A Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper
Posted September 22nd, 2026 on Niagara At Large
Just when we thought that Queen Victoria Park was safe, here we go again.
Cue the music in the soundtrack for the movie Jaws when the shark moves in for another attack – “Dun dun… dun dun… dun dun dun dun dun dun…”.
It was just a week or two ago that we learned that the Niagara Parks Commission – founded by the Province of Ontario going on a century and a half -ago with a mission to protect and preserve the natural beauty of the lands around the Horseshoe Falls and Niagara River corridor – and the current provincial government of Doug Ford finally abandoned a controversial plan to erect a gargantuan ferris wheel ride on Queen Victoria Park lands near the Falls.
This after countless numbers of citizens across the Niagara region and beyond expressed their opposition to vandalizing this beautiful green space overlooking a world-renown natural wonder with what many viewed as an amusement park ride.
Now the current members of the Niagara Parks Commission and the Ford government are back again with plans for another ride through Queen Victoria Park – an above-ground train or tram system, or what Niagara Falls NDP MPP Wayne Gates recently described on his Facebook page as a “gondola style system of aerial capsules” running through the park above the Falls from Clifton Hill to the old Ontario Hydro building located near the scenic Dufferin Islands Nature Area.
The Sky Wheel overlooking the Falls near Clifton Hill. Controversial plans for a similar giant ferris wheel ride on Victoria Park lands closer to Falls are now dead. but here we go again with another plan for a amusement park-type ride through the park.
It seems like one way or another, the mostly conservative individuals now sitting on the Niagara Parks board and occupying senior administrative positions are going to keep pushing one tacky plan for this wonderful natural space after another in the hope that, sooner or later, it will where the public down.
In the case of this electric-powered gondola ride, one of the arguments they are using for it is that it would be a greener form of transportation for the Falls area than the diesel-powered buses that are carrying people through the area now. Yet there is no suggestion at all that if this goes in, buses and other traffic would be barred from the area.
There is also no answer to a question that I and many others ask – With the exception of individuals who have physical disabilities and understandably need some form of transportation, what is wrong with people walking through this beautiful place?
It is a pretty sad comment if we have come to a time in this world where we need amusement park rides to draw us to such wonderful natural places.
And yet I am not so sure that is true. There are many other great natural places in this world – for me the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona and the National Seashore in Cape Cod, Massachusetts immediately come to mind – where caretaking agencies and their government partners have done a great job of keeping them from being Disneyfied in any way whatsoever.
So I hope that people here in Niagara and elsewhere rise up again, just as they did when the ferris wheel ride was being proposed, and tell Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati and others sitting on the board of the Niagara Parks Commission that Queen Victoria Park doesn’t belong to them or any other private developer.
It is ours to treasure as an iconic natural place for the people living now and for future generations.
If they can’t get that, then we should do everything we can to remove them from offices where they can do our natural heritage any more harm than has already been done to it.
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
For more on this issue, click on the following links –
Niagara Falls Community Wins Fight To Protect Queen Victoria Park | Niagara At Large
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