Niagara Parks Commission Opens Meetings To Public For First Time In History

By Doug Draper

For the first time in its 124-year history, Ontario’s Niagara Parks Commission is opening its board meetings to the public.

A view of the Falls from Niagara Park's famed Table Rock. Photo by Doug Draper

The decision to swing the meeting doors at its Oaks Hall headquarters in Niagara Falls open to members of the media and public follows the sudden resignation earlier this December of commission chairman Jim Williams and months of controversy over the way it handles it business affairs – particularly a 25-year lease it recently negotiated, without going to an open tender, with the Lewiston, N.Y. owner of the Maid of the Mist Steamship Company.

The Niagara Parks Commission, the owner and steward of more than 4,000 acres of scenic parklands along the Canadian side of the Niagara River, has been under pressure to open its meetings to the public for more than five years. That pressure came from local politicians, including Niagara Falls Liberal MPP Kim Craitor, and countless members of the public after the commission unveiled a plan it was finally forced to drop to build a so-called “gondola” ride that would take tourists from the top of Table Rock, down into the gorge below the Horseshoe Falls.

Since the controversy over that plan, many local politicians and citizens have argued that the commission’s meetings should be open to public scrutiny.

According to a report in the Saturday, Dec. 19 edition of The Globe and Mail, the province’s tourism minister, Monique Smith, welcomed the commission’s decision to open its meetings. “I’m happy that they’re embracing transparency,” she was quoted saying.

The next meeting of the Niagara Parks Commission will be held sometime in January.