By Doug Draper
Marineland and animal advocates dedicated to shutting down the iconic Niagara, Ontario amusement park’s animal exhibits – most particularly its whale and dolphin exhibits – faced off at a Niagara Falls city council meeting this June 12, and it wasn’t a pretty.
Animal activists demonstrat on Portage Road in front of Marineland. File photo by Doug Draper
The faceoff was triggered by a three-year draft lease agreement, ultimately approved by the Niagara Falls council at the end of the night. That agreement allows Marineland to lease a portion of public space on Portage Road around its entrance gate to the park where animal advocates have spent years offering park-goers information flyers on why mammals as large as whales should not be kept in cement ponds for the public’s amusement.
Marineland claims it only wants the lease the publicly owned road shoulders around the entrance to the park for “beautification” purposes – so it can grow gardens and the like there. Animal advocates, including members of Niagara Action for Animals, called it a thin disguise for depriving them of their right to use public lands around Marineland to express their concerns about park’s keeping of whales and other animals.
“This will just bring more attention to our movement,” said Niagara Action for Animals (NAFA) member Jilhan Ditillio, a St. Catharines, Ontario resident who has joined rallies in front of the Marineland park for 20 years. “This is a slippery slope,” she said of the road-side lands the city was poised to lease to Marineland. “Public lands should remain public,” Ditillio added, and not become a possible subject of a “charter of rights challenge” because they have been removed as a place for people to express their freedom of speech.
The leasing of public land to a private party like Marineland “hinders protest and strikes at the heart of democracy,” said another animal activist, Lauren Corman who teaches classes in animal studies in the Sociology Department at Brock University. She said Marineland and its handling of animals is a subject of conversation in her classes and it would be “truly saddening” if the city’s leasing of public lands to the park turns out to be “another chapter in the marginalization of dialogue on the treatment of animals.”
Tom Richardson, a lawyer representing Marineland, said the park wants to lease the public lands near its entrance both for “beautification” and “safety” purposes. The park wants to grow plants on those grounds and it also feels that protestors standing near the entrance, passing out their literature to drivers going in pose safety risks.
“My client is not objecting to protesters,” Richardson stressed. They will still have more than a 1,000 metres of public land along the shoulder of Portage Road in front of the park to hold their demonstrations.
Niagara Falls councillor Wayne Thomson, a former mayor of the city, said he believes a good deal of misinformation has circulated about how much of the public land around Marineland is subject to the lease. “This is just the entrance (to Marineland) we are talking about. … We are not talking about taking peoples’ rights away.”
Another councillor, Carolynn Ioanoni, agreed that protesters “have more than enough space” to hold their demonstrations and referred to any argument to the contrary as “high-level B.S.”
At the end of the debate, only two of the city’s eight councillors voted against granting Marineland the lease. One of them, Wayne Gates, said; “I am of the mind that this is about the protest,” and it is about their ability to use public property around the Marineland as a venue for expressing views on an issue (marine mammal captivity) “that touches people across the world.”
The other dissenter on the council, Janice Wing, said she knows that the city has granted public space before to businesses with sidewalk cafes but in her 14 years on the council, she said she has never seen a term like “right of passage” in a lease agreement before. “I think we might be setting a very dangerous precedent here.”
During the council discussion, more than a dozen animal advocates sat in the gallery, sometimes interrupting with a B.S. of their own or a point that there has “never” been a safety issue at the entrance to the park, except for a collision more than a decade ago between John Holer and his vehicle and one of the demonstrators.
Marineland founder and owner John Holer, who was accused by one of the animal activists earlier in the evening of using “bully tactics” against protesters, sat in the gallery and said nothing.
At the end of it all, none of this debate does nothing to change things for the whales, dolphins and other animals within the confines of the Marineland amusement park. The park’s website, under one heading titled; ‘Introduction to Marineland’, talks about how “every morning, well before the park opens, the staff arrives. A check of all animals is made and then it’s time for breakfast. Can you imagine having over 7,000 hungry guests at your table?”
Most of us probably couldn’t imagine having 70 guests for breakfast, let alone 7,000. But the definition of a guest is one who comes by their own choosing, not because they were captured, and one that can leave any time they choose. This is not what we are talking about here.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views in the comment area below. Please remember that NAL only posts comments by individuals who are also willing to share their real first and last names. First names or pseudonyms will not do on this site for reasons spelled out in our Comment Policy, which you can click on at the top of our front page.)
Niagara At Large 
Do the protesters have an email newsletter I may join? When I drive past Marineland, I am always very happy to see the protesters out educating the public on the truth of what is happening to the animals inside. How many baby whales have died over the years at Marineland? How many times were whales pregnant and the keepers didn’t even know? They can’t even keep the deers happy, which shouldn’t be too complicated. Public space is public space. Protesters have a right to use that space to educate. Do politicians who voted to ban the protesters from public space really think the Niagara Falls area is not strong enough to draw tourists for other purposes? Yes, I have visited Marineland in the past. Having seen the awful conditions there, and having experienced the corporation’s belligerent attitude I no longer will.
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Wild life should be just that. Wild and free.
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WITHOUT PREJUDICE:
This is going to be a very dangerous decision on behalf of the city council. I have not heard of any dead line for the “beautification” to be started and completed. John Holer has just scammed the councillors one more time. “Does this mean the he will now be procecuted for erecting illegal signage on city and hydro poles/”.
Let’s see, I don’t think so and if he is charged , he will just pay the fine and continue on. Think of the cash he has spent on legal representation in the past 2 years, it is mind boggling. He did not need a lease to beautify the land in front of Marineland, he needed the right to have people arrested.
the money he spent trying to keep a whale that did not belong to him
should have told everyone, this owner has no scruples what so ever. He broke a contract with Sea World, so how do you think he is going to tow the line with a lease.
Come on people give you heads a shake. Money talks.
Well the good thing is he can’t live forever, so one day he will have to make peace with God.
Have a good day all. I haven’t been to Marineland since 1972, when I encountered an incident with one of the animals.
I take offense to his ads, that refer to “Everyone Loves Marineland”.
Because I don’t.
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Susan, Marineland Animal Defence can be found on FB. http://www.facebook.com/marinelandanimaldefense They also have a site on Tumblr:http://marinelandanimaldefense.com/
Aside from any animal rights issues, it doesn’t make sense that the paved walkway from Chippawa ends at Marineland. There are often hikers who traverse the area and walk on the public grassed area. For some people with disabilities, it is more difficult to navigate a strip of grass, than to walk on a sidewalk. For that reason alone, there should be a public sidewalk installed there. Communities talk about ‘walkable’ neighbourhoods, which contribute to better health for the public. Doing the right thing for all of the public, would result in the installation of a sidewalk, which could then be used safely and efficiently by all, INCLUDING THE PROTESTERS. As usual, money trumped rights for all of the animals involved.
I believe that his was a thinly veiled attempt by Hr. Holer to stop the protesters from handing out negative information at the entrance to Marineland. In my opinion, that is why he did not request a lease for the entire stretch in front of his property along Portage Road. Leafleting is a very successful way to inform people about the nature of the protest. These leaflets have always been handed out in a perfectly legal manner.
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I grew up on the west coast – on Vancouver Island. I grew quite used to seeing Killer Whales (Orcas) in the wild. On my one visit to Marineland many, many years ago, I was not impressed by the way they kept their killer whales.
Killer whales, and all other salt water mammals and fish, belong in the ocean — not in some slightly oversized swimming pool so somebody can make a buck!
When I see Marineland’s ads on television, I either kill the sound or change the channel!
The sooner those scum-sucking bottom-feeders go out of business, the better!
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Our family has boycotted Marineland forever. It’s a prison.
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I have mixed emotions about Marineland, John Holer who escaped from Jugoslavia during the cold war and came to Niagara Falls had a dream, his dream has been realized,he started out with bikini clad girls an above ground swimming pool and a seal, he charged 25cents to see ,his pals would park cars, outside making the place look busy, I know because my kids used to go past there from Stanley Avenue, on there way to Dufferin Islands.now that it is well established and it an amusement park, more than an aquarium ,our thinking has changed a lot after movies like “Free Willie” educated us, that mammals have feelings and emotions, and enjoy freedom not slavery. John Holer still deserves kudos for keeping Niagara Falls a destination for 40+ years besides just the waterfall his advertizing got them here, to Niagara.
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In response to George Jardine, my grandparents also came from war-torn Yugoslavia and I know they had it just as hard if not harder than John Holer. My grandfather also became a successful business person (granted not as successful as John Holer, but he did it without harming/exploiting/torturing/killing animals.) John Holer is an extremely greedy person. He can keep his crappy rides but free the animals!! They belong in the wild!!! so shameful to make money off of the sacrifice of animal slaves. how can we not see the atrocity before our eyes??
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