The McGuinty government’s decision to slam the door shut on overnight stays at several provincial parks in northeastern Ontario has been met with widespread outrage.

Parks users and politicians alike say they are incensed the Liberal government unilaterally eliminated overnight camping at nine parks with no consultation.

“It’s yet another attack on Northern Ontario. Why don’t they pick on someone else for a change,” New Democrat MPP Gilles Bisson (Timmins—James Bay) told the Star.

Kapuskasing Mayor Al Spacek, who is president of the 114-member Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities, said northern politicians are “livid.”

“We are very upset. It is again a major policy decision that has been made arbitrarily out of Queen’s Park,” Spacek said. “In my time in politics I have not seen the groundswell of push-back coming from the grassroots level (as he has) from people on this decision.”

The provincial parks — Caliper Lake, Fushimi Lake, Greenwater, Ivanhoe Lake, Mississagi, Obatanga, René Brunelle, Tidewater, The Shoals — are victims of the government’s cost-cutting initiative. Springwater in the south is also losing overnight camping.

The Ministry of Natural Resources said a total of 37 parks in the north will continue to offer overnight camping for the 2013 season.

Ontario has 334 provincial parks that attract about 9.5 million visits annually.

“In northern Ontario we don’t need any more daytime-use only parks. We can go out our back door and go for a hike or walk, or a boat ride. What we don’t have is parks where we can camp,” said Malcolm MacDonald, a spokesperson for the newly formed Friends of Ivanhoe Lake Provincial Park.

“The campers are very, very upset with this whole thing,” said MacDonald, a retired Ministry of Natural Resources parks supervisor, who has camped at Ivanhoe often.

Natural Resources Minister Michael Gravelle told the Star the “tough” decision should save about $6 million in operating and capital costs. He cited expensive upgrades and a low number of visits for contributing to the decision to make the parks daytime only.

“Our decision was made on low visitation rates . . . certainly lower campground occupancy as well as the need for significant infrastructure (improvements) in a number of those parks so there will be a significant saving to the ministry on an operational basis but also in terms of capital needs in the future,” he said.

Spacek said Gravelle’s reasoning doesn’t hold water since the number of visits to René Brunelle Provincial Park near Kapuskasing have increased each year for the past three years and this year boasted 15,000, which he says is “very good.”

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The parks announcement was particularly a bitter pill given that northern Ontario is still reeling from the government’s decision to kill the 110-year-old Ontario Northland train service between Toronto and Cochrane.

Spacek and some other northern mayors are going to Queen’s Park on Oct. 18 to meet with Gravelle to encourage him to reverse the decision.