A Federal-Provincial agreement establishing Gulf Islands National Park Reserve of Canada (and the French form Réserve de parc national du Canada des Îles-Gulf) was signed 9 May 2003.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

"Gulf Islands National Park Reserve of Canada is comprised of properties on 16 islands and over 30 islets and reefs throughout the southern Strait of Georgia. The waters adjacent to park lands are also protected and managed by Parks Canada, including a 25-metre intertidal zone and extending 200 metres seaward from the natural boundary of the land. With a total area of 33 km2 it is Canada's 5th smallest national park. Gulf Islands National Park Reserve of Canada is a park in transition: Since 1995, an on-going program of land acquisition through the Pacific Marine Heritage Legacy initiative set the stage for the creation of one of Canada's most unique national parks. Some of the lands included in the national park were formerly part of the BC provincial parks system, including D'Arcy Island, Isle-de-Lis (Rum Island), Sidney Spit, Princess Margaret (Portland Island), Cabbage Island, Winter Cove, Beaumont, Prior Centennial and McDonald Provincial Parks, all donated by British Columbia to Canada, for the national park reserve. Brackman Island, donated to the national park reserve by The Nature Trust of British Columbia, had been an ecological reserve since 1989. Also Russell Island and portions of Prevost Island, and numerous islets and reefs....... " (excerpt from Parks Canada website, May 2004).
Gulf Islands National Park Reserve expanded, through purchase of 3 parcels/36 hectares on North Pender and Prevost Islands for $6.36M, and donation of 65 hecares from Environment Canada - the total area of the national park reserve is now 36 km2. (Parks Canada news releases, July & October 2012)

Source: included with note