NO to cottage lease…

NO to cottage lease extensions

160,000 people visit Rondeau park annually, to escape urban life and enjoy the beauty and tranquility that these unique beaches and Carolinian forest offer.

But that forest is becoming ecologically trashed. Walk down Evangeline St. to the beach in Spring, and you’ll see the expansive matting of invasive periwinkle choking out all the native underbrush. Jog along Lakeshore and you’ll smell the invasive Japanese honeysuckle, twisting around and choking the native trees and shrubs around it.

These are two examples of the many invasive plants (ditch lilies, Chinese bittersweet, etc. etc.)that have escaped the gardens of these cottagers who call themselves “Stewards of the land”. They dump garden waste into the forests across from their cottages year after year, perpetuating this invasive cycle. These plants are prohibited in a provincial park, and continue to outpace and blot out our beautiful natives (trilliums, jack in the pulpits, white pines, tulip trees, spicebush, milkweed, mayapples, wild geraniums…). These invasives are left to grow until laboriously uprooted and stopped (an effort which would now cost thousands of man hours - who should pay for this?? - and which does not appear to have even started).

These cottagers are NOT good for the park.

They constantly exceed the speed limits in their SUVs, leaving flattened frogs, snakes and chipmunks with their insides spilling out into the road in their wake. It’s everywhere, especially in the Spring, and it’s heartbreaking. Close more roads to cars as done already on Rondeau Road South of Bennett, so that people can enjoy walking and biking in nature un-stressed by vehicle traffic, and the animals would have more protected area to live and reproduce safely.

If we continue along the path of giving the leaseholders more of a foothold, they will continue their entitled campaign to permanently buy up this public land, and the 10 mile stretch of prime beachfront (“lake view”) land will be permanently lost from the public trust, and become permanently inaccessible. Protected areas and provincial park landmass cannot be grown or expanded, only preserved or else lost.

The ministry of the environment has a special opportunity right now to reclaim and preserve this special provincial park for the people of Ontario for years to come. Please nip these prolonged leaseholder negotiations and renewals in the bud. Be remembered for guarding one of Ontario’s treasures for the good of ALL citizens, visitors, and the flora and fauna that relies on the park to survive.

(*Also: is the Ministry checking for and blocking out repeat/spam posts? Last time the leases were up for renewal (2019), the cottagers association had their members spam many copies of the same letter, which were posted many times over on the ministry's site hen the comments were published. Hopefully these are not being counted many times over when reviewing these letters.)