Category Archives: Local Parks Management

Old Encampment tough to remove.

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The layers of specialty run deep at City Hall and particularly the various teams of the Parks and Rec. people.

The people who set this up are long gone but the memory lingers on… April 28, 2026.

This collection of garbage from an abandoned encampment has been sitting for what looks like a few months in the middle of the wild area just south of the parking lot. I discovered it while doing research on Hurricane Hazel. One would expect that the city would want it cleaned up quickly.

11 days ago, I submitted a request to 311 to have the area cleaned up. Yesterday I phoned to check on progress and this morning I had a message from Jacqueline at Parks saying that the reason it has taken so long is as follows:

First the site had to be checked by the Encampments Team to make sure it’s not active. Ok, fair enough. This took place on April 20.

Next, Parks Operations checked out the site and determined that it’s too close to the ravine. It’s on flat ground and nowhere near the water but whatever.

A view of the mess from the other direction. April 28, 2026.

The Ravines Team was then assigned. I guess the Encampments Team isn’t able to make such determinations.

Great, so where’s the Ravines Team? Sadly, the Ravines Team cannot do their job because, “Conditions are not great because of all the rain so we don’t send our staff out until things have settled in terms of terrain and stability”. I assume that they worry their truck will get stuck in the soft ground.

By sheer chance, a clean-up crew from TRCA (with a canopy tent) was present in the park today and about a dozen able-bodied people emerged from a huge bus ready to do a park clean-up. There were grabbers galore for ease of pick-up and lots of gloves and garbage bags.

I talked to a lady under the canopy tent and let her know about the old encampment. I offered to guide people to where it was but she insisted she would find it. She told me the park had vey little litter to pick up otherwise.

This story has a happy ending – right?

A bus dropping off a TRCA clean-up team at 10:05 on April 28, 2026.

Wrong!

On returning this afternoon, TRCA and the canopy tent had vanished but sadly the garbage hadn’t. Rain is forecast for the next seven days so conditions will continue to be too wet for the Ravines Team.

In the meantime, this garbage will pollute the park and encourage others to do so. Call me naive but how hard would it be to keep the truck on the path while the team bags and carries the garbage 70 metres to the truck?

Save Weston Lions Arena: Community Push for Heritage Status

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People enjoying Weston Lions Arena on Family Day, February 16, 2026.

On November 12, 2025, Toronto Council voted on a motion to demolish Toronto’s unique Weston Lions Arena and build a new facility without an ice rink. This came as a shock to many in the community.

A January 20, 2026 report from the senior Manager of Heritage Planning recommended adding the Weston Lions Arena to Toronto’s Heritage Register. At today’s meeting of the Etobicoke York Community Council, all five councillors voted in favour of adding Weston Lions Arena to the Register. Interestingly, Councillor Frances Nunziata, who has been the driving force behind the demolition of the arena and the turfing of the Weston Minor Hockey League, voted with the majority claiming she had wanted heritage status all along.

No fewer than 34 people wrote email submissions and five four spoke to the Community Council online or in person in favour of the Heritage Register addition. What was supposed to be a public relations exercise for Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment has turned into a public relations disaster for them. Many in and outside the Weston community expressed their opposition to November’s Toronto Council vote to demolish the arena.

What happens next?

The Heritage Register designation will be voted on during a meeting of all Toronto councillors on March 26 and 27. If successful, the designation will protect the arena for two years.

If Councillor Nunziata has any political savvy, she and MLSE should back off on demolition plans and Weston Lions Arena should be allowed to continue providing services to the Weston community and the several hockey organizations currently using it – with better funding for maintenance and upkeep. MLSE should have known their history better – the company’s founder, Conn Smythe donated the sand under the Weston ice in exchange for allowing one of the Maple Leafs’ farm teams to use the arena. If MLSE wants to build a new facility, there are no doubt other sites in the area where they can do so without destroying a precious community heritage building.

Read more about Weston Lions Arena here and in this New York Times article.

Update:

Looking at the meeting on YouTube, it’s clear what’s going on. Councillor Amber Morely through a point of order, stopped one of the speakers from advocating for a continued use of the ice surface. She later stated that the community is more diverse now and that other members of the community should have an opportunity to use the space. Along the same lines, Councillor Nunziata claimed she wanted heritage status for the arena all along but wants the building to be ‘open to the public’. Bizarrely she scolded the Weston Historical Society for having the Plank Road Building designated as a building of historical importance but doing nothing with the building since that time. (The building is privately owned).

Amber Morely: “We can do better to better serve the local communities.”

Translation: Hockey is not a diverse enough sport and we will pit one community against another in order to support the removal of the ice surface in Weston.

It seems that the designation is smoke and mirrors and will not protect the arena. The direction is now clarified. Weston Lions Arena may be worthy of preservation but its historic ice surface is of no value to future communities.

Read more here.