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Meet the Ontario Community Changemakers and learn more about their inspiring initiatives transforming parks across the province.
Creative ways to connect people to nature, community, and care for ravines in Toronto.
A guidance and resources to measure the impact of your park work on community health and wellbeing, integrating a social equity lens.
Learn more about green social prescribing, an evolving practice that encourages individuals to reestablish connections with nature and one another to enhance their mental, physical, and social wellbeing.
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This case study is part of the 2024 Canadian City Parks Report, showcasing Inspiring projects, people, and policies from across Canada that offer tangible solutions to the most pressing challenges facing city parks.
In Metro Vancouver, a ground-breaking agreement between a government agency—Metro Vancouver Regional Parks—and the Tsleil-Waututh Nation shows a different way of managing parks and highlighting their past and present cultural value.
At 2,560 acres, təmtəmíxʷtən/Belcarra Regional Park is two and a half times the size of Vancouver’s Stanley Park and receives 1.2 million visitors per year. The park was also the site of the largest ancestral village within the Tsleil-Waututh Nation.
Gabriel George, a Tsleil-Waututh Nation member and also the Nation’s Director of Treaty Lands and Resources Development said that a lot of the Nation’s territory falls into parkland “so it’s been something that historically has isolated us and disconnected us from our land. I think the importance of trying to engage and have partnerships…is an important way for us to exert our rights.”
Mike Redpath, Director of Parks for Metro Vancouver Regional Parks said that Metro Vancouver Regional Parks began working with the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in 2017 on developing a “Cultural Planning and Cooperation Agreement,” which was signed in 2020. The agreement outlines a shared vision, guiding principles, and governance for the park. These include, among others, protection of natural resources, promotion of the site for recreational use, and increased public awareness of Tsleil-Waututh Nation cultural history.
“There’s a strong acknowledgement within the agreement and the relationship that it is public land; however, there was a traditional use of the site and the agreement strives to find a balance between the two,” Redpath said.
Good governance is a cornerstone of a successful partnership. The cooperation agreement contains two mechanisms for joint-governance: a Leadership Committee and a Technical Committee, which include both members from the Nation and Metro Vancouver Regional Parks.
Projects are prioritized in an annual work plan by the Technical Committee, which is then approved by the Leadership Committee and submitted during an annual budget process. Each individual project includes an “engagement agreement,” which outlines deliverables and ensures both partners understand roles and responsibilities.
The agreement also includes economic development policies, such using Tsleil-Waututh approved contractors in the park to support local entrepreneurs.
“We had an economy in place that was basically stripped from us,” George said. “We had currencies older than paper. We had systems of trade. So we lost that.” He noted that his people used to harvest clams for thousands of years, but then had to “sneak around at night…because they weren’t allowed.” so seeking out these economic opportunities is “our inherent right.”
Although the cooperation agreement was signed just four years ago, there have been several significant projects that have been implemented since then, with more on the way.
The first was a park renaming in 2021, which changed the park’s name to təmtəmíxʷtən/Belcarra Regional Park. Prior to this, Metro Vancouver Regional Parks had not engaged in any renaming of the regional park system to traditional place names with First Nations communities.
For George, the term “renaming” doesn’t quite fit, however. “It’s more than that,” he said.
“It’s recognizing the real name of that place. It’s important because we need to be represented. We need to be seen. We need to be heard on our own territory.”
Gabriel George, Tsleil-Waututh Nation member and Nation’s Director of Treaty Lands and Resources Development
Redpath also said it provided Metro Vancouver Parks with a naming precedent that could be used in other places. Indeed, another regional park has just had its name changed from Colony Farm Regional Park to ƛ̓éxətəm (tla-hut-um) Regional Park–a name gifted by the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) First Nation that translates to “we welcome you.”
Another joint project was the just completed installation of a welcome pole in the area of the Nation’s traditional village site. Other projects have included environmental restoration work, interpretive programming, and the development of a Cultural Heritage Study that will better understand the depth of cultural history of the park.
While it took time to implement the agreement, Redpath said it provides many benefits. Staff are “able to pick up the phone and talk to someone at the Nation who’s a familiar face. It helps advance projects together and sometimes faster as well.”
The willingness to try doing things differently is key to success. “It’s a change process,” Redpath said, adding that it’s a different way of doing business in many ways. He stressed that early and ongoing communication is key for the trust-building necessary for a strong partnership.
“The agreement is a piece of paper, but the relationships and the conversations are really what make it successful.”
Mike Redpath, Director of Parks for Metro Vancouver Regional Parks
George echoed these sentiments. “It can be so easy to not change things,” he said, but it’s important to push outside of comfort zones and do things differently. “You can’t fix all the issues, but when you approach the work, think about what kind of legacy you can create.”
“I think for Indigenous Nations, parks can be important places to occupy and to reclaim,” he said, adding that they’ve seen big successes in some of their relationships to their parks. “This is our home. We think of it as an extension of our community.”
Designing for inclusivity and accessibility is top of mind for many municipalities. From our surveys, 78% of municipalities indicated that universal accessible design is a high priority in their work. And while many municipalities look to provincial accessibility guidelines to meet basic standards, our 2022 public survey revealed that 10% of city residents say that insufficient accessibility features discourage them from visiting and enjoying city parks. This suggests that parks are still not working for everyone.
Waterfront Toronto, a tri-government agency, noticed gaps in existing provincial and municipal accessibility guidelines when designing new public spaces, specifically spaces around water. Some of these gaps include standards around the design of boat launches, boardwalks, beaches and water entry points.
Waterfront Toronto knew that in order to create truly accessible public spaces they needed to learn from, listen to and involve the people who understand accessibility challenges and opportunities the best – people living with disabilities.
Waterfront Toronto assembled an advisory committee made up of individuals with professional and technical expertise, most of whom are people living with disabilities, to guide the development of their new design guidelines. The guidelines aim to go above and beyond existing requirements and ensure waterfront settings can be enjoyed by all. Notable requirements include standards that all beaches must have accessible pathways into the water and boat launches for adapted canoes and kayaks must be provided.
The process of including community members with lived experience in an advisory committee is not a novel engagement practice. But what really sets this work apart is that the guidelines incorporated a permanent mechanism to include those with lived experience in all future projects.
The advisory committee emphasized the guiding principle of “nothing about us without us”, and the idea that no single voice speaks for the entire disability community. The committee members also highlighted the importance of implementation.
One of the ways Waterfront Toronto addressed this was to create a permanent accessibility committee that reviews all future public realm projects and will advise on future updates to the guidelines. This follow-on committee, known as the Accessibility Advisory Committee, is made up of individuals with professional expertise, advocates and caregivers, most of whom identify as a person with a disability, who receive an honorarium for their time. When composing the committee, Waterfront Toronto sought people with a range of disabilities and experiences to try and represent the diversity of accessibility needs.
For any new parks or public space projects, the Accessibility Advisory Committee is engaged at least twice in the process. The committee provides feedback within the early stages of the design phase to flag any accessibility concerns and again once the construction is complete, with additional opportunities for input as needed. This “roll through” of complete projects identifies any potential areas for improvement. This feedback will be implemented as amendments to the guidelines and applied to future projects, but Waterfront Toronto has also committed to accommodating the feedback at the site when a retrofit or repair is needed.
The guidelines set out a new standard for inclusively designed public spaces by filling gaps and going above and beyond current requirements, and proactively seeking out those with lived experience to guide projects on a long-term basis.
Enhancing accessibility to blue spaces ensures that everyone has access to the restorative power of nature. And while the implementation of the new guidelines ensures that people with disabilities can participate in these public spaces, accessibly designed spaces are good for everyone.
“We know that to create a vibrant waterfront that belongs to everyone, we must have a strong commitment to accessibility in everything we make and do. With the support of the Accessibility Advisory Committee we are making accessibility another area of true design excellence.”
Pina Mallozzi, Senior Vice President, Design at Waterfront Toronto
Further Reading
A typical neighbourhood park often contains slides and swings for younger kids and benches for adults to gather, but what about teenagers? What does play look like for them and what park designs are needed to support that?
This is something that Stephanie Watt thinks a lot about. Watt is a co-founder and co-director, along with Margaret Fraser, of Metalude–a public space consulting firm that specializes in engaging with youth up to age 18 to promote public participation, playable public spaces, and child-friendly cities.
Youth are very aware of their “minority” status in public spaces, Watt said, and aren’t often invited to participate in conversations about park design. They sometimes feel like they fall into a gap in public spaces where playgrounds may be designed for younger kids and other park amenities are designed with adults in mind. It’s not about designing literal play structures and objects, but about instilling a sense of playfulness in the space itself, she said.
Take the example of a plaza built in Parc Marcelin-Wilson in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough of Montreal. The park is situated near two large high schools and a public survey and conversations with the schools revealed a need to have a “meeting place for young people,” David Sauvé, Development Officer for the Department of Culture, Sports, Recreation, and Social Development in Anhuntsic-Cartierville said. So the borough decided to test a temporary “plaza” structure in the park, also near a bus stop, meant to be a hang-out spot for youth. The structure included multiple seating areas to accommodate flexible socializing.
Metalude was brought in to better understand the use of the structure. They did this through direct observation of plaza use, semi-structured interviews with youth at the plaza as well as in other parts of the park and even at a shopping mall across the street where youth sometimes go to eat lunch. In the end they ended up collecting observational data from about 500 users and interviewed approximately 50 youth about their experiences.
Engaging with youth requires a different approach, Watt said. That means switching up what you may view as a “professional” engagement. For example, Watt said sometimes they listen to music with youth during their engagements–something that likely wouldn’t fly at a traditional town hall. You have to either keep things really fun or you have to make them really short, she said because youth often have lots of other demands on their time, from caring for siblings to sports practice to homework. It’s about learning how to “build 10 or 15 minute engagement moments that are rich,” Watt said.
The engagement was a learning moment for borough staff as well.
“They brought us back to what it was like to be a teenager in public space. Things we tend to forget when we become adults.”
David Sauvé, Development Officer for the Department of Culture, Sports, Recreation, and Social Development in Anhuntsic-Cartierville
The observational nature of the study allowed for the natural uses of the plaza to be uncovered, leading to potential design decisions about a permanent structure. For example, the importance of the social design of the seating, which was arranged in such a way that four to six people could sit and socialize in a circle rather than the typical park bench design, which forces everyone to face the same way in “a long line of strangers,” Watt said.
“The furniture allows for face-to-face [interactions] and the furniture that isn’t face-to-face was mostly used for waiting by people who were alone taking the bus.”
Stephanie Watt, Co-founder and co-director of Metalude
Another finding was how the use of one particular structure–a net installed on the plaza–was quite gendered. While boys called it a trampoline and jumped on it, girls called it a hammock. Watt said a design recommendation could be to create two different amenities, one that can accommodate jumping and one for relaxing.
You can plan for something, but it’s really important to get out there and see how people are using it. And then accommodate those usages–there isn’t a right or wrong usage.”
Cities are in dire need of new park space. Despite that need, however, sometimes funding challenges, environmental contamination, and ownership issues mean that sites slated to become parks won’t actually be designed and built in their final form for several years.
One of the key challenges of growing cities is acquiring new parkland to serve intensifying neighbourhoods when so much land has already been built on. In fact 69% of municipalities said acquiring new parkland was a major challenge for them in 2023. A long-term plan in Mississauga shows how a consistent, transparent approach to acquiring existing housing can lead to long-term gains in expanded parkland for a growing population.
Mississauga’s Cooksville neighbourhood, an area designated as an urban growth centre, is already deficient in parkland according to the City’s parks plan. While the City’s goal is 12 percent of land area for parks within urban growth centres, Cooksville was significantly below that target. With the future LRT and high-rise housing development coming to the area, growth will only continue to intensify, said Sharon Chapman, Manager of Parks and Culture Planning at the City of Mississauga.
The solution is a long-term plan by the City to acquire land within the Cooksville area to expand existing parkland so that it can accommodate more use and different activities. Council approved the plan in 2017, identifying 31 properties totalling 10ha to be acquired to assist in “achieving large cohesive areas of park with continuous trails systems.”
While expanding parkland is the primary goal, there is a second benefit of the expanded parkland–climate resilience. Some of the current houses in the area sit within a floodplain and could not be constructed today, which might make it more appealing to sell to the City, Chapman noted, since homes with a history of flooding are less marketable to buyers.
The project is not without controversy, however. Some homeowners have been upset at the plans to demolish housing in the area, saying that they don’t plan on selling to the City. Chapman said she thought some of the initial resistance from homeowners was due to misinformation as well as concern about change. The City made sure to clarify that it was proceeding on a “willing buyer-willing seller” basis only, meaning that expropriating properties is not part of the plan. Negotiations with owners willing to sell are based on reports prepared by accredited independent appraisers estimating the fair market value of the property.
“Our approach has been really a co-operative one with each individual homeowner. We have respected property owners who did not want to talk anymore about it.”
Sharon Chapman, Manager of Parks and Culture Planning at the City of Mississauga.
Commonly, park and housing advocates are pinned against each other as if urban residents need to pick between one or the other. Chapman acknowledged this and said that the City was aware “the project might be seen as removing housing stock,” but she noted it was only a few single-detached homes and not all 31 properties actually had houses on them. “We know that we are losing a small amount of single family homes and the area overall will grow immensely in terms of the new units that come in, so we need to keep the bigger picture in mind to make sure we have the right amount of parkland there.”
To date, 19 properties have been acquired, creating over 8 ha of new parkland–just shy of the 10 ha goal. Demolition happens on a rolling basis so that houses don’t sit vacant and can be turned into parkland right away.
“We’re at a point now that the properties we have acquired are enough that we can now start moving forward with plans to redevelop the park.”
The City has moved now into public engagement for the parkland, which will include both natural and built features.
To address this challenge, Toronto’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division is collaborating with the City’s Economic Development and Cultural Division and external cultural and economic development organizations to provide and animate much-needed public space in the immediate term.
Toronto’s Director of Parks Planning, Paul Farish, said that rather than waiting sometimes years to go through a formal process that includes design and procurement–all while the space remains vacant–the City is “opening a public space that people can access and enjoy and even shape themselves at the front end.”
He added the City’s Economic Development and Culture Division has been a “very useful partner” because they bring “ideas and third parties who can introduce programming and run events” until Parks, Forestry and Recreation is ready to turn it into a fully operational park.
One example is a future park space at Front and Bathurst Streets where environmental contamination issues meant it would be several years before the City could turn the land into a public park. In the meantime, the City is working with Stackt Market, which has run a successful shipping container market–North America’s largest–and outdoor event space on the site since 2019. The partnership brings thousands of people to the space for free and ticketed events, provides space for local businesses in pop-up shops, includes food and drink options and prioritizes community programming.
“It’s a kind of quasi-public space,” said Farish, adding that it’s “important to be flexible and acknowledge that there’s different ways in which a property can achieve its objectives, including public space objectives.”
Parking lots represent another opportunity. Farish said that the City has plans to convert a number of parking lots to parkland over the next few years, but due to funding or other factors they are not going to become parks tomorrow.
“In the meantime, we need to get a little bit creative and bring in partners to animate them and make them as engaging as possible.”
Paul Farish, Toronto’s Director of Parks Planning
One challenge is that people may get attached to the interim uses so much that when it’s time to design the actual park, there is push back. “We’re conscious of it,” Farish said. In some places, the City is floating the idea of putting in a pickleball or basketball court in a parking lot–uses that could become entrenched in people’s minds even if they’re meant to be interim uses. “But you grapple with it,” he said. “It’s less of a concern because it’s still within the range of what was intended to be a public space with some sort of recreational or environmental benefit to the community.”
In Midtown Toronto, a city-owned parking lot is poised to become the largest park addition in the Yonge-Eglinton area in decades, providing much needed public space in the rapidly intensifying neighbourhood. There the City is installing pickleball and basketball courts as well as tables, seating, and other amenities as an immediate “phase one” approach in advance of full park design and construction.
In Toronto’s parkland-deficient Downtown, the City purchased one of the last undeveloped parking lots. As environmental work and park design processes take place, the site has been temporarily programmed as a popular restaurant patio. A known landmark in the city, the property was a part of a design competition that secured an innovative design and approved budget of $10 million.
At another site, along the waterfront, a recently closed parking garage at Spadina Pier is being planned for refurbishment as a site to host cultural and special events in the near term to showcase its potential as a future permanent park. Farish noted a number of local organizations that could serve as programming partners.
The first was a partnership with The Bentway–the park conservancy that operates a public space underneath a nearby elevated highway–to activate the site as part of Toronto’s 2023 Nuit Blanche. The Bentway’s installation (delivered in partnership with the City) helped to test and build awareness for the planned waterfront park, including art projections on the recently restored 100-year old Canada Malting silos.
“The phased approach helps City staff, residents and partners to develop the long-term vision for the park through temporary activations, fluid programming and on-the-ground experimentation”
Lessons are learned during this process about what works on a specific site that can inform future designs and operational needs for the park.
The approach also provides “flexibility in terms of partnership and operating models,” he said, “furthering the creativity and experimentation while maintaining an emphasis on the benefits of public space and publicly-owned lands.”
By 2030, 30% of Canada’s land, water, and marine areas will be protected. That is, of course, if the country meets this goal, which was set by the international community at COP15, the United Nations Biodiversity Conference.
Reaching such an ambitious goal requires strong collaboration. All levels of government, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities, local non-profits, private landowners, and individual residents must all work together. But how do you build such a broad, but also deep coalition?
The work of Nature Canada–a national organization dedicated to protecting Canadian wildlife and wilderness–is all about bringing those various actors together in a concerted effort to work both nationally and hyper-locally through the Municipal Protected Areas Program to ensure Canada meets its 30×30 goal.
While protected natural areas may conjure images of vast uninterrupted pristine landscapes far away from where many of us live, Nature Canada Organizing Manager Dylan Rawlyk argued that protecting land within urban areas is vital.
One practical reason is that the most biodiverse landscapes within the country are situated along the southern edge of Canada where the majority of the population lives within a constellation of urban areas. Another less obvious reason has to do with storytelling. Bringing protected natural areas close to where people live their everyday lives helps make the importance of biodiversity more tangible. “[People] know it, they love it, and they’re connected to it,” Rawlyk said.
While cities often have natural area management and restoration plans in place, they each undertake conservation in slightly different ways, so part of the work of achieving the 30×30 target is working with cities to “unify all of our collective impacts,” Rawlyk said. While the majority of cities listed it as a priority, Park People’s 2024 survey found that one third of cities said addressing federal biodiversity and land protection goals was a high priority in 2024.
Nature Canada has forged both cross-country and hyper-local partnerships, creating, as Rawlyk put it, a web of organizations. At Nature Canada “we play the role of convening all those groups together and ensuring that we can see how the actions each one is doing is contributing to the greater whole.”
For example, in Hamilton, work led by Ontario Nature is helping to convene different organizations to add lands in the city’s Eco Park system to Federally recognized protection status. By working with the City of Hamilton, Hamilton Conservation Authority, and Hamilton Naturalist Club, the goal is to assess current lands and see which ones may need some different protection policies in place to meet the Federal definition and contribute to the overall 30×30 goal. Projects like this aligned with Federal programs such as the National Urban Park initiative led by Parks Canada are important to meet biodiversity protection goals.
Collaboration with First Nations communities and Indigenous organizations is “core” to the work, Rawlyk said, especially given the colonial history of conservation movements that have displaced Indigenous peoples from their land. To ensure these past mistakes are not repeated, Rawlyk pointed to an example of recent work by Réseau de Milieux Naturels protégés in Quebec, which “ran a workshop with a range of land trusts and also First Nations communities to try to build bridges between them.”
Nature Canada has also built partnerships with regional non-profits such as Ontario Nature and BC Nature who better understand local contexts and have strong political ties to move policies forward. Drilling down even further, working with hyper-local organizations, such as Whistler Naturalists Society, is essential because these groups hold deep knowledge of specific places, often performing activities like bio-blitzes to monitor species.
“That level of species understanding within the region is incredibly vital to be able to move forward with this work,” Rawlyk said. Even individual residents play a key role as they “can advocate to put more conservation measures in place” and act as watchdogs to ensure these places stay protected.
As climate change brings more frequent extreme weather, cities are grappling with increasing storm damage to parks and infrastructure. In 2024, 97% of municipal parks departments said that addressing impacts from climate change and extreme weather has become a challenge. Floods, droughts, and fires all pose risks, but there’s another element that’s caused massive damage in recent years–wind.
Park managers we spoke with in 2023 mentioned increasingly intense storms that don’t just bring higher wind speeds, but winds that last for more sustained periods, causing far more damage. While cities have begun to redesign parks to withstand flooding or adapt to drought through altering planting palettes, preparing for high wind presents a difficult challenge.
As the Parks and Recreation Manager for the City of Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, Frank Quinn knows a thing or two about preparing for storms. But when Hurricane Fiona hit the Island in September 2022 as one of the strongest storms to ever land on Canadian shores, it was a different beast.
The storm was Atlantic Canada’s most costly, causing $220 million in damage to Prince Edward Island alone. Hurricane Fiona lasted for hours, damaging municipal infrastructure and ravaging the city’s tree canopy. In the Royalty Oaks natural area many old growth trees were knocked down–some 300 years old.
Quinn said the City’s Emergency Measures Organization, which includes senior staff from different departments, met frequently leading up to the storm as well as afterwards. As a smaller city, Quinn said people from different departments are used to working and supporting each other–something that came in handy after the storm.
“We all had good working relationships, we all know each other. We had a wide range of experiences and expertise.” They were able to draw on each other’s knowledge of internal staff expertise, but also contractors who could be brought on to help.
Public safety and clean-up were top priority, but Quinn was also cognizant that “once you’re in the house for a couple days, you want to get out.” His team assessed every playground within the first couple of days as well as inspected trail systems, posting notices about what was closed and what was open for use.
Without power, communication was a challenge, Quinn said. As the city cleared trails and re-opened amenities like playgrounds, they posted messages on the city’s website and used the media. But the key to public messaging was working with community organizations, like church groups, to pass information along to city residents.
The City is now building redundancies into systems and creating more back-up services. One big issue during the storm was fuel, Quinn said. While staff had fueled up machinery and vehicles prior to the storm arriving, when they needed to be refueled there were issues because the main fuel depot did not have a back-up generator on site.
“We dealt with smaller storms before where there were power outages for a day or two, but when you have a storm and sections of the City doesn’t have power for two weeks, this creates several issues and challenges,” such as where to get fuel.
Franck Quinn, Parks and Recreation Manager for the City of Charlottetown.
Quinn said the City has learned lessons from the experience of Fiona and has already begun to prepare for the next storm. “We’re building new infrastructure and making it more resilient so that it can stand up to higher winds,” he said. The City also purchased new equipment that can be used for cleaning up trees, but can also be adapted for other day-to-day uses like grading trails.
You may know Park People from one of our microgrant programs, such as the TD Park People Grants. Through these programs, we provide small amounts of funding to community groups and NGOs to organize activities and events in their local parks.
That all sounds great – but why do we do this? Why are events in parks important? How do grants fit into Park People’s larger goals for creating change in city parks? This post explores these questions and shines a light on some of the tensions and challenges of providing microgrants.
City parks have unrealized potential to promote human wellbeing, biodiversity and climate resilience. Too many people living in Canadian cities cannot easily access high-quality green spaces with amenities and activities that enrich their lives. Neighbourhoods such as my own (in the ward of Davenport in Toronto) are very vulnerable to the increasing heat waves we face because of a lack of trees and green space. The parks that we do have are precious, but they are not neutral spaces. For many reasons, they do not feel safe or promote a sense of belonging for everyone.
One of Park People’s early tenets was that when communities get involved, parks get better. Communities are full of people with energy, ideas, and talents. They understand the opportunities to improve their local parks and the challenges specific to their community. With the right resources, their work can be much more sustainable and responsive than an initiative led by an outside group like Park People. So, our guiding question is: How do we support community leaders in realizing the potential of their local parks?
Our network’s community groups have varied goals, from growing food to promoting biodiversity and supporting mental health. Regardless of their focus area, park events are a great way to build strategic support and awareness for their initiatives. They are joyful and fun, providing an enticing entry point for engaging city staff, fellow community members and local politicians to talk about a vision for the park or the wider community.
Events also have a lot of inherent value, even when they don’t tie into a bigger plan. Our research and program evaluations show that park events build a sense of social connection and belonging, making people feel happier and less isolated. In 2024, these social ties are critical to addressing the pandemic’s mental and physical health repercussions and preparing us to support each other through the ongoing climate crisis challenges, such as urban heat waves and floods.
The diversity of events that groups organize is inspiring. They range from programming to support families with neurodiverse children in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park to hands-on mushroom-growing workshops in Ville de Deux-Montagnes outside Montreal. These events tell us the rich story of what is happening in Canadian city parks so that we can make the case for more resources and support from governments and other stakeholders.
Through microgrants, we can fund groups too small or new to have non-profit status. Although the amounts are small, they help offset the costs of volunteering, especially in lower-income communities. By keeping our application processes simple and removing traditional fundraising barriers (such as the need for non-profit status), people can spend their limited time bringing their ideas to life, trying out new things, and cultivating other support like help from their local city councillor. And at a systems level, we are doing our part in a small way to try to redistribute resources and power within the parks sector.
Offering grants also encourages groups to get in touch with us. Once we are in touch, we can offer other types of support, such as training workshops, coaching, and peer connections. We learn so much about what’s happening and what folks need and dream of doing through applications and conversations. In 2023, we offered phone call applications for smaller grant amounts. There was a groundswell of new groups that stepped forward.
In our annual survey, park groups tell us that their number one need is more funding. Microgrants are a way for us to respond to this need. They also help us build group capacity and relationships to set grantees up to access larger funding in the future.
Park People has been providing microgrants or small honoraria in some form since 2014. We have learned a lot over the years and are still learning.
We are inspired by trust-based philanthropy, which ‘seeks to transform the relationships between philanthropic organizations and non-profits by identifying systemic inequalities and addressing inherent power imbalances,’ as Jennifer Brennan and Shereen Munshi define the term in this article on Indigenous philanthropy. Even though we are a very small-scale funder relative to others, the key principles of identifying systemic inequalities and inherent power imbalances in your ways of working are very relevant. That is why we are continually reflecting and working on:
Providing funding creates an unequal power dynamic between Park People and the groups in our network. This can make it more challenging for groups to provide us with honest feedback on our programs. We do our best to mitigate this by keeping our granting process separate from our evaluation activities, but that introduces another challenge.
Groups that are very engaged in our other program activities, such as our network gatherings, training workshops, conferences and other events, can be particularly disappointed when they don’t receive a microgrant from us. It doesn’t feel great when you have put a lot into engaging with Park People to receive a no on your grant application.
How can providing funding be part of a reciprocal and not transactional relationship? We are excited about exploring more participatory approaches to granting that centre decision-making in the hands of community members, which could allow us to navigate this tension better.
Park People supports community park groups and NGOs following a tiered support model. Microgrants are intended to help groups get started or get established in their community, but in some cases, groups evolve to a stage where $1500 or $2000 is too small to be worth applying for. This is a success story, but it means that the microgrants Park People has available to offer do not match the needs of many groups.
We do our best to connect these groups to larger funding opportunities through fundraising workshops, tailored sessions to support groups in applying for specific grants like TD Friends of the Environment Foundation, and our funding web page which features links to dozens of grants. These activities are well-attended and valued by participants and are consistent with our goal to build the capacity of groups rather than engage in local parks ourselves. But they are more complex than providing a microgrant. ‘Success’ becomes harder to define and talk about.
As Park People’s network grows and as parks became more central to people’s lives during the pandemic, the number of people applying for grants has increased significantly. This means we are saying no to more people every year. There is an ongoing tension between wanting to encourage many people to get engaged in parks and not wanting to waste people’s time participating in grant application processes where their odds of success are low.
We are currently reflecting on the pros and cons of trying to expand the availability of our microgrants versus building up other types of support for the groups in our network. There is probably no perfect answer. In the short term, we are finding creative ways to meet this demand. For example, some of our recent and planned changes to our microgrants include:
2021-2023:
2024:
In the longer term, Park People does not envision a permanent role for ourselves in funding park groups. We believe that larger institutions like municipalities should review how decision-making and power-sharing work in their parks and public spaces. They have the resources to provide more systematic and continuous support for community-led initiatives. Ultimately, we dream of the groups in our network being able to spend more time enriching their communities and parks, and less time fundraising. Systemic changes, such as reforming park permitting processes or dedicating staff to community engagement on an ongoing basis, are critical.
Returning to our guiding question – how do we support community leaders in realizing their local parks’ potential to enhance well-being and resilience? Microgrants that fund events and activities in those parks are one tool in our support toolbox for community leaders. As you have read in this post, they are not the be-all and end-all of support for community leaders, and they don’t meet the needs of every group.
Engage and learn with us
Are you a non-profit that provides microgrants or has in the past? What did you learn? Are you a community member who has accessed or tried to access Park People’s grants? Tell us your thoughts on microgrants – the good, the bad, and what Park People can do to improve.
Further reading
Winter makes us all feel more isolated. That’s why it’s critical to get outside and connect with others when the temperatures drop. Good thing park groups across Canada are helping us find the light in the dark, warmth in the cold and a ball in the snow.
Do you count yourself as an ‘indoorsy’ person during the winter months? Winter can be challenging—it’s dark, cold, and snowy. However, breaking down these challenges can help us discover practical ways to shift our mindset.
We know we benefit when we get outside and connect with others when winter makes us feel isolated. Here are some ideas for how your group can animate parks in winter.
The day of the year that brings the fewest hours of sunlight also has the most hours of darkness. Canada’s solstice celebrations celebrate the darkness rather than rage against the dying of the light.
Vancouver’s Secret Lantern Society brings thousands of people together every year for a Winter Solstice Festival, an event celebrating culture and the cycle of nature.
The Festival takes place on a single night across four Vancouver locations. In the lead-up to the event, neighbourhoods throughout Vancouver host lantern-making workshops—some are free, while others require a small fee. A neighbourhood-based lantern procession is the cornerstone of the festival. Residents march through the winter night with their lanterns while dancing, drumming and enjoying fire, art and food to bring the wild rumpus to life. A wild labyrinth of light is lit by over 600 pure beeswax candles. Self-guided walks through the labyrinth help participants recharge and reset.
The most common winter activities—like skiing, snowshoeing, and tubing—require equipment and planning, which can create barriers that make it harder to get outside. But have you heard of yukigassen?
Yukigassen is the sport of snowball fighting. In Japan, Yukigassen, or “snow battles,” have been happening for decades. Organizations like Play Sask in Saskatoon have been hosting snowball fights in parks for years. During yukigassen, players compete to hit all the opposing team members with snowballs or capture the opponent’s flag. Yukigassen players must be 19+ and wear a helmet and eye protection. But other cities have hosted tamer versions using foam balls instead of snowballs.
”Throwing snowballs is very satisfying, and it kind of brings back your childhood a little bit.”
Ashleigh Mattern, Co-owner of Play Sask
This Jasper tournament gives you a sense of the game’s intensity:
Imagine a city park transformed into a magical winter forest. At Parc Jarry in Montreal, the Coalition des amis du Parc Jarry (CAP Jarry) launched a creative recycling initiative by turning old Christmas trees into a temporary forest that reflected park-goers’ hopes and dreams.
Montreal residents were invited to bring their old Christmas trees to Parc Jarry and place them in pre-made wooden stands, creating a beautiful little urban forest where people could wander. After a two-week display in the park, a company specializing in repurposing wood collected the trees and gave them new life.
“There was a lot of curiosity, a kind of mutual help, above all, such synergy… The project had an enormous positive impact.”
Mme. Fumagalli, Villeray’s mayor
Part shelter, part art installation, warming huts are designed to draw people out into the cold.
Winnipeg’s warming huts are situated along the River Mutual Trail, which transforms into one of Canada’s longest skating trails each winter. These huts have gained international acclaim as part of a world-famous architectural competition.
In 2024, there were over 200 design submissions from around the globe. Each year, visitors can expect to see unique new designs alongside beloved favourites.
“Over the past ten years, the Warming Huts competition has encouraged millions of people to skate the River Trail and engage with art.”
Peter Hargraves, Producer of the Warming Huts
Toronto’s Winter Stations were inspired by Winnipeg’s initiative. The structures are built around pre-existing lifeguard stations on a Lake Ontario beach, with each year’s designs centred around a selected theme that inspires fantastical creations.
Like Winnipeg’s program, Toronto’s Winter Stations transform a typically desolate winter landscape into a vibrant, engaging environment.
Are warming stations and solstice festivals too large-scale for your group? Even so, these events offer valuable lessons that can help you foster a winter-friendly mindset in your park.
Divide winter up into blocks of time: Marking the season with events around the solstice, New Year’s Eve, Chinese New Year, and Valentine’s Day can make winter feel more celebratory. Additionally, divide the season into sub-seasons beyond just “Oh Look At The Snow.” Early winter, for example, is perfect for activities that don’t rely on ice and snow—take advantage of longer nights with fire pits, candlelight, stargazing, and lantern-lit nature walks.
Tap into childhood nostalgia: Childhood memories help Yukigassen players propel their snowballs across the field. Of course, not all Canadians have experience with snow, but that’s all the more reason to make it fun. Many cultures have unique winter traditions—by incorporating cross-cultural perspectives, you can create new opportunities for people to build their own winter memories.
Enhance winter with art: Collaborate with local artists, architects, planners, and designers to make winter more vibrant. Look at your existing infrastructure—a fieldhouse, tennis court, or any underutilized space—and think about how it can be transformed into a winter destination. Consider smaller art or design interventions like simple winter scapes or low-maintenance snow forts.
Fundraising is a great way to build the capacity of your community park group. Below are some key provincial and municipal grants that could help fund your next awesome park project in Ontario.
City of Toronto Neighbourhood Climate Action Grant (Toronto): Supports resident-led and community group climate action projects at the neighbourhood-level. Learn more
City of Toronto PollinateTO Grant (Toronto): Funds pollinator habitat creation projects that educate and engage the community. Learn more
Park People Toronto Microgrants (Toronto): Supports community groups to host an environmentally focused event to connect, celebrate nature, build collective capacity and champion Toronto’s ravines, parks, and green spaces. Learn more on our Sparking Change and InTO the ravines page
City of Toronto Indigenous Climate Action Grant: Funds Indigenous-led projects that help to address the climate crisis and improve resilience. Learn more
Ontario Community Environment Fund (Ontario): Supports community-based activities like shoreline cleanups, habitat restoration and tree planting. Learn more
Landscape Ontario Chapter Bursary Program (Ontario): Support multiple small-scale projects that benefit various communities and neighbourhoods in the region. Learn more
City of Toronto Local Leadership Grant (Toronto): Funds resident-led groups helping inspire neighbourhoods and advance key themes in the Toronto Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy. Learn more
City of Toronto Community Crisis Response Fund (Toronto): Offers financial assistance for projects that address a specific community crisis and contribute to community healing. Learn more
City of Toronto Identify ‘N Impact Grants Grants (Toronto): Funds grassroots youth-led groups working to advance the City’s Toronto Youth Equity Strategy. Learn more
Ontario Community Changemakers (Ontario): Helps young Ontario residents to spark new ideas and invigorate change in their local communities.Learn more
The Ontario Trillium Foundation (Ontario): Helps many types of organizations and communities deliver programs and services with direct community benefit for the people of Ontario. Learn more
Kiwanis Club of Toronto Foundation (Toronto): Provides an Arts and Culture Grant and a Mentorship and Leadership Grant to organizations to support their work with children and youth in the community. Learn more
Evergreen Community Spotlight: Supports innovative and community-centred programs and activities to animate Evergreen Brick Works. Learn more
City of Toronto Arts & Culture Grants (Toronto): Supports community-based organizations that contribute significantly to community capacity, equitable access, well-being, diversity, civic participation and civic cohesion, through art and cultural events. Learn more
City of Toronto Indigenous Arts & Culture Partnerships Fund (Toronto): Provides funding for community groups that create new opportunities and visibility for Indigenous-led arts and culture. Learn more
Toronto Arts Council Animating Toronto Parks (Toronto): Provides funding to professional artists, organizations and artists collectives to create and present free arts programming in selected Toronto parks located outside of the downtown core. Learn more
ArtReach Youth Programming (Toronto): Supports community-based arts programming by and for youth (13-29) artists from equity-deserving communities. Learn more