An Expulsion from Lions Bay

Lions Bay, courtesy of Stv via CC BY-NC-SA license.

The beach in Lions Bay is in relatively pristine condition, and overlooks the nearby Howe Sound. It is commonly visited in the summers as an escape for people who wish to swim and scuba in the area, and is overseen by Lions Bay itself, outside the scope of the Vancouver Parks Board.

Some residents have recently raised concern about the volume of traffic by outsiders, and the apparent lack of respect that non-residents seem to carry for the area. Their concerns range from full and unregulated parking areas to water conditions, and this group of residents wishes to ban access to non-residents by utilizing a gate system.

This raises a lot of concern for me as a Vancouver citizen. They already have a potentially unlawful restriction on non-resident scuba divers in the area, and what entitles a city exclusive access for it's residents? Though ownership of the beach lies with Lions Bay, anything below the high tide line, that is, the beach itself; resides on Crown land. From a legal standpoint, I doubt that Lions Bay will have any real property rights to the beach, and I hope that Crown pursues this argument aggressively, or other municipalities may follow suit in preventing access to their properties by non-locals. There is a slippery slope argument to this as well. If we allow Lions Bay to ban access to their beach, what is to stop other neighbourhoods from banning access to their beaches, ultimately increasing traffic at smaller beaches until they choose to cut off access themselves due to the increased volume?

From a moral standpoint, shouldn't Canadian, crown-owned beaches be for the enjoyment of all Canadians, local and non-local? I think it will be noted by the general public that the affluence of Lions Bay residents will not go unrecognized by the general public and it's hard not to perceive this movement as elitist and ignorant. Diversity has long been a cornerstone of our culture, and I take pity on those who do not believe that Canada is for the enjoyment of all.