The City of Orillia plans to get the land on which stands the Champlain Monument pedestal back under city ownership.
At Monday’s council meeting, Mayor Don McIsaac and councillors Janet-Lynne Durnford and Tim Lauer gained council’s support to send a letter to the Federal Parks Canada Agency requesting the monument pedestal lands get transferred back to the city.
In the past, the city ceded ownership of the land to the federal government, McIsaac said, noting it was long before the controversial monument was removed for restoration and repairs in 2017.
“The monument was removed for cleaning and is now owned by City of Orillia, but it's in custody of the federal government,” McIsaac told OrilliaMatters. “We've asked for the land back as sort of a first step.”
The monument has been a source of controversy since it was removed seven years ago; that controversy intensified when Parks Canada announced a reconfigured monument would return.
“This is the first step, get the land back so we own that. It's Orillia’s land, it’s in the middle of the park. We might as well have that back,” the mayor said. “Let's do that, and then we'll follow up with discussion about the statue itself.”
To date, only a new base for the monument has returned. That base was vandalized in the summer of 2020 and the fate of the monument has been a divisive source of controversy since it was removed.
“The next step, obviously, will be to deal with the federal government (and) figure out what to do with the Champlain monument statue. There's a lot of opinion on that and discussion,” the mayor said. “We need to take that next step as well.”
McIsaac acknowledged there are varying opinions for the fate of the monument, adding that “we need to sit down and make a decision on it.”
“Let's go forward – I mean, there's no sense keeping it in a warehouse forever. We need to decide what to do as we develop the path forward,” he said.
