Many of us remember loading up the car with family or friends for a fun day at Wasaga Beach. As a Provincial Park for over 50 years, the future of the world’s longest freshwater beach is now in jeopardy. The Ford Government has suggested selling off more than half of the sandy shoreline to the local township, which could lead to new developments. Selling provincial parkland isn’t easy, and it shouldn’t be. By law, the Minister must present plans to the Ontario Legislature for debate. However, the Ford government is bypassing these steps. Instead, it’s looking to change the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, which protects not only Wasaga Beach but all provincial parks. This government isn’t just ignoring established rules; they’re rewriting them altogether.
This shouldn’t be shocking since it follows a familiar pattern from the Ford Government. I recently took my son to an airshow over Lake Ontario. We spotted the Cinesphere, that unique movie theatre at Ontario Place. It was stripped down and surrounded by sand and construction materials. In what the Auditor General has labeled “not fair, transparent, or accountable,” this government has handed control of that land for 95 years to a foreign company to create a private mega-spa no one asked for. On top of that, taxpayers are footing much of the bill-2 billion dollars and counting on this plan while taxpayers will see just 1 billion dollars returned over 95 years through this lease agreement. It feels like they haven’t learned anything from leasing out Highway 407 for 99 years. And let’s not forget about the Greenbelt scandal where they disregarded rules to remove 7,400 acres from it, giving certain developers with insider connections free rein to build and profit enormously.
Time after time, this government has altered laws and weakened protections meant for public parks and lands we all enjoy. They seem intent on selling off our shared treasures so that only a select few can access them as private playgrounds. Just like those bulldozers clearing hundreds of trees for that private mega-spa at Ontario Place, there seems to be no end in sight for their actions. If we remain quiet about these issues, we risk losing our public treasures forever.
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Photo credit: Tom Rakocevic
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