No credit card? No smartphone? No parking: Parks Canada ditches cash option at Rideau Canal lots

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Chris Nicolas calls the Black Rapids Lock Station on the Rideau Canal one of Parks Canada’s “jewels.”

Nicolas, 79, used to visit twice a week to walk and fish from the dock.

But now he says he can’t visit at all. He has no way to pay the $2 parking fee since Parks Canada ditched its old machines that accepted coins in favour of a pay-by-phone app by global parking giant Indigo.

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“It says ‘Pay Here’, but there’s nothing on the pole but the sign,” said Nicolas.

“It says you can take a picture of a QR code or you can pay with the Indigo app. Well, I don’t have a credit card. I don’t have a smartphone. What am I supposed to do?”

Parks Canada charges for parking at five of the 23 lock stations it operates along the Rideau Canal: Black Rapids, Hartwells, Hogs Back, Edmonds, and Long Island. The old machines were replaced in the last year.

“Parks Canada’s decision to move parking fees management to the Indigo solution was made from necessity, given the presence of outdated parking machines at its sites in the Ottawa region,” the agency said in an emailed statement.

“The Indigo parking solution is the most cost-effective way for Parks Canada to collect parking fees, while minimizing the expense to Canadian taxpayers, as parking machines are prone to vandalism in these locations and are increasingly expensive to repair.”

Nicolas isn’t buying it. He says the policy restricts who can use the park and the app forces users to turn over personal information to an international company that can sell it to advertisers.

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“They have to provide us a cash option. This is a national park. It belongs to all of us,” he said.

“If you went to park at city hall and they wouldn’t let you pay in cash but forced you to turn over your data to a company that’s based in the European Union and outside Canada’s control, I’m sure they’d hear about it.”

Nicolas, who now walks with a cane and carries supplemental oxygen for his COPD, says he used to walk a 10-mile trapline near Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. After getting a degree in community development, he worked to establish social services with various First Nations across Canada, from the Maritimes to Haida Gwaii to the Arctic.

He’s lived in Ottawa since 1997. He carries a flip phone he’s had since 2002 and cut up all his credit cards a decade ago when a failed business left him with a six-figure debt.

“I don’t want anything to do with them. I don’t want to be tempted. It took me years to pay that off,” he said.

As he walks the grounds of Black Rapids he banters with Parks staff and points out the favourite spots he used to fish from.

“I used to be here twice a week until my health started to get a little worse a couple of years ago. Then once a month got whittled down to just twice a year.

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“When I visited here in August, I stopped at Timmies and made sure I had a handful of toonies to pay, but there was no machine.”

Parking at Black Rapids costs $2 for one hour, or $8 for the four-hour maximum. The sign has two QR codes, one to download the Indigo app and a second for “Flash’N’Go” direct payments.

The lot is patrolled by City of Ottawa bylaw officers. The city has its own agreement with Indigo, deputizing the company’s employees to issue city tickets in private lots.

“The parking lot at Black Rapids Lock Station does not fall under this agreement as it is located on federal property. As such, handwritten federal parking tickets are to be issued under the Government Property Traffic Regulations Act,” Roger Chapman, Director, By-law and Regulatory Services, said in an emailed statement.

A federal parking ticket costs $25, $50 for parking illegally in a disabled parking spot.

(Nicolas says he got a ticket at Black Rapids last August and is adamant that it was a City of Ottawa ticket and cost him $75.)

The city confirmed that all its parking machines accept coins. The National Capital Commission also accepts cash at all its machines.

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Paris-based Indigo Group operates parking lots in more than 500 cities in nine countries. A request for comment from Team Indigo Parking Canada went unanswered.

Parks Canada says you don’t need a smartphone to use the site, but you would still need a credit card.

“Parks Canada endeavours to create inclusive spaces where visitors with a variety of perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds feel a sense of belonging,” the agency said. “While the Indigo parking solution does require the visitor to have a data-enabled phone to access the application on the site, if users do not have a data plan there is the option to pre-book and pay with a credit card using a computer through the Indigo website.”

According to Statistics Canada, some 87 per cent of Canadians own a smartphone, but that figure drops to 54 per cent among seniors 65 and older.

Nicolas receives $1,600 a month in CPP and OAS payments and pays $1,250 in rent. He has no money for parking tickets, let alone a fancy cellphone.

“Being forced to spend hundreds of dollars on a smartphone and learn how to use it is not something that Parks Canada should be forcing me to do,” he said.

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