No more Canadian Topographic maps? They'll stay.
So, as if going to a 40m contour-interval wasn't bad enough now, apparently, there will no longer be any NTS map sheets printed (i.e. the ones you use for skiing, climbing). Instead, you will apparently download a pre-made PDF (not the actual data, which would be useful) and then need to print it yourself (and to geta tearproof, full-sized printout would require buying special paper from somewhere and getting a print-shop to print out the map; likely this would cost far more than the $12-$20 of a typical NTS sheet).
UPDATE (October 13): the map office will not be closing; please see this CBC story.
Since the data to produce one of these maps costs somewhere between $100 and $600 (the difference in price being obviously a scam, presumably based upon popularity: the data costs $0 to reproduce) no local group will be able to afford to produce maps anytime soon (all the data for just Alberta currently would cost $161,833.05, according to the government's Web site).
In the US, the US Geographical Survey makes all their data freely-available. Hence, there are dozens of software packages (free and otherwise) available to produce maps, 3D fly-throughs, etcetera for all sorts of reasons and activities. If our National Topographic Survey people weren't so dead set on making lots of money off data whose collection was publically-funded in the first place, similar great software and services would exist here.
I can easily imagine local climbing/skiing groups producing their own topo maps (with a better contour-interval, too!) with free data; with data costing close to a hundred thousand dollars to cover the mountains, this seems highly unlikely, to say the least.
If you're going to write your MP to complain about this discontinuing of NTS map sheets, please also ask them why the raw data isn't free in the first place.
For more information, see MapsForCanadians.ca. There doesn't appear to be any information about this on the government Web sites, nor does Google-news have anything.