98% of water bodies inaccessible to the Quebec public: study

People try to beat the 33C temperatures at Verdun Beach as the heat wave continues Friday, June 19, 2020, in Montreal. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)

Based on a study showing that 98 percent of lakes and rivers in southern Quebec are inaccessible to the public, the Fondation Rivières is calling on the government to preserve the few existing public access points to water but also to create new ones.

Quebec, with its 500,000 lakes and 4,500 rivers, is known for its unrivalled abundance of freshwater bodies.

However, the vast majority of lakes and rivers in the southern part of the province are inaccessible to the public.

A study by researchers Sébastien Rioux and Rodolphe Gonzalès of the University of Montreal, released on Tuesday, shows that the shores of three out of ten bodies of water in southern Quebec are entirely privatized, with no public access to the water, and that the shores of three out of four lakes are at least 90 per cent privatized.

An analysis of 624 bodies of water and 56,729 waterfront lots in 104 municipalities shows that 98 per cent of lakes and rivers in southern Quebec are inaccessible to the public.

“We cannot go back and correct decades of neglect, so we must facilitate passage on foot on private land to restore access to lakes and rivers,” said Fondation Rivières executive director André Bélanger.

The organization, therefore, recommends that Municipal Affairs Minister Andrée Laforest draw inspiration from mechanisms adopted in other countries to resolve this situation.

The Fondation Rivières proposes three priority actions to be implemented:

Require municipalities to “compensate for any loss of existing access with equivalent access to the same body of water or territory.”

Allow “pedestrian access to water bodies on private land by adopting a framework law affirming the public nature of riverbanks, accompanied by concrete mechanisms to create new access points, including the creation of rights of way when private land is sold.”

Limit or exempt the civil liability of owners and managers of public access points in order to encourage them to allow pedestrians to cross their private land to access a body of water.

At a news conference on Wednesday morning, the Rivières Foundation pointed out that the Planning and Development Act requires municipalities to identify waterways “that are of recreational interest,” but municipalities are under no obligation to take concrete measures to protect access to them.

“It took the municipality of Sainte-Anne-des-Lacs two years to convince residents to allow it to develop a small beach for the benefit of 50 per cent of residents who have no access to the lakes in their municipality. With a clear framework law, this type of conflict could be avoided,” argued Canot Kayak Quebec executive director Emmanuel Laferrière.

Section 920 of the Civil Code of Quebec states that “any person may travel on watercourses and lakes, provided that they can legally access them, do not infringe on the rights of riparian owners, do not set foot on the banks and comply with the conditions of use of the water”.

Quebec law is contradictory in many respects, according to one of the authors of the study, Sébastien Rioux, a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Montreal, because it recognizes “a right to use water, but does not provide for any right of access.”

Access to bodies of water, laments the Rivers Foundation, is becoming increasingly difficult due to the privatization of riverbanks, but also because “more and more municipalities are imposing excessive fees” or regulations that prevent non-residents from going to beaches or riverbanks, which further hinders access.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on June 18, 2025.