Citizens Environment Alliance
628 Monmouth Rd., Windsor, Ontario, Canada N8Y 3L1
CEA in the News
Green light! Windsor's Ojibway to open as national urban park this year
Julie Kotsis - Windsor Star · Published March 8, 2025
It’s official.
Steven Guilbeault, federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, announced Saturday Windsor will see an Ojibway National Urban Park open this year.
“We’re officially establishing the national park, which many partners here, the City of Windsor, First Nations, (MP) Irek (Kusmierczyk) and many others have worked on for many, many years now,” Guilbeault said during a ceremony at the Ojibway Nature Centre. “It will become a reality. It will become a new national urban park.”
The long-awaited announcement includes $36.1 million in funding from Ottawa over five years to establish the park, as well as $4.6 million per year to support its operations, the minister confirmed.
Parks Canada will oversee the new urban park.
“This funding will be a driver of tourism and job creation, connect people with nature in an urban setting and advance reconciliation with First Nations,” Guilbeault added.
A jubilant Kusmierczyk said the funding would protect and strengthen the park.
“Ojibway, which was a local and regional park, is now a national park that we’re sharing with all Canadians from coast to coast to coast,” Kusmierczyk said.
“With it comes not only federal resources to protect and strengthen the park and strengthen that experience here, but it also comes with expertise. Over 100 years of expertise of Parks Canada in running a national park, the relationship with First Nations, the relationships with stakeholders that we’re bringing on a national level.”
“That’s what’s exciting about the fact we will have, this year, an Ojibway National Urban Park open and operating here in Windsor-Essex.”
Kusmierczyk gave credit to the numerous people and organizations that have worked over many years to secure the park, including the Friends of Ojibway Prairie, Citizens Environment Alliance, the Detroit River Canadian Cleanup and the Unifor environment committee.
“It has been a long road. Sometimes a difficult road,” Kusmierczyk said.
“From a community rising up to protect a postage stamp of land, the Ojibway Shores. Here we are today, celebrating an important step to realizing that dream.”
He also highlighted the signing of the historic memorandum of understanding with the Caldwell First Nation and acknowledged the “long-standing commitment of the Nations of the Three Fires Confederacy, who have protected these lands and waters for millennia.
“Today is the story of a community coming together piece by piece, sewing this dream together, making it real, transferring Ojibway Shores to Parks Canada,” Kusmierczyk said.
Caldwell First Nation Chief Nikki van Oirschot spoke of working together, true reconciliation and the responsibility of all to ensure that commitment is reflected in the governance and stewardship of the lands.
“We’re here, because we all have a common ground,” van Oirschot said. “We all love this land. We all want to protect this land. That’s really what’s important here.”
She said the initiative is an important step toward that commitment.
“But let’s be clear, true reconciliation means First Nation leadership, First Nation knowledge and First Nation laws will shape how these lands are protected and cared for in the future,” van Oirschot said.
“Anishinaabe teachings remind us that we’re not separate from the land. We’re part of it — the water, the trees, the animals and the people are all interconnected.
“This is not just about conservation. It’s about restoring the balance that’s been disrupted over time. It’s about ensuring that future generations will not just see these lands, but will know them.
“They’ll learn from them and they’ll understand their sacredness.”
Windsor West MP Brian Masse was also praised for his long-standing commitment in the fight to protect Ojibway.
His private member’s bill to cement protection for Ojibway National Urban Park into law has been stalled with the proroguing of Parliament.
When Parliament resumes later this month, Masse’s Bill C-248 will go back to a Senate committee for consideration. Even without legislative protection, however, Parks Canada can create the park.
Masse said he was still concerned despite Saturday’s announcement.
“Well, I’m glad we have the announcement,” Masse said. “It’s another corroboration of the things that have led to this moment. But we still need legislation.
“We still have to put the pieces together in an agreement and that’s some of the toughest work that needs to be done,” Masse added.
“Right now, the City of Windsor has not got to the point where it’s transferring the lands, because there’s still work to be done with Parks Canada. And then there were some issues over, how do you do so without the frame of legislation?”
The minister would not say exactly when the new park will officially open.
“There are a few steps we have to go through,” Guilbeault said. “But as I said, and as Irek said … it will be established this year, in 2025.“
He also said an election or change in government would not affect the park’s future.
“All of the money has been appropriated. It was in the last budget. It’s been approved by the Treasury Board,” he said. “So the money is secure for the park moving forward.”
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