaceable wildlife habitat with wetlands, meadows and forests.
The airport authority, Les Aéroports de Montréal (ADM), leases 167 hectares of the ecosystem from the Government of Canada. Despite an overwhelming public consensus to preserve this exceptional ecosystem, the ADM has nonetheless failed to see how important this issue is to civil society.
On Saturday, March 22, the Montreal Gazette published an important article: “Mayors call on Ottawa to stop airport expansion to protect green space – Civic leaders team up to call attention to issue involving federally-owned land” (Montreal Gazette, Michelle Lalonde, March 22, 2025). The report explains: “Montreal leaders from the cities of Dorval and Montreal joined forces Friday to call on the federal government to stop a planned airport expansion into federally-owned green space that they want to see preserved as the [enlarged] Parc-Nature des Sources.”
The article gives a sharp picture of how extensive public support is for preservation of the ecosystem: “Dorval Mayor Marc Doret, St. Laurent borough Mayor Alan DeSousa and Alex Norris, the city of Montreal’s executive committee member responsible for large parks, as well as former Quebec environment minister Clifford Lincoln, held a joint news conference to call attention to the issue in anticipation of a federal election call expected this weekend.”
The Montreal Metropolitan Community, as well as 25 regional cities and boroughs, representing 1.4 million citizens, have passed resolutions in favour of the conservation project. And, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke has also called for the protection of the Technoparc ecosystem. Groups like Technoparc Oiseaux, Green Coalition, Mères au front and more than 200 scientists have gathered massive public support for the 215-hectare ecosystem.
The ADM has argued that it needs the land in question to build a “decarbonization” plant. But why destroy an ideal carbon sink in the name of decarbonizing? That makes no sense, and one of us, Mr. Clifford Lincoln, has made precisely that argument to the Montreal public on March 26: “Airport’s arguments on nature park don’t fly”
During the present federal election campaign, Green Coalition is asking you to make the public pledge that appears at the beginning of this letter.
We seek this public commitment from you now. And we will be asking the other prime ministerial candidates to make this same commitment as well.
Biodiversity, nature and climate change concern voters. The symbolic effect of such a pledge cannot be underestimated.
Sincerely Yours,
Green Coalition Technoparc Team:
Clifford Lincoln, former environment minister
Sylvia Oljemark, founding president, Green Coalition
Carole Reed, president, Green Coalition
David Fletcher, cofounder, vice-president, Green Coalition
Patrick Barnard, journalist, Green Coalition
Feature image: wetlands of Technoparc Monarch Fields, 2021, by Kevin Verreault
Other articles on the environment
The Green Coalition represents more than 80 citizen groups dedicated to the protection and restoration of the Environment. Founded in 1988.
What is behind our government’s shocking foot dragging on the no brainer issue? Please, will someone tell me the real reason? There has to be one that we are not aware of, otherwise this precious piece of nature would have been protected a long time ago!