Park People’s Executive Director, Erika Nikolai, has been honoured with the Distinguished Individual Award from World Urban Parks—an international recognition that celebrates her leadership and the growing national movement Park People has helped build here in Canada.
Why are events in parks important? How do grants fit into Park People’s larger goals for creating change in city parks?
The emerging stream of the Park People Nature Connect Fund provides up to $5,000 to grassroots and registered organizations across Canada that connect people with nature, foster ecological stewardship, and restore urban parks and green spaces.
The scaling stream of the Park People Nature Connect Fund offers up to $20,000 to registered organizations across Canada that connect people with nature while fostering ecological stewardship and restoring urban parks.
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.
A reflection on the BEING BLACK IN PUBLIC Survey Report, exploring how Black communities experience parks and public spaces, and what fosters joy and belonging.
How do we build a healthier, greener, more joyful Toronto? We start at the park. Discover how communities across the city have transformed their green spaces over the past fifteen years. Then roll up your sleeves and help shape what comes next.
By donating to Park People, you’ll support vibrant parks for everyone.
This case study is part of the 2021 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.
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Climate change is all encompassing. It impacts how we grow food, how we get around, and how we build our homes. Our city parks are no different.
As we outline elsewhere in this report, there are many ways parks help mitigate and adapt to climate change. For example, park vegetation can help pull carbon from the air, reduce temperatures during heat waves, and soak up excess rainfall to avoid floods during extreme weather events.
But climate change also places stress on our green spaces, increasing the chances they will be damaged during a storm and altering the growing climate of plants. Indeed, 84% of cities said that protecting against climate change and extreme weather damage was a challenge.
Ensuring parks can provide important climate resilience benefits means making changes to how we plan, design, and maintain green spaces so they adapt and thrive in a changing climate. These changes ripple across everything from how we plan park systems to the aesthetics of park landscapes to the equipment used to cut the grass.
More and more Canadian cities are planning for climate change adaptation—whether through new climate action plans, climate actions embedded in park system master plans, or both. This year, 72% of cities reported having a climate action plan in place, an increase from last year due both to the inclusion of new cities in the 2021 report and a slew of new climate action plans approved in 2020.
Some of this planning work is in its early stages. For example, while almost all Canadian park system master plans reference climate change, many of the recommendations are for further work to create guidelines that can better integrate climate resiliency standards into park planning.
This doesn’t mean that cities aren’t building climate-resilient parks, but that they may be one-off projects—like a rain garden installed in a park to help reduce flood risk—rather than formalized changes to how all parks are designed and redeveloped.
That is beginning to change, however.
Consider Mississauga’s new Climate Change Action Plan, which calls for integrating climate change considerations into park development standards. The city’s Climate Change Supervisor Leya Barry said that the city was already doing this work on a park-by-park basis, but “some things that were championed by an individual [city staff person] may lose momentum and attention if that individual leaves or takes a different role.” Standardizing climate resilient planning in parks will help institutionalize practices and ensure continuity.
Holistic plans that formalize practices across an entire city can also help cement a new way of doing things and build partnerships between different city departments like parks, transportation, and water.
Vancouver’s Rain City Strategy, for example, coordinates green infrastructure improvements—like rain gardens, bioswales, and retention areas—across streets, parks, and developments to meet a goal of capturing 90% of rainfall. In reporting on why the strategy was so important, park staff noted that “without comprehensive policy, green infrastructure projects have mainly been staff-led pilot initiatives…rather than an integral part of city capital programs.”
Similarly, Kitchener approved a citywide policy that directs all private and public development to mitigate stormwater runoff by capturing the first 12.5 mm of rainfall where it falls, rather than allowing it to run into underground pipes. This attention to managing rainfall is shown in innovative practices at the recently completed RBJ Schlegel Park, which manages all rainfall onsite and reuses water from the splash pad for park irrigation.
Lastly, in Brampton, the recently approved Eco Park Strategy helps guide the development of a resilient, connected park system, grounded in values such as naturalization, ecological integrity, and recognizing social and cultural value. The city is developing an EcoPark toolkit that will provide guidelines for both city park development and community members, such as adopt-a-park groups, on how to implement the strategy’s goals in specific projects. The city is already putting the plan into practice, using an Eco Park lens to re-naturalize the concrete banks of the Jefferson, Jordan & Jayfield channel.
Depending on where you are and the time of year, climate change in Canada is bringing warmer, wetter, and drier conditions. This impacts the types of plants and trees best suited for parks, necessitating a shift to more climate-resilient species and opening the door in some cities for species that wouldn’t have grown there otherwise.
Edmonton’s climate adaptation plan, for example, notes that by 2050, the city’s growing season length could increase by 22 days, which will shift what plantings grow best. While Regina park staff indicated that a changing climate has created an opportunity to plant new tree species.
These shifts will alter the landscape of our parks in different ways. For example, displays of native wildflowers instead of annuals in park gardens. But it also means changes to one of the most ubiquitous landscapes found in parks: the lawn.
Manicured lawns aren’t going away—they’re key for sports and lounging around—but cities are moving towards naturalizing some of these spaces, shifting them to so-called “low mow meadows.”
Moving away from a grass monoculture can boost biodiversity and increase the climate benefits of parks. For example, studies have shown a diversity of plants helps keep spaces cooler than a grass lawn. And as Edmonton city staff noted, “increased naturalization results in less need for mowing,” which reduces emissions from trimming equipment. To increase this practice, Edmonton city staff said they have adjusted the city’s landscape standards to focus on naturalization opportunities “in unprogrammed, low use spaces or spaces where there is environmental benefit to naturalize” Similarly, in Brampton, the city’s 2019 Landscape Development Guidelines promote climate-resilient plantings and include planting density requirements for parks.
Shifting to more naturalized landscapes requires engaging the public, addressing expectations about aesthetics and concerns about wildlife.
“We’ve created an expectation that there will be tight mown grass and formalized flower gardens,” Vancouver Park Board Senior Planner Chad Townsend said. The Park Board, however, is transitioning more spaces to low-mow meadows. A recently approved pilot will see 37 hectares in 18 city parks converted to more naturally managed landscapes.
“It is difficult to manage change for people who are used to a different aesthetic,” Townsend said. “For some, it’s unkempt and messy in comparison, but that’s what naturally managed areas look like.”
Simple signs may help. Townsend said the Park Board will create pathways through some of the meadows, placing signage that welcomes people to use them. Similarly, in Toronto’s Meadoway—a project that is naturalizing a 16km hydro corridor—the Toronto Region Conservation Authority installed signs to educate people about the new meadows and why they may look different than other park landscapes.
Managing expectations also extends to parks that are continually damaged in increasingly strong storms, such as Vancouver’s beloved Stanley Park seawall.
“The first reaction is to just fix what has been quote unquote broken,” Townsend said, adding that “the public expectation is pretty much [that] you’ll find a way to keep those cedars growing, or find a way to keep the ponds full and keep repairing that wall.”
It’s a challenge to think long-term as opposed to “putting a patch on what has been damaged,” he said. He argued, however, that it’s important to strike a balance between forward-thinking actions to create more climate-resilient parks and appreciating public expectations for well-loved park spaces.
The question becomes whether the city fortifies itself against sea level rise or accepts that some parks will flood at times and design them to accommodate, Townsend said.One way Vancouver is tackling this is by inviting the public into a conversation about the impacts of sea level rise through a program called Sea2City that brings attention to how waterfront parks may be impacted. The program includes elements like installing signs calling attention to future high water marks in waterfront parks, and a “Conversations in Canoes” video series with a range of experts.
Despite the major challenge climate change poses, it’s not all about city-led actions. As we pointed out in last year’s Canadian City Parks Report, local actions in small spaces can have far-reaching impacts.
As Nature Canada’s Policy Manager Michael Polanyi argued, neighbourhood-based projects can be “proof of concept,” using success stories to pave the way for larger projects and policy change across the city.
“Initiatives to plant trees in parks or start community gardens or distribute rain barrels in a neighbourhood or try and restore a small wetland—I think those are important in terms of engaging people, in terms of raising awareness, in terms of showing support and energy behind local initiatives which get politicians excited and on board,” he said.
Neighbourhood-level projects also highlight changes needed to reduce barriers that exist in a city in promoting more resilient practices. “When residents try to do something at the local level, you [notice] barriers—whether it’s lack of funding or a ridiculous permit system you have to go through or a by-law that’s in the way.” Polanyi said.
Polanyi also pointed out that “cities are often the modelers of wider change.” For example, local advocates were critical to the enactment of pesticide bans, which started at the municipal level and then moved up to provincial laws.
“Often working at the neighbourhood level, getting something happening at the city level, is the way that change happens,” he said.
As Canadians spent more time outdoors during the pandemic, the benefits of parks were clear. They helped us de-stress, stay active, and connect safely with others. But parks are critical for tackling another looming urban crisis: climate change.
Parks provide a number of climate change mitigation and adaptation benefits, such as cleaning the air, protecting against flooding, and regulating local temperatures. As climate change brings heavier storms and hotter weather, parks become even more important.
However, urban green spaces–and thus their benefits–are not equally distributed.
If you live in a neighbourhood with plentiful parks and trees then you also likely live in a neighbourhood that is whiter and higher income. Multiple studies show that lower income, racialized communities have fewer green spaces, making these communities more vulnerable to climate change impacts.
Sherry Yano, formerly of the David Suzuki Foundation, argued that these communities are also often located closer to more polluted and disaster prone areas. This reality, described as environmental racism, is documented in recent Canadian research:
In response to inequities like these, Canadian advocates have called for centring justice in climate action. These calls follow a long history of the environmental justice movement, which works to redress environmental harms and ensure both negative and positive environmental impacts are equitably distributed.
This movement also includes city parks. We spoke with experts about what taking a justice approach looks like at the scale of the urban park, allowing more people to share in the climate resilience benefits of green space.
While a new federal bill seeks to address environmental racism in Canada, a 2020 study found that “environmental justice indicators are not yet routinely incorporated into policy decision-making at the local, provincial or federal level.” The gap goes deeper: “Even in cases where consideration of equity dimensions is encouraged in planning, guidance on how to measure and monitor those dimensions can be limited.”
This finding reflects our review of Canadian climate change and park system plans. While plans mention equity as a general principle, few carry this forward into policy and even fewer specifically acknowledge racial inequities.
Some cities, however, have begun to step forward:
By taking an equity-based approach to park development, and particularly focusing on communities that may be more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, these plans, if implemented, work towards cities that allow more residents to share in the climate resilience benefits of green spaces.
When we talk about green space inequities, we often point out which neighbourhoods have fewer parks. But, as Setha Low has written, distributional justice is only one aspect of environmental justice in parks. We must also examine whether decision-making processes are fair (procedural justice) and whether people are treated respectfully (interactional justice).
This means asking questions such as:
These questions of process, power, and respect can have a profound impact on a city’s ability to address inequities.
As Vancouver Park Board Senior Planner Chad Townsend said, “it helps to have a master plan policy that recognizes inequity,” like Vancouver’s Initiative Zones, but it “doesn’t immediately change where the loud voices come from.”
In our survey, just 34% of Canadians said they felt they had the ability to influence what went on in their parks.
Reforming how and who we engage is no small matter. The distributional inequities we see today are the result of decision-making power imbalances, Sherry Yano argued, privileging some voices over others. “If you keep reinforcing the same systems, you are reinforcing the way we got to these problems.”
We can start by providing opportunities for a range of people in affected communities to be meaningfully involved in influencing outcomes, rather than positioning engagement solely as a way to seek feedback.
Canadian placemaker Jay Pitter has said that “if the community engagement process hasn’t served the larger purpose of building bridges across difference and fostering new relationships, then it hasn’t served the community.” She suggested smaller gatherings and walking workshops as ways to create opportunities for dialogue.
Larissa Crawford, Founder of Future Ancestors Services, a youth-led Indigenous and Black-owned social enterprise advancing climate justice, advocated for engaging with diverse youth and giving them decision-making power. “These young minds are required to think of sustainability in a way that older generations and even my generation didn’t have to,” she said.
Diversity is not just about race and identity, Crawford added, but about bringing in diverse experiences. This means not prioritizing people based on academic or professional credentials, but widening our scope to value the contributions of people with different lived experiences, including Indigenous land stewardship practices.
“When we only value one way of knowing, and one kind of experience in these environmental spaces, then we’re having conversations with ourselves,” she said.
Parks provide social infrastructure and can strengthen support networks during times of need. We’ve seen this play out with COVID-19, where 71% of Canadians in our survey said parks were critical to their sense of social connection during the pandemic.
Experts say these social connections are also critical when it comes to climate change.
Florence Lecour-Cyr is the Agente de programmation, planification et recherche at CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. She argued that the connections people create in parks can act as social support networks, especially for people who are more vulnerable, such as older adults or people with less mobility.
As one study pointed out, the social connections afforded by parks “may be a lifeline [for isolated individuals] in extreme temperatures.” Having a neighbour check in during a heat wave or having a place to stay when the power goes out can, in some circumstances, be the difference between life and death.
It’s important, especially in relation to climate change, for cities to measure social connections, argued Anne Pelletier, Service environnement urbain et saines habitudes de vie, Direction régionale de santé publique du CIUSSS du Centre-Sud de Montréal. But she acknowledged that it’s “not a phenomenon that is easy to capture.” Some initiatives have sprung up, such as the U.S.-based Reimagining the Civic Commons project’s measurement framework, and the Toronto Foundation’s Social Capital Study.
Complex challenges like climate change defy the compartmentalized ways in which we often approach problems and in which cities divide up work.
“There’s such a focus on siloes of learning. The mechanics, or the policy, or the science” Sheila Boudreau a landscape architect and Founder of SpruceLab said. “I think cities need to break out of siloed departments,” creating cross-disciplinary working groups.
If we don’t think holistically and broadly about climate change, Boudreau added, then “we’re going to fail in our efforts.” A narrow environmental focus in a project may foster short-term gains, but it may not work long-term or address the social needs of a community.
For example, Boudreau spoke about how confronting discrimination is critical in promoting access to the climate change benefits of parks. If someone feels unwelcome accessing a newly created green space–for example because of a fear of discrimination based on race or because they are an unhoused park user–then they aren’t able to reap its benefits of air quality and cooler temperatures.
The potential for green gentrification is another example of why thinking across disciplines is necessary when pursuing green space projects. Green gentrification occurs when investments in green spaces in lower income neighborhoods result in property value increases, which can displace the residents the investments were meant to benefit.
While new green spaces bring climate-resilience and social benefits, they can also spark concern. For example, a green laneway built in Montreal’s Saint-Henri neighborhood to help mitigate heat caused concern among activists that rising rents could push out local residents. Similar conversations have played out in Vancouver related to a proposed downtown waterfront park nearby the lower-income Downtown Eastside.
Florence Lecour-Cyr said that for green space investments to curb the gentrification process they must coincide with social and housing policies that target affordability. Anne Pelletier argued that involving local communities in the planning and animation of parks will make it possible to create spaces that foster a sense of belonging–a point also made by the National Recreation and Parks Association in their briefing on equitable park development.
Indigenous ways of knowing and approaches to land stewardship have important lessons for thinking about climate change, but are not often reflected in city policies.
Participants at Toronto’s Indigenous Climate Action Summit argued for a more holistic approach that recognizes spiritual and justice concerns. “If the city does not account for and address colonization in its policies it will keep repeating the same problematic behaviours,” the session notes stated. For example, rather than simply quantitative indicators (e.g., counting species), participants suggested measuring success against wider questions, such as whether we are being good ancestors.
“When we aren’t acknowledging how significant a role Indigenous peoples need to play in [conversations about climate change], we cannot produce the most effective and the most reliable outcomes,” said Larissa Crawford.
She pointed towards successful co-management regimes at the national park level between Parks Canada and Indigenous Nations. “Those are some of the most innovative park management regimes I’ve encountered and that are being recognized, especially for their ability to assess environmental health in a completely new way.”
The importance of Indigenous land stewardship practices was highlighted by a 2019 University of British Columbia study which found biodiversity was highest on Indigenous-managed lands—finding a 40% greater number of unique species.
Crawford argued this process must start by acknowledging the harm that’s been caused, and the history of Indigenous land dispossession behind the establishment of parks–a history that is often hidden from view.
Only once we’ve taken the time to acknowledge that harm, can “we seek to establish concrete and meaningful relationships with those original caregivers,” Crawford said.
“Not only are we going to be working towards the spirit of restorative relationships,” she said. “But we’re also going to tap into the plethora of expertise that Indigenous peoples have, especially with regards to the land and its sustainability, and the ecosystem and our roles as humans in that ecosystem.”
After three years without air conditioning, my partner and I finally bought one. Before that, we would sit in front of fans, or, even better, plunge into the Don Valley ravine to beat the summer heat. It was there, leafy trees above me, that I would find relief.
I thought about this as I watched British Columbians deal with an extreme heat event. I know from growing up in Vancouver that few people have air conditioners, which made me think about the role parks play in heat crises–and who has access to life-saving trees and green space.
It’s no secret that our cities are getting hotter due to climate change and that Canada is warming faster than the rest of the world. By building concrete cities, we’ve created “urban heat islands” that absorb the sun’s heat, keeping temperatures hot into the night.
This extreme heat is uncomfortable, but also deadly. More than 700 people died during BC’s recent heat wave. In 2018, 66 people died in a Montreal heat wave. People who lived in neighbourhoods deemed urban heat islands were twice as likely to die.
This will only get worse. As we outlined in our recent Canadian City Parks Report, Health Canada notes that by the middle of the 21st century the number of days with temperatures over 30 degrees will double in Canadian cities. A 2018 study found that, depending on mitigation measures, Canada could see a rise of 45% to 455% in heat-related deaths between 2031 and 2080. If that’s not a national health crisis, I’m not sure what is.
Green spaces are fundamental to reducing the urban heat island effect. We all know the bliss of standing under a shady tree, but vegetation also helps cool cities through evapotranspiration. This is basically when plants sweat, cooling the air around them.
Not every park is the same. A review by the David Suzuki Foundation found that size, (bigger parks extended benefits), shape (irregular-shaped parks increase cooling effects), and connectivity (closer together parks were cooler) have big impacts on the heat-mitigating powers of parks.Even plantings make a difference. Sorry to the lawn lovers, but densely planted naturalized meadows are better at cooling than grass. This makes projects like Vancouver’s recent low-mow meadows, which naturalize park lawns to support biodiversity, an important climate resilience project.
Parks also provide places for people to build social connections. This can quickly become life-saving during a crisis, where people who may be isolated and more vulnerable to heat–like older adults–are able to draw on connections for help. As one study put it, the social connections afforded by parks “may be a lifeline in extreme temperatures.”
This highlights the importance of redressing inequities in high-quality green space access–another topic explored in Park People’s 2021 Canadian City Parks Report.
Multiple studies have shown that wealthier, often whiter, neighbourhoods are also greener. As Health Canada notes, neighbourhoods most affected by heat “disproportionately impact marginalized populations and residents of lower-income communities” who have less green space.
Even when trees exist, they are healthier in wealthier neighbourhoods. A Canadian study found neighbourhoods with high socioeconomic vulnerability had fewer trees and less resilient canopies.
As journalist Jen St. Denis pointed out, urban heat islands map onto areas of Vancouver based on income, with wealthier west side neighbourhoods greener and thus cooler than east side neighbourhoods.
Canadian cities are beginning to step up with more equity-focused plans that, with proper funding and implementation, could start to redress these inequities.
Vancouver’s recent parks master plan includes a mapping tool using indicators such as tree canopy coverage to prioritize green space investments. Ontario’s Peel Region has also done heat mapping, noting that this could be used to target improvements for vulnerable populations.
Meeting this challenge will require an all-hands-on-deck approach. It must involve parks departments, but also streets, city planning, and community organizations. Federal funding for green infrastructure and tree planting should contain equity guidance to ensure improvements are made in the areas that need them first.
If we all work together, we can create cooler, greener, more equitable cities.
This article first appeared on TorontoStar.com, July 7, 2021.
A retaining wall is a piece of infrastructure, but what about a waterfront park?
In recognition of the climate resilience benefits of green spaces, such as flood protection, many Canadian cities are moving more towards nature-based solutions that view parks as key pieces of green infrastructure.
According to researchers, nature-based solutions are “actions which are inspired by, supported by, or copied from nature” and include “enhancing, restoring, creating, and designing new ecological networks characterized by multi-functionality and connectivity.”
In other words, instead of pipes or concrete walls, we can build parks that mimic or enhance natural processes, like how a pond protects against flooding by holding water. These spaces then provide both climate resilience benefits and create space for recreation and natural habitat–something a pipe can’t do.
In order to position urban natural spaces as infrastructure, some Canadian researchers argue we must first understand the value these natural spaces provide to a functioning, resilient city in the face of climate change. This includes putting a financial value on the services a green space provides, such as the amount of carbon it absorbs or how it helps manage stormwater.
Not doing so risks reducing economic incentives for green space preservation or enhancement and undervaluing these spaces relative to other land uses, like roads, the authors of a Montreal-based study argue. To “curb this problem,” they say, we can “demonstrate the real economic contribution of natural capital to the wellbeing of communities and to consider the cost of erosion of these amenities.”
Some Canadian cities are hoping to do just that. New climate change plans in Calgary, Guelph, and Edmonton call for natural asset valuation studies. And the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to “helping municipalities count nature,” has launched a new project with 22 Canadian municipalities, including Charlottetown, Kelowna, Surrey, Langley Township, Winnipeg, Mississauga, and Halifax.
The project includes working with cities to undertake an inventory of natural assets, which includes their location and condition. Doing so can help cities better plan for climate resilience by protecting and enhancing natural assets, such as woodlands, creeks, and other green spaces. As MNAI states: “natural assets can provide the same level of service as many engineered assets, and often at a much lower cost to the balance sheet and to the environment.”
This has caught the attention of advocates, such as Nature Canada Policy Manager Michael Polanyi. He sees this work as a way to better incorporate considerations for the services natural spaces provide into planning.
Making it clear “how reliant we are on the hidden services that are provided by nature does seem to be an impetus for changing approaches to decision-making,” Polanyi said. “Councillors and decision-makers are so focused on the economic side of things. Unless that’s made visible, it’s hard to make the case for investing in protection.”
Some independent studies have worked to make some of these hidden services visible–at least in financial terms. A 2014 TD Economics report on the value of urban forests in Halifax, Montreal, and Vancouver, found financial savings in air quality, stormwater management, energy (heating and cooling costs), and carbon sequestration. This ranged from $2 in benefits for everyone $1 spent on trees in Montreal up to $13 in benefits in Halifax. A similar report focused on Toronto, found trees provide $80 million in benefits per year to Torontonians, which works out to about $125 per resident.
Cities are now working towards this type of evaluation themselves, expanding the calculations beyond trees to take into account the full spectrum of green spaces.
Mississauga’s Climate Change Supervisor Leya Barry said that a 2016 Insurance Bureau of Canada study looking at climatic events was a “catalyst” for the city’s climate change work. “It really painted a clearer picture of what’s going to happen if we don’t start being more intentional and considering these things more holistically.”
That study found the cost of one extreme ice storm event could cause up to $38 million in damages in Mississauga.
Mississauga then commissioned a climate risk assessment of three parks. While the process is usually used to evaluate hard infrastructure, such as bridges, Barry said the city wanted to include natural infrastructure to better understand the risk to the city’s green spaces. The study found the highest threats were from flooding, ice storms, heat, and wind–the last of which Barry said can do an enormous amount of damage to tree canopies.
However, assigning value to natural spaces such as stormwater facilities, parks, and even sports fields, can be a fraught process.
“It’s very difficult to think about natural assets strictly from a financial lens because…it doesn’t account for all the other benefits and services that asset provides,” Barry said. “If you’re saying I spent $400 on this tree, so therefore the replacement value of this tree is $400, that’s a real simplification and that’s kind of problematic.”
For example, Barry said the city’s not sure how cultural value will be included, but hopes it will be a consideration when the city gets to the valuation stage.
The challenge of putting a financial value on green spaces is one that other cities are struggling with as well.
How do we put a value on the social impact of parks and the connections with our neighbours? What about the aesthetic appreciation of sun filtering through leaves? Or the relaxation we feel walking in an urban forest? Should those even be considered in financial terms at all or does reducing parks to economic terms risk flattening the more intangible, yet critically important, benefits of parks?
Indeed, the challenges of using financial terminology to describe nature’s value is addressed in Saskatoon’s new Green Strategy, which was released in 2020 alongside the city’s Natural Capital Asset Valuation study. The latter received funding from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program.
Saskatoon’s study detailed ecosystem services for valuation such as carbon sequestration, pollination, air quality and climate control, forage production, and mental and physical health. The study also included vulnerability assessments to key ecosystems, such as wetlands, grasslands, and forests.
While the valuation study also highlighted the cultural, heritage, and aesthetic importance of parks, it concluded that more work was required to acknowledge these values and that it was difficult to “express this value in financial terms.” One key learning was the importance of involving stakeholders who hold different views on the services ecosystems provide, such as cultural services, to inform the approach to the study.
City staff pointed out there is a “need to view nature and cultural spaces beyond their capital function,” adding that “many Indigenous worldviews see the land as sacred, and believe humans should not apply economic terminology to it. We shouldn’t lose sight of the intrinsic value of nature when applying an asset management approach.”
As climate change brings more droughts, floods, and other extreme weather, cities across Canada are embarking on a new phase of planning parks as networks of green infrastructure. This means engineering green spaces to enhance natural processes, such as designing parks as sponges to soak up excess rainwater and reduce flood risk.
These parks do triple duty by buffering the impacts of extreme weather, boosting biodiversity by increasing natural habitat, and providing places for people to gather and recreate. Canadians are supportive of these initiatives, with 92% of the nearly 3,500 Canadians we surveyed in April 2021 saying this type of climate-resilient infrastructure should be embedded into parks.
Whether converting streets to cool green oases, designing parks that celebrate water, or re-naturalizing the mouths of entire rivers, these eight Canadian projects point a way forward to more climate resilient cities.
Following two devastating floods in the Pointe-Gatineau and Lac-Beauchamp districts in 2017 and 2019, heavily impacted properties were ceded to the city and residents relocated. A master plan process* to revitalize the vacant lots was initiated in 2020 and led by the Conseil Régional de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable de l’Outaouais* with a working group, of which Park People was also a part.
Through this master plan, the city hoped, with community input, to redesign areas along the Ottawa river for better flood protection and community connection. Rather than proposing broad changes, the resulting plan lays out a toolbox approach at the lot level with a set of actions that can be implemented depending on a particular local context by either the city or community groups. This toolbox includes 25 typologies within five categories:
“One primary goal of the project was to elevate and inspire momentum so people take action,” said Manon Otto, from Mandaworks studio, the urban designer on the project. “We needed to harvest their energy and their interest for the project by providing a toolbox that is totally democratic.”
For more in depth analysis of this project, read Park People’s case study made possible by the Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation.
Down on the shores of Toronto’s Lake Ontario, a massive park and new neighbourhood is taking shape.
Led by Waterfront Toronto in coordination with the City of Toronto, the Don Mouth Naturalization and Port Lands Flood Protection project will create new parks and natural habitat. It will also provide flood protection by re-naturalizing the mouth of the Don River and carving out a new island neighbourhood.
Waterfront Toronto Parks and Public Realm Project Director Shannon Baker said that the project is designed to withstand a regional flood, but also fluctuating lake levels. Michael van Valkenburgh Associates, the landscape architects, studied river mouths and wetlands along Lake Ontario to inform the design approach.
The goal is not to block water or prevent it from rising and ebbing, but “to accept it and just be resilient to it in the same way that a natural system would be,” Baker said. For example, vegetation was carefully selected for species that “can bend and flex and allow water to move through.”
Designing a new river mouth means taking into account the interconnectedness of different ecosystems. Waterfront Toronto Project Manager Pina Mallozzi said that they had to pay special attention to plantings in the wetland areas. Since the riverfront wetlands will need to deal with sediment and other detritus that float down the river, the plants had to be carefully chosen to ensure they can survive under those conditions.
“It’s a heavily engineered project but at the end of the day it will feel like a very big green natural park space and that will be the success of the project,” Mallozzi said.
The Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Program is a “collaborative model for sustainable urban renewal and climate action that focuses on the neighbourhood scale,” Brampton city staff said. SNAP “focuses on empowering communities by engaging them on neighbourhood-based solutions and placemaking.”
The program works through partnerships, including the City of Brampton, Toronto Region Conservation Authority, Credit Valley Conservation, the Region of Peel, and community-based organizations and businesses. Through these partnerships, SNAP takes into account both community needs and city resilience priorities to create a customized action plan that identifies projects, such as retrofits to existing spaces.
One such project, Upper Nine Pond, was identified through the County Court SNAP process and opened in 2020. The goal was to meet both resilience and community public space needs by redesigning the stormwater pond to enhance water quality and create “an attractive public space that includes a trail, seating, and natural features,” staff said.
Completed in 2020, this 17-hectare park manages 100% of stormwater onsite, including the ability to hold more water than from a 200 year flood. The park’s green infrastructure elements, including 9,000 square metres of rain gardens, were paid for through a $750,000 grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Climate Innovation Program funded by the Federal Government.
City staff noted the park also contains Ontario’s first double-use water system in the park’s splash pad, which will collect and treat water onsite and re-use it for irrigation–reducing the amount of water needed in the park.
Opened in 2019, the 3.5-hectare Saigon Park includes a major stormwater management facility through a central pond designed to provide water control for nearby neighbourhoods from a 100 year storm event. The pond and its naturalized plantings also improves aquatic habitat and water quality.
The park also contains a one-kilometre walking loop with fitness stations and uses public art to highlight the environment through a piece entitled “A Year in Weather” by artist Ferruccio Sardella.
According to the city’s public art collection website, “this work is a celebration of the storm-water management project at Saigon Park and represents the balance between weather, natural systems, and built environment.”
Winner of the 2021 Canadian Society of Landscape Architects Jury’s Award of Excellence for Large-Scale Public Landscapes, Calgary’s Dale Hodges Park transforms land that was once a gravel quarry along the Bow River into a 40-hectare park and stormwater treatment facility that addresses runoff from over 1,700 hectares of the surrounding area.
Dale Hodges Park traces “the journey of stormwater through a series of curated experiences, collaboratively designed with The City’s Parks, Water Resources and Public Art departments, emphasizing the flow of water through the landscape,” the CSLA website states, calling it “a new type of high-performance public space.”
Montreal is transforming McGill Avenue in the heart of downtown from a paved street to a naturalized landscape through a design chosen through an open competition. The winning design best met the city’s objectives of expanding green space, reducing the urban heat island effect from paved surfaces, and increasing resilience and biodiversity through a rich and diverse plant selection.
The winning concept aims to reinvent the Avenue as a series of small, natural, and comfortable “living rooms,” linked by a long border bench and a furrow of water. The new space will offer users of the city centre a daily immersion in nature, in contrast with the built density of the surrounding downtown.
Increasing green space and tree canopy in a dense urban environment by redesigning a street to be more park-like will help the city adapt to climate change impacts, said Noémie Bélanger, planning advisor for the Sainte-Catherine and McGill College projects. But transforming a street into a more green environment is also challenging given the need to take into account a series of underground utilities that can limit the planting opportunities at the surface.
Successfully establishing a young forest in the middle of a city centre so that it becomes a functional support for biodiversity requires the involvement of experts capable of planning the growth of plant layers and their maintenance, which the city has also recognized as an opportunity to involve local community members and academic researchers. According to Bélanger, although planning practices have evolved towards more ecological approaches and cities are increasingly integrating these criteria in their design requirements, there are still opportunities for cities to develop tools to monitor and evaluate climate change challenges within city parks.
The St. George Rainway shows the potential of stream “daylighting,” whereby formerly buried streams are resurrected, but also the importance of community advocacy in raising new ideas. What began as a community vision more than a decade ago to restore a lost waterway in Vancouver’s Mt. Pleasant neighbourhood is now moving forward through a city public consultation process.
“St George Street was once home to the Statlew, also known as St George Creek,” the city’s project website states. “In the early 1900s, this historic creek was buried underground to make way for roads and houses. The St George Rainway aims to reimagine this historic waterway through implementing green rainwater infrastructure features that capture and clean rainwater from local streets and sidewalks.”
“The Rainway has potential to not only provide essential rainwater management services, but also create a unique blue-green corridor that provides enhanced public space, street improvements, and more greenery and biodiversity to the neighbourhood,” the city states.
The project follows other Vancouver stream daylighting projects such as through Tatlow and Volunteer Parks, which we covered in the 2020 Canadian City Parks Report.
Join the Canadian City Parks Report’s authors, Jake Tobin Garrett, Adri Stark & Naomi Amberber, and Park People Board Chair Zahra Ebrahim, for a webinar to launch the 2021 Report. This Canadian City Parks Report launch webinar features:
The third annual report tracking the trends, challenges, and leading practices in 32 Canadian cities. This year’s report highlights new city park insights on how parks can foster more resilient, equitable cities—not only as we recover from COVID-19, but as we address another looming crisis: climate change.
The webinar is held in English; French subtitles are available.
Adri Stark is specialized in research and policy at Park People, and co-author of the annual Canadian City Parks Report.…
Zahra is a public interest designer and strategist focused on shifting power to people who are typically underrepresented in institutions…
Jake Tobin Garrett (he/him) is a writer, illustrator and public space policy and research consultant. He was previously Park People’s…
Every great community park project starts with a big idea—and often, a little extra funding to bring it to life.
If your park group has dreams of building a new pollinator garden, organizing a community arts festival, or even hiring a new staff person to keep everything organized, grants can be a powerful tool to achieve and sustain your vision. Navigating grant applications can feel a little overwhelming at first. That’s why we’ve assembled this guide to walk you through the steps, share helpful tips, and offer resources that can make the journey smoother.
Let’s get your park project the support it deserves!
There are several types of organizations that give money to grassroots parks groups:
To find the most relevant opportunities for your group:
Writing grant applications takes time and energy, so you’ll want to be strategic about which ones you apply for. Closely examine the criteria for each grant to make sure that your park group has a chance to be funded (or whether you’re even eligible to apply).
You’ll want to look for:
Every granting organization wants to know that you have a realistic, detailed budget for your project. Your budget should:
Many worthy organizations are vying for every grant that’s available. To stand out from the pack, you’ll want to tell your park group’s story in a compelling way that’s irresistible to funders. Here are our top tips for the writing to persuade:
So you’ve submitted your application and received the bad news—your project hasn’t been selected for a grant. It’s a disappointment for sure, but remember, “no” can often mean “not yet.” If you’re rejected, contact the funder to ask for any feedback they can share about their decision. Perhaps your work is better suited to a different grant they offer, or your application was missing something you can add for the next funding cycle.
Hurray, you’ve been approved! Okay, is it time to break out the bubbly? Not quite. First, you will want to do a few things:
Okay, now go celebrate!
Are you currently running your park group on your own? Are you just getting your group started and looking for some direction around governance? The team model is a really effective way of working with others on collective goals. How the team model gets applied varies based on the nature of your group and your preferred leadership style. We look at two different park groups to give you a flavour of what the team model might mean for your organization.
It’s no surprise that park groups organize themselves differently from not-for-profit organizations with paid staff. For many volunteers, park work is a “side-hustle” that happens while managing busy work and family responsibilities.
Grassroots Growth, a project from Volunteer Toronto, talks about the various governance models common for smaller organizations like most community park groups. We’re going to cover the team model and address how it’s been applied by two different park groups, differently.
To do this, we spoke with Louise O’Neill, Convenor of Friends of Cedarbrook and Thomson Memorial Park (FCTMP) in Scarborough, Ontario, whose organization recently transitioned from a strong leader model to a leadership team model. We also spoke to Ana Cuciureanu from Toronto’s Friends of Parkway Forest Park (FPFP), an organization that has adopted a hybrid version of the team model that they’re found effective.
By way of definition, a team model means that “all core volunteers work together to make decisions.” Adopting a team model makes sense when your group is small; you are looking for ways to include others in decision making, and working to avoid the burnout that can come with one individual carrying the load as a leader. Your ideas and solutions might turn out to be more creative, and sharing the load can feel good for everyone on the team.
What happens when a team leader or key member leaves? Both Louise and Ana have given this considerable thought.For Louise, the team model build resilience and continuity into her group. For example, she’s already given a member with an interest in social media the reins in running their accounts. Louise figures that two or three people could split the responsibilities that she now manages. “Still, you need one person dedicated to taking on the role of convenor,” says Louise. “Someone has to hold things together.”
Like Louise, Ana recognizes that she’s a figurehead for the group. However, she feels strongly that an agile approach to her team’s leadership will ensure that many people will gain experience in different roles which will help the group remain resilient if she needs to step back for any reason;. “I’m trying to create a lot of mini-mes” she says “so that anyone can step into the lead role on a project and feel confident. We’re definitely getting there as people are gaining experience in different areas.”
If you are just getting your parks group off the ground and hope to do more than a couple events a year, think about the team model of governance. It puts control into more hands of more people and helps you accomplish more than going it alone.
In the early days, Friends of Cedarbrook and Thomson Memorial Park employed a strong leader model. To keep the explanation simple: Louise did everything herself. Eventually, Louise realized that the group could only diversify and grow its presence by involving more people. Also, sharing the leadership role meant building succession planning into her vision for the group. The transition to a team model was made easier by the fact that the group’s events were continually attracting new people who were eager to get more involved. Louis now has a core team of 10 members and a larger group of 60, many of whom help out from time to time.
According to Louise, the most essential roles to fill on a team include those of a treasurer/bookkeeper who manages funds and keeps accounts straight; and of a convenor who sets meetings, administers the membership list, creates agendas and generally keeps things on track. Louise says that a third type of team member could be a marketing person, mostly because they continually attract new people to the group. Each of the team members have specific roles and the team needs to form consensus to make important decisions.
By contrast, Friends of Parkway Forest Park has grown in numbers and has employed the team model from the get-go. So far, the group has been able to successfully function without much formality in the group’s structure. While Ana is technically the group’s figure-head, she doesn’t want to be recognized as the group’s ‘leader’ even though she’s happy to be “the glue” that holds the rest of the team together. “I don’t want to be a leader. I want the group to belong to everyone, but I also know that as the Founder, people see me that way. It’s something I try very hard to resist because its not my style and I don’t think it’s what’s best for this particular group.”
Friends of Cedarbrook and Thomson Memorial Park’s core team members choose the roles they wanted to fulfill. For example, one member is an accountant who offered to do FCTMP’s bookkeeping and keep track of attendance figures. Another member contacts local businesses to solicit donations, while yet another is a professional landscaper spearheads park beautification projects. Louise continues to oversee the group’s administrative duties.
FCTMP has other team roles that are program-based including a cycling coordinator, a nature coordinator, and a knitting enthusiast who organizes the group’s participation in Worldwide Knit in Public Day. Each coordinator works autonomously but makes decisions in consultation with the rest of the core group. The group’s structure is relatively fluid, making space for people to join in for specific projects and efforts as needed.
At Parkway Forest, group members also contribute based on their strengths. However, the group’s membership ebbs and flows largely based on volunteers’ availability. Part of the group’s reality is that many of the group’s members have outside commitments and responsibilities. There’s an inherent recognition that people won’t always be available tonpitch in. “We’re all volunteers with full lives that send us in different directions. We just can’t expect that everyone will always be able to participate, so we’ve created a structure that accommodates that.” Having worked on several projects together, the members know each other well and have an intuitive sense of what each can add to roles like grant writing, events, documentation and outreach. Ana recognizes that this approach may not be effective when new members join, but for now, it works.
The members of Friends of Parkway Forest Park have a core group of members that emerged through their partnerships with social service agencies and other volunteer groups. When someone emerges with skills and interests that intersect with the group, the existing group members discuss whether this person should be added to the core group. There’s no distinction between core group members and any other members. They’re very careful about adding new people to the group to protect the group’s dynamics.
Friends of Cedarbrook and Thomson Memorial Park’s core members have final say on the direction that FCTMP takes and the activities that it carries out. They base their decisions about core group membership on the principle that if you show up to multiple meetings and come out to a few events, you’re a core member. Otherwise, you’re still welcome at any meeting, but not considered a decision maker. The group adopted this approach to address the challenge of working with people who are primarily interested in leveraging the group to further their own agenda. For example, Louise recalls that one group wanted to organize a musical event and tried to get it organized through Friends of Cedarbrook Park, hoping they could avoid permit and insurance fees. “It made us realize that we need to have people commit to a certain extent,” says Louise. “We need to make sure that they are truly interested in our core mandate of improving the park.”
With the Park People Conference quickly approaching in June, we caught up with keynote speaker Dave Meslin. Dave is a community organizer and activist and author of Teardown: Rebuilding Democracy from the Ground Up. He is the Creative Director of Unlock Democracy Canada and founder of many impactful initiatives including Toronto Public Space Committee and Cycle Toronto.
Dave Meslin: Parks and public spaces, to me, are sacred because everyone has equal access. What I love about all of our parks and our sidewalks and our alleyways is that no one gets across the street first based on which credit card they have in their wallet. So, I think there’s something beautiful and sacred about them that we need to speak up for and protect.
DM: So many aspects of my work and my belief system feel sacred to me because it’s not just about work and it’s not just about politics and votes and lobbying and legislation. It’s where I find spiritual grounding.
We’re at a time when people are increasingly turning away from organized religion. That raises the question: what replaces the rituals of gathering in synagogues, churches, mosques or temples? Where do people find spirituality, grounding and meaning with organized religion playing less of a role?
To me, public spaces are one of those places.
Something sacred is something that you feel you would be willing to defend even at personal cost. Something you would make sacrifices for. I feel that way about our public spaces. I feel that without that type of protection, they’re at risk from various forces.
DM: I think the biggest risk to public spaces and parks is actually advertising. The only reason advertisers aren’t there right now is because we have considered parks to be sacred. Let’s face it, advertisers will put their logo on anything. That is unless we declare a space as sacred, and the list of what we consider sacred is rapidly shrinking.
I could see a municipal council saying: “Well, here’s a new revenue source we can tap into. We can put digital billboards in all our parks. People go to parks. Advertisers want to reach people. They would love to reach people who enjoy nature. We could sell to advertisers to reach that target market in our parks.” The only way you fight against that is by saying: No, this is sacred space. That would be like putting a billboard in a church or in a mosque and no, we’re not doing that.”
DM: I think that the biggest hurdle a lot of people experience is believing that their ideas have value and are important enough to be worth fighting for. That their voice that is worthy of being heard. That’s the equivalent of the closed doors.
Another huge obstacle is that people just have no idea where to start. Most people don’t really grasp the difference between municipal, provincial and federal government, in terms of jurisdiction. And that’s not their fault. We don’t teach it well. It is complicated. Like, who does health care? Well, there’s a Provincial Minister of Health. There’s a Federal Minister of Health. And then municipal governments do things like long term care and daycare and harm reduction.
Also, City Hall can be an intimidating place. I talked about this in the book: there’s no one at the doors of City Hall saying, “Hi, how can I help you?” There is at Walmart. There is at the Apple Store.
That’s why getting people to join together in groups is so important. That’s why what Park People does is so important. People are more likely to make stuff happen in a group because it creates the sense that “I’m not alone.” It helps build people’s confidence. There’s strength in numbers because it’s scary to do things alone.
If you’re intimidated about something in the first place, the chance of you doing it on your own is almost zero. But the chance of a group saying, “Hey, this is something we can work towards. This is something we can organize together.” That’s like a much more appealing invitation. It’s actually revolutionary.
I really like the educational component of it. They take a small piece of the capital budget, and then divide that up among a bunch of neighbourhoods, and let the local residents decide how to spend it.
It’s a great way to build democratic experiences, but it’s also a great way to learn about municipal budgeting, and what government actually does.
One of the main roles of a council is to decide how much money to bring in and how to spend it. The best way to teach that is by giving a little bit of money to people in the community, and asking “well, what do you want to do with it?” It’s just an incredible civics class.
DM: There’s this thing called Arnstein’s Ladder. It’s one way of looking at the different levels of engagement. Essentially, the bottom rung of the ladder is token engagement. That’s where the government decides what they want to do, and then it’s a fake survey or a fake townhall. I don’t think there’s evil intent, but do I think it is a kind of arrogance. It’s municipal staff and politicians thinking they know what’s best and treating the consultation like a nice gesture. It’s not a good approach. Not only is it not democratic, but it always creates really angry people.
On the opposite end of the spectrum there’s direct democracy. That’s where ordinary people get to vote and make all of the decisions. I’m not in favour of that either. Not only do I think that people don’t want to read 200 page staff reports, but more importantly, if you created a system where everyone gets to vote, who would actually have the extra time to do that reading? It’s going to be wealthier people who have babysitters and have house cleaners. Not the folks who are doing three jobs to pay the rent and feed their kids. So what some people think is the highest level of engagement is actually incredibly inaccessible to ordinary people.
DM: I think it’s context-specific. Let’s say, there’s gonna be a redesign of a park that asks: what do we want to happen in this park? That’s the kind of thing where people who use the park and live in the park and near the park should vote on it. That’s actually an ideal opportunity for direct democracy. I feel the same about the naming of parks. I don’t think politicians should get to name parks after other politicians. It should really be up to the people who use the park.
Parks are a perfect example where direct democracy makes sense. It’s a small bite-sized level, and the decisions aren’t super complex compared to you know, a multi billion dollar operating budget of a city.
Municipalities have a moral obligation to invest real money in actively advertising opportunities for engagement beyond the usual suspects. How about actually paying people to participate? Everyone’s got a different perspective based on their age and their gender and their confidence and how they’re using the space. And I just think the city should make more of an effort to actually invest in getting those voices heard.
I think about people like my mom and my sister. Super caring, super smart people who would never be caught dead at a “town hall meeting”. They wouldn’t even know there was a town hall, let alone take the time to go to it.
But, they know so much about their parks. My mom is nervous to walk on the track in her park because there’s a place where it kind of dips down and people could hide and you wouldn’t see them. I never thought of that. It’s not something I worry about or think about. She didn’t know who to talk to, so she asked me what she could do.
If you’re trying to find the people to consult about a park, why just not go to the park? That’s what credit card companies do to get people to get their cards. They stand at the store or at the airport and solicit people. They don’t invite you to come to a meeting to talk about credit cards at a community centre. They go straight to their target audience. We should be doing the same thing. It’s not hard to find your target audience if you’re talking about parks. They’re at the park.
Really, there should never be indoor consultations about parks. The best place to talk about parks is in parks.
Fundraising is a great way to build the capacity of your community park group. Below are some key national grants that could help fund your next awesome park project.
At the bottom of the resource are options for more specific provincial and municipal grants.
Catherine Donnelly FoundationFunds projects that increase public support for fast and deep-reaching climate change solutions. Learn more
Climate Action and Awareness FundSupports Canadian-made projects that help to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. Learn more
Community Tree Grants CanadaOffers grants and technical support to community greening initiatives on publicly-accessible properties. Learn more
TD Park People GrantsSupports local leaders organize events focused on environmental education, sustainability, or stewardship. Learn more
EcoAction Community Funding ProgramProvides financial support to non-profit and non-government organizations for Canadian communities to take on local action-based projects that produce measurable, positive effects on the environment and to build the capacity of communities to sustain these activities in the future. Learn more
Patagonia Corporate GrantsSupports local groups that work to preserve the environment and protect local habitats and frontline communities. Learn more
Richardson FoundationOffers to fund charitable organizations that support youth initiatives and environmental issues. Learn more
Scotts Canada Gro For Good GrantsSupports community groups to develop sustainable gardens and green spaces in their communities. Learn more
TD Friends of the Environment FoundationFunds community work and park improvement projects through operating and capital grants. Learn more
Honda Canada Foundation (HCF)Funds educational institutions, charitable non-profit organizations or any national institution in the fields of family, environment, engineering and education. Learn more
Meridian Good Neighbour ProgramForges partnerships with local charities, not-for-profits, and public organizations so they can work together to meet each community’s needs. Learn more
TakingItGlobal Rising YouthSupports youth to participate in and becoming key stakeholders in strengthening global and local social movements. Learn more
Telus Community GrantFunds initiatives from Canadian registered charities that focus on local, grassroots community-based health and education programs that help youth reach their full potential. Learn more
Canadian Arts CouncilSupports professional art groups and non-profit organizations working in community parks and public spaces. Learn moreHeritage Canada – Local Festivals – Building Communities Through Arts and HeritageFunds local groups for recurring festivals that present the work of local artists, artisans or heritage performers. This includes the celebration of LGBTQ2+ communities and Indigenous cultural celebrations. Learn more
Richardson FoundationFunds registered Canadian charitable organizations that support visual and performing arts, education, youth initiatives. Learn more
Canada Post Community FoundationSupports organizations and groups in delivering and expanding child and youth programming, including sports and healthy living initiatives. Learn more
Canadian Tire Jumpstart/Bon départ Community Development GrantThe operational stream assists organizations with operational and administrative costs. The programming stream helps organizations develop or sustain sports and recreational programming for kids in financial need and youth with disabilities. Learn more
ParticipACTION Community Better ChallengeEncourages Canadians to get active in search of Canada’s Most Active Community. Learn more
Medavie Active Living GrantEncourages access to physical activity with a focus on supporting increased participation across a population. Learn more
Indigenous Youth Roots Creation Grants Supports youth-led projects seeking to create impactful community change and increase the wellness, resiliency and engagement of Indigenous youth. Learn more
CRRF’s National Anti-Racism Fund
Strengthens the capacity of racialized communities, religious minority groups and Indigenous people to carry out their own work to combat racism and create opportunities for meaningful dialogue, learning and sharing with the broader public. Learn more
Heritage Canada – Community Support, Multiculturalism, and Anti-Racism Initiatives ProgramProvides funding to community-based events that promote intercultural or interfaith understanding, promote discussions on multiculturalism, diversity, racism and religious discrimination, or celebrate a community’s history and culture such as heritage months recognized by Parliament. Learn more
Hydro Flask Parks for AllSupports nonprofit organizations focused on building, maintaining, restoring, and providing more equitable access to parks. Learn more
National Healing Forest Initiative
Supports groups or organizations to develop a healing forest in their community – a dedicated forest, garden, or green space – as a place for healing, learning, sharing, and reflection about Canada’s history and the legacy of Indian residential schools. Learn more
Enabling Accessibility Fund
Provides funding to eligible capital projects that creates opportunities for people with disabilities to participate in community activities or access employment opportunities. Learn more
Communities For Gender Equality
Supports women, girl, gender-diverse and Two-Spirit-led and serving organizations to advance gender equality across the country. Learn more
Community Foundation FundsInvests in local initiatives that help to make Canadian communities better places to live, work and play. Click here to find your local Foundation.
British Columbia Grants & FundingExplore the different grants and funding dedicated to groups and organizations located in B.C. Learn more
Ontario Grants & FundingExplore the different grants and funding available for groups and organizations located in Ontario. Learn more
Grants & Funding in other ProvincesAlberta:
Nova Scotia:
New Brunswick:
Prince Edward Island:
Manitoba:
Atlantic Canada: