Can Tourism Make a Comeback in Ontario?

[Music] the agenda with steve pakin is made possible through generous philanthropic contributions from viewers like you thank you for supporting tvo's journalism bookings for peak summer are going fast can tourism in ontario boom enough this year to make up for the past two years of pandemic bust we're looking at that also as people fan out across the province in search of green spaces and blue skies we'll ask whether we need more parkland or to make better use of what we've got already it's tuesday june the 7th and that's ahead on the agenda [Music] [Music] tourism means fun and relaxation to most of us but for huge parts of this province it's big business and while you may have blocked it out of your mind at this time last year we were barely coming out of another wave of covet 19 locked in the mad dash to get vaccinated summer didn't look as rosy as it does now not by a long shot will this year be enough to make up for the pandemic induced economic disruption let's find out joining us now in the dona singh on manitoulin island kevin shkokugen president and ceo of indigenous tourism ontario in niagara on the lake ontario lord mayor betty dezero in ontario's capital city chris bloor president ceo of the tourism industry association of ontario and rachel dodds professor at the ted rogers school of hospitality and tourism management at the now renamed toronto metropolitan university and we're glad to have you four with us tonight here on tvo i need to spare a quick word for betty desero here because once upon a time 37 years ago i was a toronto city council reporter and you were on toronto city council betty desero and i know we've seen each other a few times since then but not much so welcome lord mayor lovely to have you on our program again let's do just a bit of a fact file off the top here and see what tourism looks like in the province of ontario it matters a lot the gdp for tourism in ontario is 36.8 billion dollars a year making it more than four percent of the provincial gdp tourism employment 396 000 people make their living at this that's more than five percent of provincial employment total inbound travel from january 21 to december 2021 a 14.6 percent drop from the year before thank you covid and total outbound travel in 2021 was off almost 40 percent from the previous year kevin i wonder if you could get us started here and describe what the tourism industry has been like for you over the past two years thanks steve uh migration um gigadone and adiz nakaz and they're doing to sing donja ball and i'm really glad to be here today and share this because the travel industry is an important one to the indigenous community and it's we've really struggled prior to the global global pandemic we had unprecedented times unprecedented demand and there was so much interest in indigenous experiences with international travelers domestic travelers and now with the pandemic we've had a little break from that but that's a positive thing in our mind we always try to find the positive in what's going on but uh this is uh a time where we're seeing a lot of growth and there's still a lot of demand there's unprecedented demand even more so than ever before for indigenous experiences in this country kevin let's learn a little something here what language did you just speak and what did you say so i was speaking initially one and i gave you my traditional name which loosely translates to the man who speaks for the people is my name and nadon is saying is where my spirit is that's loosely translated to manitoulin island is where my spirit is and where my heart is and that's where i make my my home today fantastic thank you for that chris give us the story from across the province of ontario what are you seeing well the last two years have been almost anything but catastrophic to be brutal steve it's been a very tough time for the industry we've seen revenue declines of up to 93 we've seen many of our businesses take on six-figure debts we lost over a hundred thousand jobs at the very peak and the worst of the lockdowns that were happening in ontario so it's been a very very difficult time and it's only really thanks to the innovation the collaboration with government that we've been able to keep the majority of our industry afloat during the last two years and that's why we're so excited about the next summer and the next year or two because we really need to try and uh make up for lost time that we've suffered over this pandemic period let me go to the lord mayor of niagara on the lake next and and i guess for those who don't know we should say that yes lord mayor is the title in niagara on the lake when you are the mayor there and you know when you think tourism in this province niagara on the lake is one of the places we all think of what's it been like there during the pandemic well during the pandemic it was uh our tourism industry is the largest uh economic driver we have for niagara on the lake so you know 80 90 percent of our employees are in the tourism sector either in wineries the shaw shops uh tours uh you know uh accommodation and they suffered uh tremendously during the two years of covet some things we were trying to assist in terms of you know waiving fees that they have to pay the patios were great help to some of the restaurants the hotels were allowed to stay open but getting staff was very difficult and some chose just to close because of the precautions with the pandemic so a lot of people in our in our economy suffered and this summer will be the telltale in terms of them trying to recover from the last two years i also just wanted to say that the government subsidies were also a great help as well but nothing um you know helps more than having people come into shops and and come to visit and let me do a quick follow-up with you can you tell now that covert thankfully is not as fatal today as it was over the past two years have things started to come back uh in niagara on the lake yes um the uh they have we're getting more and more uh tourists coming into niagara on the lake and and um we haven't reached the capacities we've had pre-pandemic but there are more people coming and what i'm hearing anecdotally is that people are spending more money staying longer and so that's good what's what's sort of hurting our economy at the moment is the labor market and the lack of the ability to get employees all right rachel dodds you obviously study this for a living tell us what you've noticed over the past couple of years in terms of tourism province-wide well one of our things is that our students um especially at our university have had to go find other jobs because the jobs um although there's a huge labor shortage many many people didn't necessarily want to be frontline workers and that's something that's really come to light is how we treat our staff that we have had a labor shortage long before covet and now we have a labor shortage but that we need to make sure that we treat our staff better because most of uh the labor in our industry has been long hours lower pay and shift work and the co and the coveted pandemic really highlighted the fact that we might not always want to do that kind of a job so we need to that's been a that's been a positive i think and a negative chris can you follow up on that is it simply the case that that more and more people are simply not going to put up with the kind of miserable hours or perhaps even abuse for management that they did in the past steve there's obviously good employers and there's bad employers in all industries but rachel's absolutely right this was a problem that existed well before any of us knew about where wuhan in china was but one of the things that we've definitely seen during the pandemic at its worst is that people need to pay their mortgages they need to pay their rent they need to put food on the table and when sometimes the province was closing businesses or opening businesses should i say on a friday and then closing them again on monday there was no consistency for people and so obviously people went to find work that meant that they could put food on the table and so that unfortunately is a problem you're going to have in an industry which is so reliant on people being close to each other experiencing new experiences getting out and travel and those challenges that those frontline staff that rachel mentioned faced during this pandemic were extreme we were asking people for vaccine certificates we're asking people to go six feet apart we're asking people if everyone in their party had had a vaccination so there were huge challenges put on staff and i'm not surprised to see that not all of them have returned back to our industry kevin what's it been like for you on manitoulin island to both hire and maintain staff steve with the work that we do we help service and support indigenous tourism operators across ontario but not just here on manitoulin but right across the province we're seeing labor shortages without a doubt and i'm often quoted as saying we're the original tour guides to these lands the original hosts these lands and there's no one better to be in tourism than indigenous people but at the same time we're not the solution for labor shortages and the challenges we face collectively but we are a part of the solution and we've done some great things here to to partner and collaborate with others very specifically the three fighters collaborative quest to get more indigenous people in the workforce but we're seeing the same thing the rest of the industry is seeing very challenging times to get people involved and there's just simply none of people to fill all the roles well rachel let's see what we might be able to do about fixing that what recommendations might you have for the tourism industry in order to ameliorate this situation well one thing i think we could do a number of things but one thing i think we really need to focus on value rather than cost canada is expensive ontario is expensive it's one of the reasons why so many of our residents of why we all go down south to escape the weather so we need to really focus on what's different about ontario why we should stay why we should travel we also need to be really cognizant of over tourism during the pandemic most people stayed at home but that didn't stop the shortage of people parking on other people's lawns crowding conservation areas crowding local places and those kinds of things were happening all over the world but they weren't happening in our backyard and all of a sudden covet highlighted that it's happening everywhere and travel needs to be better all these words academics i know i'm one of them love to come up with words like you know eco-tourism and sustainable tourism and responsible tourism and now it's rejuvenative tourism but at the end of the day they all mean the same thing we need to leave places better than we found them if we want to keep this industry for the long term well lord mayor you know the businesses in niagara on the lake are they offering particularly new or different incentives in order to try to attract workers and keep them yes they are i i won't go into the details of what they're doing but in terms of salaries increasing yes they have been talking about increasing salaries and trying to figure out how transportation can work better in niagara on the lake we have two issues here that council is also trying to work on one of them is housing is really expensive in niagara on the lake probably um higher than a lot of other municipalities in niagara region and the other is transportation and because we're sort of an island at the end of of the uh line in terms of the niagara region uh transportation a lot of people uh one can't afford to live in niagara on the lake and can't get adequate transit to get to jobs in niagara on the lake so the the town is looking at two things number one we've increased the service uh for uh niagara um on demand transit in niagara on the lake so people can use it at uh later hours uh rather than having to stop everything at six o'clock and the second thing that we're and that will start immediately and the second thing that we're doing is uh looking at the provincially mandated secondary suites and trying to figure out a way within our zoning bylaws to allow people to offer long-term rentals in secondary suites easier than having to go through a lot of red tape and rezoning and everything else so those two issues town is trying to address the businesses are trying to address the issue of salaries and and also transportation so i'm we're working towards a solution um and i'm hopeful that everything we do will help let me follow up with chris on that because yeah we have heard particularly during the election campaign housing housing housing it's just a crisis and the people that we want to to fill our businesses and to serve us in tourism can't afford to live in the places where they work that's not a problem that's going to be solved tomorrow chris what do we do about that well it's a huge problem stephen it's a problem steve that is affecting the tourism industry across the globe in western europe australia everywhere and there are some governments taking some decisive action uh you know very high quotas of affordable housing in its housing planning but also relocation costs paying for people who they want to work in employment in australia they're paying people to relocate into different provinces to work within the tourism industry italy has just passed a new piece of legislation that is giving people uh earning less than 35 000 euros free transportation in germany they're setting aside rented accommodation for people who work in front of house jobs there are active things that the government can do but like the mayor said we need long-term planning to make sure that we have affordable housing for many other people just out not just within the tourism industry and this is a problem that really could uh you know derail our economic recovery in the tourism industry in the long term you know we left a lot of opportunities on the table because of a lack of housing a lack of transportation a lack of infrastructure and other destinations and other countries will overtake us in their share of the market if we don't act now kevin uh let me state the obvious if people want to go tour northern ontario particularly some fascinating places with great indigenous history they got to do a lot of driving and we all know what the price of gas is these days not to mention other goods and i'm wondering if you could tell us what you think the high cost of gas and travel has done to your efforts to improve tourism in the province yeah well the high costs of gas and other expenses that go along with travel and operating a business have definitely affected our operators in northern ontario and beyond we've tried to embrace technology at indigenous tourism material to help provide new revenue streams for our operators and we do things like virtual reality experiences augmented reality experiences but uh definitely like with the cost of gas for for vehicles alone you're gonna see and we are seeing it now that uh although there's a pent up demand we're seeing a decline in you know the number of people traveling around and a lot of the indigenous communities are are remote communities as well in northern ontario so flying to these communities is was challenging pre-pandemic uh pre uh the era that we're in in terms of inflation so it's going to be even more and more challenging and in our role we're trying to support the the operators and the communities to embrace technology as best they can so connectivity is a big item but you know we all want to help them share their story on their terms and help educate other travelers and other canadians so both domestically and all those international travelers as well so we're feeling those effects as well steve just like everybody else's betty desero i don't know if this is a deal breaker but a lot of people who don't drive electric vehicles drive to niagara on the lake and if you're driving from toronto i mean that's that could be a tank of gas to get there and back and that's 100 bucks 120 bucks these days have you heard people complaining about how expensive it is to get to your neck of the woods now um yes we have um not uh not a lot i mean people are complaining generally about the price of gas going up and what that's doing to even uh you know people working in the tourism industry uh having to uh service uh so it's coming from both sides um what we're trying to do now is work with the region to find or improve uh alternatives like the connection to the go train like the um we're looking at other alternatives in terms of uh buses rather than cars some type of water crossing uh so we're looking at different ways that we can do much more community transportation rather than you know two people in a car all the time chris can i get you on this because yes covet might be less of a factor today but the price of gas and goods is more of a factor today so how does it all work itself out well inflation was at a record high in march uh six point seven percent it was even higher for food and and other key supplies for many of uh for our businesses and so it's been a double whammy for the tourism industry not only is it potentially putting off potential tourists particularly that rubber tire tourism market from the united states uh comparing the price of gas from their own country or potentially filling up in canada and doing a road trip but also it takes a lot of fuel for our businesses and some of our remote areas to run their businesses so it's a double whammy and you know and i've had a lot of frustrated calls from uh our members during the election period who wanted to hear more about how potential governments could help them during this cost of living crisis because this is a very dangerous time for the tourism industry at the moment many people think we're out of the woods many people think that our businesses it's plain sailing from now on but things like the cost of living crisis are really going to damage their ability to kick on during this summer and potentially could put businesses that have survived the last two years at risk of closure rachel what do we do about this i know governments are trying to take the price of gas excuse me take the tax off the price of gas but even still it's more than two bucks a liter what's that going to do well i i i was going to say i think it's only going to keep going up especially when you start adding carbon taxes and things like that but there are a lot of solutions and some really innovative wonderful social enterprises in ontario that people can take can take advantage of for example if you are going to go you want to go for a walk or you want to go to a region you can take the train not everywhere of course you can take the bus but there's an organization called park bus which brings people out of their cars onto the parks it reduces carbon it gives them an amazing opportunity to meet some like-minded people and put some money back into the local community and those are the kinds of things that communities want they need to see the value from tourists so if somebody fills up in toronto puts all their food in their car and they drive up to say for example lake simcoe for an afternoon and all that's left behind is garbage the community doesn't really see any benefit from that and so they're not going to want you there those are the kinds of things that the tourism industry has control over and the tourist has control over we don't have control over the price of gas but we do have control over what we bring into the local community making the effort to get to know local people making sure that we eat in local restaurants putting some money back into the economy understanding that we're all feeling the pinch right now but some people more than others so there's some things we can do to be really positive and we can get a break and enjoy ourselves and you know enjoy the wonderful summer sunshine that's about to be on us and we have beautiful lakes beautiful trails wonderful restaurants great food amazing indigenous culture those are the things that we can celebrate and enjoy and ensure we put some money back into those pockets of the people who really need it but it does require us to be a little more creative in the way we approach these things yes that's not a bad thing these days i think i don't think everyone talks about recovery but it's not coped the tourism industry didn't have a cold tourism industry was very very very busy in 2019 and i'm not so sure that going back to the way it was is necessarily always the best thing we need to do things better and we need to start doing them now it's not something that has to happen 20 years in the future right now you did mention covet and let me follow up with kevin on that is i mean i said earlier covet thankfully is not as fatal today as it was a year or two ago but it's still there and i'm wondering if it's still kevin in your world a concern for operators it definitely is so steve as uh you know we work within the provincial and the federal guidelines around the global pandemic we also have another layer of government within our communities that we have to be respectful of we've got highly vulnerable people within our communities and there's still some restrictions in place that the rest of ontarians and canadians may not face and with that what we're very concerned about is our businesses are highly vulnerable to begin with although we've been doing tourism as we say for over 500 years or even longer in some people's eyes we're new to this tourism game as we know it today uh to what rachel referred to and we're super busy in 2019 we're still incredibly busy and we need to be mindful of that and we need to be respectful of those business operators who really struggled just to survive and put food on the table uh during the global pandemic and now we don't want to overrun them and close them down for other reasons but the global pandemic in any you know we never know what tomorrow's going to hold so we want to make sure we help and support as many operators as we possibly can and uh the pandemic is still having its effects within our communities let me pursue that with chris you know as you alluded to earlier there are i mean thousands upon thousands of businesses that have gone into even further debt than they might otherwise have in order to stay afloat over the past two years and i'm wondering if you can give us a sense about how those businesses that are still alive that have accumulated all of that extra debt how are they managing it how are they going to come out of it well steve they're managing it uh by making very difficult decisions on their own pay about how many people they're hiring about possible you know ending potential expansion plans you know the size of the debt that we're seeing on our members is unprecedented uh i was just speaking to our colleagues at nature and outdoor tourism ontario who really focus on resource-based tourism in the north and they're saying that average membership debt is 187 thousand dollars and so many people are making the decision right now they're looking at some of the obstacles that still exist exist to travel for instance americans still need to be double vaccinated to come over to northern ontario that means one in two of their old clientele is still not eligible to come to their businesses and so many of our northern ontario businesses are still at one in four of their or 25 of the level of revenues that they were pre-covered 19. so there

are some still significant obstacles to travel that mean that our businesses aren't going to be recouping those revenues that many people would expect them to over the summer so they're taking tough decisions stephen one of the things we're working hard with the government at the moment on a region on a national level is you know let's try and forgive some of that debt that has been accumulated over the last two and a half years some of that government debt at four percent could be forgiven at a higher rate or even written off the best thing we could do to support our industry is to try and write off some of that debt and get rid of that millstone around their neck as they look to recover and that's a that's a set of conversations that's going on right now and i think could be a big boost industry moving forward so they can do things like rachel has just suggested invest in new technologies invest in new ways of businesses more sustainable and green functionality and technology that money could be used to re-imagine our industry within ontario not just simply rebuild it from pre-covert betty desero i wonder if there's anything the municipality can do to alleviate the burden of that 187 thousand dollar average debt that these small businesses are carrying i know you need property tax revenue to pay for services but is there anything the municipality is considering in that regard um we did a lot of work during uh the pandemic in terms of waiving fees and uh and trying to uh work with our businesses to um like instead of panicking what happened was they involved in online uh marketing we started shop nautil uh we've been you know we allowed the patios to take place for restaurants so we've been working with our businesses throughout the pandemic to uh figure out what the new normal uh and the new technology will look like in terms of reducing taxes we're looking at putting in a heritage tax rebate that may or may not fly at this point as you said we'll we'll need to try to uh keep our own uh keep our taxes to pay for the things that we've been working on throughout kovit as well in the municipality but um we meet with our with our businesses frequently to find out what more we can do to assist them well let me follow up with rachel on that because we've had quite the laundry list of concerns that uh tourism operators would be dealing with right now and i wonder what's what's at the top of the list based on your travels what do you hear is the number one concern of operators nowadays oh i don't think there is just one concern cost definitely as everyone else has really mentioned uh staffing is also a really huge issue also making sure that they can provide a competitive offering compared to everybody else but we can't forget that ninety percent of our tourism industry is made up of small and medium-sized enterprises so we often what makes the news are the big people the big hotels the big change but actually our industry is 90 small and medium-sized enterprises so we really need those are the kinds of considerations that that comes up and for those organizations they can't pay to play especially not in a climate like this so probably the most important thing is is we need to be as forgiving as we were during covet to make sure that we all work together and find rethink tourism and rethink what it's been historically to make it a better place for everyone operators environment and tourists together well with just a few minutes to go here i guess it would be a nice thing if we could leave this on somewhat more of an upbeat and positive note and to that end kevin maybe you could tell us what are you looking forward to this summer well i'm looking forward to people traveling around i know there's some pent up demand and people have been getting a little bit of cabin fever and here in the community where my office is located on tacoma conning first nation they just had their their their first pow in three years now and it was packed people were out and about and it was a great time they're visiting they're celebrating together and i'm looking forward to that happening this summer where everybody gets out and enjoys the nice weather here in ontario and uh spends a little bit of dollars around uh the regions and uh everyone's kind to each other nice to each other and is just out enjoying and having a good time this summer amen to that betty desero are you going to get to a play at shaw this year oh yes for sure um yeah the shaw's got some great uh plays this year they are celebrating their 60th year and um and and we're really excited about being able to uh showcase the shaw this year and we also have a lot of um sort of organic kind of festivals all our you know cherry peach and strawberry festivals and people getting out so that that's really it's really going to be a good summer for us i think and the numbers in terms of tourism are increasing every day well if you're a history nerd like me you just love going to fort george and you love seeing the first ever legislative assembly building in the history of the province of ontario which only goes back well a century and a half or more actually so that's another good reason to go to niagara on the lake uh okay um chris how about you what are you looking forward to this summer oh steve after two years of having to have conversations like this with my members on very small screens i'm just excited to be able to get in a car and travel around the province going to manitoulin island spend some time with kevin and his fantastic indigenous tourism operators just getting out and enjoying what we have in ontario listen we're very fortunate in our province that we have an incredible tourism offer that not only people in this province want to take part in and visit but across the world and so i came to ontario uh three and a half years ago i immigrated here from the uk because i fell in love with this province and i just can't wait to get out enjoy it and spend some time with friends again instead of sharing screens like this really i could have sworn that was a huntsville ontario accent you had there really you're from you're from away are you okay go figure uh rachel you get the last word here what are you looking forward to this summer not wearing a mask i have to say uh i if i i think sometimes we still wear them and and we need to be very sympathetic to everybody who has has other issues that's still going on and a lot of people are still highly at risk but i'm really looking forward to seeing people enjoying our wonderful lakes and and the water and the beaches that's it's it's lovely those are four perfect answers of things to look forward to this summer can i thank rachel dodds from i don't know what you guys call it do you call it tormet you or tmu or what's the new acronym toronto met team you it doesn't matter okay you know all of them are great these days gotcha chris bluer from the tourism industry association of ontario betty desero the lord mayor of niagara on the lake kevin ashcock again president ceo indigenous tourism ontario really good of all of you to join us here on tvo tonight thank you thank you thank you thank you much [Music] in the 2022 budget the ontario government promised to create a new provincial park it was a surprise with few details attached now that the tories have been reelected and with the camping and hiking season about to hit full gear it's time for a more substantial look at how well we're doing managing using and appreciating the vastness of this province's natural environment so with us to do that let's welcome in thunder bay ontario on the traditional territory of fort william first nation lee potfin assistant professor and director of lakehead university's school of outdoor recreation parks and tourism in barrie ontario gary prichard ceo at four directions of conservation consulting services and in the provincial capital daniela assistant professor at the university of toronto's john h daniels faculty of architecture landscape and design and we're delighted to have the three of you with us tonight here on tvo let's get into this gary um back to first principles here protected areas and green spaces are getting a lot of attention this may seem obvious but let's do this anyway why are they so important to our lives from our indigenous perspective it's actually reconnecting to the landscape having places to go and and reconnect with nature is incredibly important to our culture um so that's what we as indigenous people have been campaigning for is more parks to actually reconnect um with the uh hard landscape of southern ontario lee pogban how would you answer that i would say that parks have continued to be an important way for ontarians to engage with the land and also there are many many ontarians who are and continue to be unable to interact with the land because of the location of the parks and other access related concerns all the more reason to make them more accessible i guess potentially potentially okay daniela how about you on that question why so important i think it's just that we are discovering the nature and it's the new way of life that we have to be close to the nature and the cheapest way to be active and to protect the nature that's the simplest answer gotcha well we have some numbers here that we want to share with our audience i'm sure you all know them but here we go there are more than 7.4 million hectares that span over 335 regulated provincial parks that is part of the total provincial protected areas that equal more than 10 million hectares and make 9.4 percent of the province there are almost 1.4 million hectares of nationally protected land in ontario and that makes up 1.3 percent of the province including privately protected areas there's a total of almost 11.6 million

hectares making almost 11 percent of the province almost 11 now there are different categories here and gary maybe you could take us through them what's the difference between all of these different kinds of protected areas in the province well there's several uh that we find very restrictive as indigenous people and i'm able to start there and open it up to the rest of the group but um we find our ability to harvest and gather uh very restrictive in some of these types of protection through a non-uh indigenous more colonial lens uh so some ontario parks allow us to harvest um some parts don't and that's one of the things that we're trying to break down and and there's other effective means of conservation and and and that we're looking for through the park system and green spaces but we need to actually break down some of these cultural barriers before we can actually start working collaboratively together to make more parks interesting okay lee how about you would you how would you sort of help us understand the different types of protected areas in the province yeah and i really just want to say that i appreciate uh gary's framing there so my understanding sort of roughly is you know the provincial parks system emerged uh in the 19th century with the founding of algonquin park which actually has quite tied into it uh industry uh and industries interests so there was some interest from the logging industry in particular um and then there's the conservation areas which tend to be tied to the protection of waterways and as opposed to the provincial park system um which really got going after world war ii and so did the conservation areas um the conservation areas are daily use as opposed to overnight use and and of course as gary's highlighted they have all of these restrictions around harvesting and then of course the private uh conservancies which are really focusing and in this area right now they tend to be really focused on protection and also protection of access so folks are that are privately buying up and and not exclusively uh buying up these uh pieces of land are not buying them for folks to access they want to protect them from human interaction so that's my understanding right right let me follow up with daniella on on i guess the i don't know seven or eight million people who live within an hour and a half's drive of where i'm sitting right now in southern ontario what's it like to try to find a a park in this area exactly and that's uh um you know when we distribute those eleven percent we can see that there is not much in southern ontario though we do have different type of conservation lands in southern ontario as my colleagues said some of them are very much conservation we don't wanna people in some of them for for right reasons uh but at the same time we do have a pressure from uh from the public and and i do think that many of them have no easy access to to parks if you don't count like a little puny urban parks recreational parks are not there now that's funny i've never heard them described that way before little puny urban parks they don't count i exactly and i did that on purpose because i don't want to use any scientific terms for that because yeah as an example you look at mississauga and there are little woodlots surrounded by by urban development and which is doesn't provide any large opportunity for walking and recreation toronto it's a fortunate one because it has ravine systems that are bleeding somewhere but if you look other urban areas it's little woodlots that we pretend we save them from development but in fact they are not and and they are not functional now for recreation lee you're about a 20 to 24 hour drive north of where i am right now so the assumption of course for those of us who live south of the french river is that there are just vast amounts of green spaces and parks for you where you are is that in fact the case yeah i mean that is the case there are quite a few not only provincial parks but you know urban parks and recreation areas around thunder bay around fort william first nations territory some of those are underutilized some of them are not i would say that a huge barrier for us here is is access as i highlighted in the beginning so unless you have access to a car or and the lifestyle that affords a weekend or a long weekend then you are unable to access a lot of these spaces and i just wanted to pick up on something daniela said about urban green spaces there's a report that just came out about race and nature in the city in particular and the interests of urban youth and their access to park spaces and some of what those youth have highlighted are perhaps different than what we might conceive as access to nature so for example you know being able to rent a barbecue pit in one of the larger parks in toronto is a desirable way to spend time in the outdoors now someone from thunder bay might say well an urban park isn't the outdoors the outdoors is 20 minutes from you know the last house or the last major highway but i think as we conceive of parks moving forward we need to take into account uh the diversity uh in urban centers um and the experiences of racialized youth as we as we construct these spaces gary how about for you in central ontario how much well it is interesting right uh where my first nation is we're actually 10 minutes from the shield we're 10 minutes from the carolinian forest so we have a wide variety of uh different types of parks and different green spaces to go to um i agree with both statements from everybody that some people that is the nature that they they sort of seek out desire but some other people need to access more and go further um one thing's i used to actually work in the ontario park system and i used to think we need to educate people more on their ability and how to access nature and to be doing it in a safe and good way not to harm nature or harm themselves and i think that's more important in this post pandemic strategy to get people outdoors well pick up on that if you would gary what do you think protecting more area for provincial parks or whatever what do you think that would do for the environment it would really help especially in our territory bio connectivity for migration corridors for species to get from the carolinian forest to the boreal forest um that's a big thing that we have we actually love our research that we're doing as first nations is actually um showing us that the animals are traveling the major 400 corridors and we want them to stick to more naturalized areas so they have spaces to uh stop over and rest um not an on route but actually uh an actual wetland or a woodlot and uh and actually help those species thrive and migrate through to get to the far north daniella how about you on that what would more protected area do for the environment oh i agree with what gary said we need um to rent our landscape because with all fairness what we have it's good we need to conserve but we have to start thinking where else we should be making the linkages for both wildlife conservation but also people and that takes a very strategic approach and cannot be looked without looking at the land use planning and green space and i would just add that there is that conflict out there gary touch on that corridors highways and we're doing a little bit ad hoc that right now and opportunistic so we really need a strategic approach to envision a green system across southern ontario lee let me pick up on the people angle there what do you think it would do for communities to have more protected green space i think that's a really fraught question depending on who you count or who gets counted as the community um and i think that the history of the parks has not in this era of reconciliation we need to be considering who has not been included in these conversations before and you know gary has a alluded to this and in some of his responses as well and i think you know we need to if there were to be a new park created then who is part of that conversation i would say that indigenous communities should be part of it as their uh is their right to self-determination and this conversation i think sits next to um the current land back conversation that's happening as well uh so that's a slightly complicated answer but i think that we need to be including community uh from the power pardon the punt ground up and making sure that there is that equity of access built into the process um yeah no that's a good point and and uh you know we and our listeners and viewers are certainly able to handle more complexity in the arguments that's one of the reasons people like to come on this program so gary i'll follow up and ask you about you know the the conservatives sort of dropped this little nugget in their last budget back on the 28th of april about we want to create a provincial park they didn't say where they didn't say how big they didn't say you know how much they would spend on it and they didn't say who they'd be consulting to make sure that it happened do you have any undertaking or knowledge as to whether or not indigenous communities are going to be consulted in the creation of that new provincial park i i hope so um in the era of reconciliation and indigenous protected and conserved areas the whole idea of co-governance and and working together um really uh i hope shines through ontario is the only province really not working towards indigenous protected and conserved areas so you know being from the province and helping other provinces to create these systems really bothers me um so i really hope that we're a part of that uh and actually talk about how to use the land together when we signed treaties historically it was about living together in a space together and and we need to really reunite that treaty relationship uh to create more green spaces and create healthy environments for people all people to thrive in do you see evidence that's happening not in ontario what would it take to change that well that's a hard one i would like to see people come to us as indigenous people as equals and not be so afraid when i meet with a lot of conservation groups who want to um create these spaces and these spaces of reconciliation and the spaces that co-governments they already have a predetermined mindset of what they want in that space before meeting with us so they come to us with still a bunch of restrictions and months of uh you can't do this you can't do that and i'm like that's not a meaningful space to start off of and i actually make usually uh fight back and say well because of settler land use and poor urban planning we're in this situation of green space recovery and um not really promoting uh bioconnectivity but actually salvaging green spaces and that's one of the things that i struggle with being from southern a first nations person from southern ontario lee could you follow up on that if the if the if the government i don't know who the next indigenous affairs minister is going to be i don't know who the next environment and or parks minister is going to be but whoever that person is if they wanted to engage in an effective set of negotiations with the people who need to be consulted on the creation of a new park what should that look like yeah i mean that is i think the question that everyone in the country is asking um as we grapple with this notion of true reconciliation um and and i'm not sure that i have the the perfect answer but i think it starts with going beyond the government's duty to consult uh we know that's built into the process but the duty to consult can sometimes look like uh checking some ticky boxes and as gary's highlighted it isn't necessarily authentic engagement with communities and so i think it would be it would look like starting with those communities and trying to create a vision together rather than dictating uh what that vision what the government's vision should look like and how everyone else should sort of fit into that um which has historically been the case and the park system itself has is often some of the parks are on lands that were previously you know acquired by the government as part of the colonial project so you know thinking about nays provincial park which was a prisoner of war camp in world war ii um or ibrah which is you know has a lot of really sordid history so i think it it means meaningful engagement and sincere engagement from um from the very beginning and i think not to be too cynical but i think the fact that this nugget was dropped in an election campaign uh causes me to have um some question mark in my head about the authenticity of this promise no that's fair enough and uh but daniella i'll get you to pick up the story from this end i've seen this kind of process work and many people won't believe this but i think the government of ontario that protected more green space than any other in history was mike harris's government back in the 1990s with lands for life and essentially they got all the forestry people and they got all the environmentalists and they locked them in the room and and the minister simply said you guys figure it out and i'll i'm good with whatever you guys decide and they came to an understanding and they did something beautiful now that could happen again could it not that process um yeah and you you're right that's that's a strange thing that um yeah conservative government uh did quite a bit in terms of parks and protected areas i'll just pick up on what gary said about the urban development and the pressure and that you know with all fairness all of us live on this land and consultation versus engagement are completely two different things engagement it's putting people at the table all of us that live on this land and uh i would have to say that we as um you know western society we have a long way to learn from indigenous community respect for the land we don't have that and i think we just have to be honest and and and have everyone at the table and learn why do we value what we have and some things are just because they're they're part of us um and if we uh start doing it that way what do we envision as a society uh for for this land and i mainly talk about southern ontario because i do hope that that park i mean we do respect any park it's a good park that it's not going to be either one in up north or or the land that it's not good for anything else but let's say okay you know let's build the park what about the green belt area southwestern ontario where we have a huge pressure from from development and we may have to plan that park and that's a new concept that we should start thinking it's not just oh an opportunity to protect something and and we walk away but it's envisioning uh and admitting that we need to build and and and restore the landscape maybe through parks maybe to other means of land conservation do you have any idea daniella where that new provincial park might be located um i have no idea um i just know that um you know the green belt and all of these areas that are hot topic for for development i i i don't expect it to be there to be honest i do hope it will be something there but um i don't know lee i don't know if you have a wish list but if they came to you and said where should we create the next provincial park in the province of ontario where would you throw your dart on the map i mean i have the opposites i have the opposite response of daniella which is that i don't think it would be created in the north um because for for a variety of reasons there are a number of parks the population of ontario is largely clustered um you know in southern ontario i'm not saying these are good reasons but i think that these are reasons uh and i do think access is it is a is a huge issue so i don't know if i would go wholeheartedly into a new park project i think that i would go back to those fundamental questions of who is this serving what is the purpose who is involved and should we be putting our efforts into increasing accessibility through uh you know public regional transportation to get people to parks uh that already exist that they're unable to access gary if you had a seat at the table with whoever the cabinet minister is that's going to make this call where would you tell them to put it yeah i would love something in southern ontario uh for several reasons um one about you know connecting uh people to nature that's a big thing that i do i'm also a wildlife photographer besides a biologist and and i like people to see nature for the beauty that it is um but the other piece is actually access a lot of people aren't uh mentally coping with the stresses of the pandemic and their connectivity to nature would be fantastic if they can get to a park um one of the parks i've been actually working on redesigning in toronto and scarborough was actually allowing access for people with disabilities and that's something that was fairly new for me um being working most my part career in the north uh really thinking about people with access problems and allowing them to connect with nature on a trail system that's easy for most people or um vehicles to travel on that was a great experience that was definitely something we don't get as indigenous people every day uh about parks and and we used it as an educational opportunity to educate people in scarborough about the mississauga mitchusagi people and that was great too because that's that reconciliation piece and that was a really great project right daniella let me ask you about the other side of the coin and i do hear this criticism which is given how pent up everybody's been over the last two years there is this pent-up desire to get out there and if we create a new park and it is overrun or inundated with people and it causes a negative footprint on the park how problematic is that going to be for nature at the end of the day oh it's a huge problem it's already a problem in many of uh of urban parks they're overrun by people because people people need green space but and and then we see all the changes in terms of invasive species pressure disturbance um like a million examples from the past two years and that's where a really strategic uh um and when i say planning i i'm thinking about conservation planning across the landscape needs to be done where we have to to decide what's the carrying capacity of the park and we have to be clever how we design uh by designing the system of trails where you take people maybe away from those valuable spaces you give them um other means and and you know other spaces that they can um that they can use so it's not just saying okay you know we left this on the landscape go and run it it has to be really carefully planned and designed and as gary said obviously we do we are starting to address the accessibility issue at the same time we have like um you know examples like species at risk we overrun by invasive species so it's really a complex um a a complex issue that it's not either or but it's constantly finding the balance and uh and adapting along the way meaning really really careful strategic spatial planning for these parks well i did warn the three of you that the time would fly by and it has i'm down to my last 30 seconds here and lee i'll put it to you i want you to give our viewers and listeners some sense of what it does for you personally when you are able to get into the vast outdoors of northwestern ontario and just be one with nature what does that do for you well i have young children and so it's really nice to be able to take my family out it brings everyone's energy level down and up at the same time so it's calming and it's invigorating and i think in this particular moment in our in our history where we're tied into screens all the time it's it's really nice to have that opportunity to share that experience with my with my kids and with my partner so well described can i thank all of our guests for coming on to the agenda tonight lee potvin the assistant professor and director of the school of outdoor recreation parks and tourism at lakehead university all the way up in thunder bay ontario gary pritchard the ceo of four directions who's come to us from barrie ontario daniela puric ladenovich assistant professor john h daniels faculty of architecture landscape and design at the university of toronto a pleasure having all three of you on our program tonight and yes i wish for all of you a chance to get out to the great outdoors as the summer approaches and enjoy the beautiful green space this province has to offer thanks everyone thank you thank you thank you thank you and keep it right here on tvo or check out any of our streaming platforms for the documentary the long weekend coming up right after this program it follows some first-time back country campers as they journey from the city to the wilds of algonquin park you can also find it on tvo.org at your leisure and that is the agenda for tuesday june the 7th 2022. tomorrow we've got a little magic for you literally we'll sit down with magician savio joseph on what it takes to make people believe also nam kimanuka talks to award-winning cartoonist and illustrator fiona smith on her new book and summer exhibitions i'm steve pakin thanks for watching tvo for joining us online at tvo.org and we'll see you again tomorrow the agenda with steve pagan is made possible through generous philanthropic contributions from viewers like you thank you for supporting tvo's journalism [Music] welcome to algonquin provincial park our journey begins on its busiest labor day weekend in history

2022-06-09 22:02

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