Windsor Star: Ojibway park vision unclear to many locals

Ojibway park vision unclear to many locals: report

Report states the lack of direction from Parks Canada has damaged the federal agency locally.

Author of the article:

By Brian MacLeod

Published Aug 05, 2026

A new report intended to help chart a course for a national urban park in Windsor urges federal officials to provide clarity about the process due to confusion among residents about the vision for the park.

The plan to pursue the Ojibway National Urban Park in Windsor was announced in 2021 and confirmed in the federal government’s Force of Nature Strategy earlier this year. The federal government plans to create 15 urban national parks by 2030.  Only one urban park exists at the moment, Toronto’s Rouge Valley, which was designated in 2015.  

Windsor’s Ojibway park will be the first under a process being developed by Parks Canada, but progress has been slow, the report says.  

One of the major stumbling blocks, which has recently been addressed, is ownership of the lands in the Ojibway park, which consists of municipal, provincial and federal properties.  

It was originally thought all lands would be transferred to the federal government, but Parks Canada has said recently that need not be the case.  Those lands include the Ojibway Prairie Provincial Nature Reserve.   

Called National Urban Parks, Lessons for Policy, Connectivity and Community, the report was published this month by the Centre for Cities under the University of Windsor’s National Urban Park Hub. The issue of land ownership “contributes to public uncertainty as to whether the program will continue, and if so in what form,” the report, said.  

The report cites a comment by Mayor Drew Dilkens during a special council meeting in November with local MPs and MPPs.“I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I’m not entirely sure what Parks Canada is doing,” he said.  

But there is still no clarity on what responsibilities landowners will have in the national park.  The report said the lack of direction from Parks Canada has damaged the federal agency locally.   

“This lack of clarity has caused harm to Parks Canada’s reputation and provided challenges to relationship-building in the candidate community, all of which is particularly damaging for a federal agency that already has much ground to gain due to the impacts on many communities of its historical acts.” 

Anneke Smit, director of the University of Windsor’s Centre for Cities, and one of the primary authors of the report, said comments about Parks Canada in the report are intended to help the agency learn how to create a process that will be followed by other cities seeking to create a national urban park.  

“The point in raising these things here is not to call out faults or mistakes of individuals or organizations. It’s to learn from them and be able to move forward,” Smit told the Star. The report notes “Windsor’s process has many eyes on it,” since other candidate cities will learn from the process.   

Those cities so far include Edmonton, Halifax, Saskatoon, Victoria, Winnipeg and Montreal.  

In March 2025, then-environment minister Steven Guilbeault announced plans to create Ojibway National Urban Park with $36.1 million in start-up funds over five years along with $4.6 million annually for operational support. 

Aside from the land ownership concerns, there are other issues slowing down the process, including the lack of explanation of what is going to change once the park is designated, according to the report. There’s also concern about the lack of experience at Parks Canada about how to consult with cities given that parks are usually created in more distant locations.

The report also touches on issues with consultation with First Nations, given a fraught history with national parks, involving displacement that led to Indigenous peoples excluded from traditional lands.  There are five First Nations involved in planning the park: Caldwell First Nation, Walpole Island First Nation, Aamjiwnaang First Nation, Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation and Chippewas of the Thames First Nation.  

In March 2025, Caldwell First Nation and Parks Canada reached an agreement to explore shared governance of the park.  

Earlier this month, Julie Aviva Dabrusin, minister of the environment, climate change and nature, came to Windsor to announce that 19 hectares of the former Windsor Raceway land abutting Ojibway Prairie had been acquired for the planned park. At the time, officials said the park had entered the final stages of a “designation process” but no opening date was set. 

Creating a national park usually takes about 10 years, so the timeline is not that surprising, said Smit.  

“I think more clarity and more being out front about what the process actually looks like from Parks Canada’s perspective would help the community understand what’s happening,” she said. The Star contacted Parks Canada but no one was available to talk about the report before the print deadline.  

Under federal regulations there is a duty to consult with First Nations development of lands that could affect legal or claimed treaty rights.  

“Partnership building and consent from First Nations, in particular, is front and centre in the policy and in their approach, and that is slow, healing relationship-building work,” Smit said.  “The report makes five recommendations focusing on “equity-driven, connected urban ecosystems rather than symbolic designations.” 

They call for clarity throughout the process on the purpose, benefits, selection criteria, and federal commitments before cities are chosen, a clear and robust city selection process, and the establishment of strong and clear governance, accountable partnerships, and meaningful integration into the fabric of the city once a site is confirmed.  

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