Public Parks Are PUBLIC

Sean Gillis

Substack- October 23, 2025

Originally published here

Shared in full with the author's permission

Selling public parks is not just foolish, but an attack on the social contract

West Mabou Beach Provincial Park is in danger of being privatized. For the third time, developer Cabot Golf is trying to buy protected public land. Cabot already built several golf courses in the area, with luxury lodgings and high-end dining.

I’m crushed and angry that Cabot is once again trying to buy public land - a beautiful park - for a private golf course. Locals have started another campaign to protect the park, for everyone. I often hear people ask ‘well, what can I do?’ Fighting for this park seems pretty obvious.

West Mabou Beach Provincial Park, in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Photo by Philomena Hughes

Selling a public park or even part of a public park for a private golf course would not just be bad policy and bad for the environment. It would be a betrayal of the basic social contract - the deal - between government and people. There is a basic, long-standing idea that government exists in part to provide people and communities with public goods and services, including public spaces. Anyone can visit West Mabou Beach to hike, picnic, or swim, for free. Selling even part of that beautiful place means less public land for everyone.

Rich people already have access to nicer places that most people. That’s part of the deal, I guess. When I visit Cape Breton, I load up my kids in the mini-van. I stay in campgrounds (including public parks) or small motels. I can’t afford to eat, drink, stay, or golf at Cabot. Most people can’t - by definition luxury must exclude the broad public. Cabot Golf already has two full courses plus a par-3 course less than 30 minutes from West Mabou. I can’t afford Cabot. You probably can’t afford Cabot. So Cabot Golf’s proposal comes down to this: one more place for the well-off, at the direct expense of everyone else. One more place for Cabot to make money, at the expense of everyone else. A private golf course is completely, entirely different from a public space. A private golf course excludes most people, while a public park is free and open to all.

Cabot is trying for a third time to buy this public land, a clear indication that its valuable. They want to take this land and all the good things about it - the sound of the ocean, the views - and sell that experience. This is the good stuff, these are things people pay for: views, nature, the wind in your hair, the sun on your back, the birds in the trees, that crisp autumn air, the freshness, the relaxation. Right now that experience is available for free, for everyone at West Mabou Beach.

Let’s be blunt: Cabot Golf is greedy. They care much more about their profits and their customers than regular people. They want to make money off something - beautiful coastal views - that currently belong to every Nova Scotian. What has Cabot done to create that beauty? How can it become only theirs, only available for their customers? Cabot Golf wants to take somewhere special, somewhere natural, and have it all for themselves. They don’t want to share. That our government may be considering this is appalling. Let Cabot Golf search for private land like every other private citizen (or at least folks who can still afford a home).

That Cabot can even offer - repeatedly - to buy part of a public park indicates their privilege and connections. How might a private resident go about buying a provincial park? It’s an absurd question - they can’t, there is no regular pathway. There should be no pathway. And that is what is most enraging here. Once again, a private company, a private company that caters heavily to rich visitors, has a pathway to government that ordinary people and small organizations can’t even imagine.

I believe the word for this is oligarchy. That a public good - land, a provincial park, a protected space - might be for sale makes everything worse.

Where is the breaking point where the rich and elite wake up and notice the damage they are doing? The damage to trust and community. Regular, working people like and deserve some nice things every now and again. West Mabou Beach is a beautiful place. West Mabou Beach is for everyone. Keep it that way.

Fight this. It’s insulting and demeaning. Tell Cabot Golf the blunt truth: you are greedy and arrogant. You don’t deserve this place and we, the people, told you that twice. Tell the government, again, that this land is ours.