NOW IS THE TIME For All Of Us Who Care About Thorold’s Memorial Park and About Preserving What Precious Green Space We Have Left In Our Urban Neighbourhoods To Speak Out!
A Commentary by Doug Draper
Posted December 7th, 2025 on Niagara At Large
Thorold’s beloved Memorial Park, hosting the cenotaph for honouring the community’s war dead. photo by Doug Draper
It seems like Thorold’s council – for reasons it has largely failed to openly discuss, let alone properly explain to the citizens it was elected to represent – can’t leave one of most beloved parks in the city alone.
This coming Tuesday, December 9th, at a council meeting starting at 6:30 p.m. at Thorold’s city hall, located next and just north of the Four Points by Sheraton (Niagara Suites) Hotel on540 Schmon Parkway, the council may decide – if it is not stopped – to push forward with a controversial plan to extend paved parking for a seniors centre into Memorial Park.
The park, located in a charming old neighbourhood just east of Thorold’s downtown, Memorial Park was established 1919 to commemorate those in the community who fought and who sacrificed their lives in the First and Second World Wars and the Korean Wars for the open democracy the city’s council has apparently forgotten about when it comes to having open, transparent consultation discussion with residents when it comes to any plan that might pave over some of the park’s green space.
Indeed, it was just a few weeks after a large group of people, including Thorold’s mayor and individuals from across the municipality and beyond, gathered around the cenotaph, under an umbrella of grand old trees, to honour those soldiers on Remembrance Day, that news broke that the city’s council was on the verge of passing a montion to extend forty parking spots into the park.
”Shock,” “disbelief” and “anger” were among the first words residents living in the immediately area of the park said they used to describe how they felt about this news.
Gloria Leahey (centre and behind podium), a Thorold resident and representative of Friends of Memorial Park, addresses Thorold’s city council about concerns over plans to extend a parking lot into the park.
And as she made a presentation on November 18th, 2025 meeting of Thorold council, Gloria Leahey, who lives near the park and who represents a newly formed citizens group called Friends of Memorial Park, put it this way –
“We have been given no opportunity to explore alternatives (to this parking plan).” she said. “Instead, we were blindsided. …The city holds Public Information Centres to gather input on projects, but not this time. Why not?”
“The lack of consultation with the community,” Leahey stressed as she wrapped up her comments to council, “is a violation of public trust. We feel let down by our representatives. But there is still time to make this right.”
In response to that and a council chambers jam packed with people concerned about the park issue, the mayor, Terry Ugulini and a majority on the council, voted to put off making a final decision on the parking lot extension and also decided to hold that Public Information Centre that should have been held in the first place – organizing it hostility for November 24th at the seniors centre.
It was there, during and after a hasty visit from the , that the city played its default card – showcasing an “Option B” that reduces the number of parking lots that would extend into the park from 40 to 25 – a card that many residents suspect the city had ready to play for quite some time.
The late Jim Bradley, the long-serving St. Catharines MPP, cabinet minister and, most recently, Chair of Niagara’s Regional Council, once told me that one of the oldest tricks in the book for any government that wants to do something it knows will be unpopular is to first tell people, figuratively of course, that it is going to amputate all of their limbs, then turn around and leave them an arm, hoping that they will be satisfied.
A plaque showing Thorold’s Memorial Park’s designation as an Ontario heritage site.
From what I have heard from residents, playing that card is not going to work this time.
As much as residents support the seniors’ centre and want to see it resolve any issue it may have around parking, they are dead-set against Thorold’s council extending even one parking spot into the treasured Memorial Park.
The city’s ‘Option B’ for extending 25 parking spots into the park will be on the table for the council’s possible final approval this coming Tuesday, December 9th at 6:30 p.m. and citizen members of the group Friends of Memorial Park are hoping that as many of their fellow citizens as possible across the municipality and region pack that meeting and say “No” to any gutting of green space in the park.
They are also hoping that people will contact Thorold city councillors and let them know, via phone calls and emails, that they want them to look for another way to find the seniors centre parking, and to leave Memorial Park alone for people to enjoy as a place of peace and contemplation for generations to come.
And don’t let them B.S. you.
There are possible alternatives, including moving the city’s planning staff which occupies the second floor of the seniors’ centre and therefore takes up parking space there to, to another location, including, possibly, the Maplehurst mansion, which the city owns and has been virtually empty of people now for a number of years.
The city might also consider working with Niagara Regional Transit to beef up transit services to and from the seniors’ centre so that parking cars becomes less of an issue.
In the meantime, how disgusting it is that the city’s council has already put aside $250,000 in its budget to hire a private contractor to come in and pave over some of this beautiful park with virtually no approve from the citizens who would pay for this through their taxes and who they are supposed to represent.
This writer urges you to attend the December 9th council meeting or to at least send Thorold’s mayor and council a message to not, in any way, vandalize a public place for people to enjoy and to gather each year to honour our military veterans.
For contact information for the Thorold mayor and members of council, click on – https://www.thorold.ca/en/city-hall/city-council.aspx
If you want to support the citizens effort to protect and preserve the park, contact: WeLoveMemorialPark@gmail.com
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