Percy Sparks

Roderick Percy Sparks (1880–1959) was a Canadian manufacturer and environmentalist. He is widely credited with being the Father of Gatineau Park.

Born on March 7, 1880 in Ottawa, Canada, Sparks was the great grandnephew of Ottawa pioneer Nicholas Sparks. Educated at the Ottawa Public School, and the Ottawa Collegiate Institute, he was a garment manufacturer as well as president and executive committee member of various commercial associations, including the Canadian Manufacturers Association.

He served as the president/commodore of the Britannia Boating Club from 1910-13.

The Ottawa Journal of March 30, 1959 credited Percy Sparks with being the “father of the Gatineau Park,” adding that, as chairman of the Federal Woodlands Preservation League from 1937 to 1947, he “brought about the first purchase by the Dominion government of what is now […] Gatineau Park.” On May 12, 1955, the same paper said that “Mr. Sparks and his associates are generally credited with ‘selling’ the late Prime Minister Mackenzie King the idea of setting aside a national recreation area on the outskirts of Canada’s capital.”

A noted conservationist, tariff expert and successful businessman, he waged battles against government corruption in the 1920s, playing a key role in the 1926 Customs Investigation, and defended workers' rights in the 1930s, helping Conservative MP Harry Stevens establish the Select Committee on Price Spreads. He also dedicated nearly a quarter century of his life to building a park in the Gatineau Hills.

As chairman of the research committee of the Federal Woodlands Preservation League, Sparks had urged the Bennett government to commission a survey of the Gatineau forests in a letter of April 3, 1935 to Interior Minister T. G. Murphy. The importance of the resulting study was acknowledged in the 1952 annual report of the Federal District Commission:

“The government, having been concerned about the cutting of the forest cover in the Kingsmere area, authorized an extensive survey of this matter and the findings were published in the Lower Gatineau Woodlands Survey. [In 1938], as a result of the above-mentioned report, the Commission commenced the development of Gatineau Park by the acquisition of land.”

While chairman of the League, Sparks also wrote several documents that were crucial to the creation and initial development of Gatineau Park. They include a December 13, 1937 memorandum to the office of Prime Minister King outlining a proposal for creating the park; a preliminary master plan proposal for Gatineau Park sent to the Federal District Commission on October 9, 1945; and a 1946 memorandum to the Standing Senate Committee on Tourist Traffic.

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