I'm very unhappy to learn…

I'm very unhappy to learn that you want to cut the Wasaga Beach Provincial Park by 650 acres, including 60% of the beachfront access that is a key habitat and nesting site for the endangered Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus - listed as an endangered species in Canada and the USA). "The critical natural beach habitat at Wasaga has produced half of the province's Piping Plover fledglings since 2007 and the total population was estimated to be between 7600 and 8400 individuals in 2020! A 2011 survey found just over 450 breeding pairs in Canada" (referenced).

I'm sure you are aware that Wasaga Beach is not only a popular recreational place for Ontario residents to visit, but it is also an important green zone and natural habitat for our fauna, flora and biodiversity to thrive and flourish. And it isn't just the Piping Plover, but "Mayflies, Killdeer, Ring-billed Gulls, Wormwood, Sea Rocket, and Marram grass also share Wasaga's beach area with millions of visitors each summer" (referenced).

I'm shocked that your plan comes so quickly after our provincial leader, Doug Ford, enacted his Bill C-5 into law. You may or may not be aware that it was specifically drafted to bypass the Endangered Species Act and weaken environmental safeguards that will allow development in “special economic zone," like the Wasaga Beach Provincial Park. Furthermore, and in light of this knowledge, what makes me most aggrieved by this plan is the fact that you may very well, in the near future, be allocating this area for beachfront private property development. To know this is very distressing and keeps me awake at night! Our provincial parks should not be cut down at a time when we have forest fires raging all over our country and we are suffering from such a massive loss of natural habitat!

The sand dunes at the Wasaga Beach provincial park help protect the nearby communities from flood surges and storms. "As the sand moves, the native beach plants, like the Marram Grass (I mentioned earlier), has an extensive root system to hold sand in place and helps to establish freshwater dunes - an ecosystem so rare - that it is considered globally imperilled. Not only that, the wetlands soak up the carbon dioxide that our industries release into the atmosphere. The Wasaga Beach park also encompasses a significant area of forested land, including a pine-oak savannah, which is one of the rarer forest types. 300 years ago, the pine-oak savannah ecosystem was a common occurrence; however, today this system is considered rarer than the tropical rainforests. The pine-oak savannah is a transition zone between the tall grass prairies of the west and the Canadian Shield forests to the east. This ecosystem has been subjected to agricultural development, urbanization, and industrialization leaving less than one tenth of one percent of the original 13 million hectares that at one time reached from Wasaga Beach to Texas" (referenced). These forests and wetlands are not only rare and disappearing fast, but they also provide us with huge benefits as they naturally cool the atmosphere. This nature-built and free mechanism to lower temperatures is especially important with the steady rise in temperatures and the extreme heat that is very noticable over the past few years. You, as a governing body, are bound to know how critical it is to hold tightly to our green spaces and parks today for this and so many of the other reasons that I have already mentioned.

It is, therefore, with a heavy heart that I am writing to you. I am strictly against the proposed legislative amendments to the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, 2006, and Historical Parks Act to support the Town of Wasaga Beach’s Tourism Enhancement Proposal. If you allow this proposal by prioritizing short-term gain over long-term ecological and societal wellbeing, it sets a dangerous precedent not just for the Wasaga Beach Provincial Park but for all of Ontario, and maybe even the rest of Canada. I hope that you will take into consideration all of the aforementioned reasons I have stated to vote against this proposal.

Thank you and keep well.