The world\u2019s longest freshwater beach has long been dubbed Ontario\u2019s summer playground, with 70 per cent of the population living within two hours of its shore. But on a Sunday in late August, the largest group along this 14-kilometre stretch of sand isn\u2019t sunbathers and swimmers, it\u2019s protesters.<\/p>\n
They drove in from Toronto and nearby towns to challenge a new provincial land-use decision that they say threatens to irreversibly harm the summer home of one of Wasaga\u2019s regular visitors: piping plovers, the tiny, lively, endangered bird that has visited this beach every summer since 2007. If you\u2019re lucky, you\u2019ll get to see them bouncing like popcorn across the dunes, like I\u00a0did<\/a>\u00a0in 2022.<\/p>\n Over the past two decades, up to five nests (sometimes way more) have been found annually in the northeastern parts of the beach, amid the sand dunes and shrubbery that have been deemed and treated as protected habitat \u2014 meaning they can\u2019t be raked. That protection has been possible because this 142-hectare beach is part of a provincial park managed by Ontario\u2019s Ministry of Environment, specifically Ontario Parks, along with almost 1,214 hectares of dunes and natural land connected to it.<\/p>\n Opponents of a plan to transfer parts of Wasaga Beach from provincial to municipal ownership gather to make their case. The proposal lacks transparency and poses environmental risks, many local residents told The Narwhal. (Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio\/The Narwhal)<\/p>\n Per its management\u00a0plan<\/a>, \u201cthe Wasaga Beach Provincial Park is unique in Ontario, possibly in Canada.\u201d It is a provincial park located entirely within an urban area and for that reason, often perceived as \u201can unwanted monster being forced upon the town,\u201d limiting economic growth and tourism in favour of ecological preservation and access.<\/p>\n The provincial park\u2019s management plan codifies this tension almost constructively, promising to help manifest \u201ca complete, serviced resort community with extensive park facilities by stages to the year 1990.\u201d So the plan says: \u201cAs a park within a community, it should also provide some community-oriented recreational opportunities for the residents of the resort town.\u201d<\/p>\n Thirty-five years later, Wasaga Beach is Ontario\u2019s most popular provincial park, hosting more than a million visitors annually. But it isn\u2019t the promised resort and recreation community.<\/p>\n Wasaga Beach\u2019s 14 kilometres of sandy shoreline offer key habitat to endangered piping plovers, as well as tourism and economic development opportunities to the Town of Wasaga Beach. The town has for years sought more control over the beach that defines it. Now, there is a provincial government in power that is listening. (Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio\/The Narwhal)<\/p>\n This summer, a maze of construction fences and bulldozers block access to the warm, shallow shore at two of eight consecutive beaches that make up the strip. The yellow and orange barriers hide colourful \u201cWasaga\u201d signs and a shuttered arcade and restaurant, and a handful of food trucks sit idle in large empty parking lots waiting for the final customers of the season. But beyond all this lie the choppy waters of Georgian Bay, under a fluffy blue sky.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no shortage of sand and water to enjoy. But some say that isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n For years, the town has expressed frustration with the Environment Ministry\u2019s management of the park, citing a lack of facilities, infrastructure and cleaning. Repeatedly, the town has asked the provincial government for control over the beach that defines it,\u00a0most recently<\/a>\u00a0in November 2024. And now, there is a provincial government in power that is listening.<\/p>\n In May, at the start of the summer, Premier Doug Ford was at Wasaga Beach to give the town $38 million to boost tourism, rebuild the beachfront and revitalize Nancy Island \u2014 a historical site in the park where the last and most important naval battle in the War of 1812 was fought.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is spectacular now, and it\u2019s going to be even more spectacular,\u201d Ford said in front of the entire town council and reporters at an empty beach. Then Ford\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0the province would transfer parts of the provincially owned and protected beach and waterfront to the town as part of this effort to boost tourism and economic growth, promising the beach \u201cwill remain public.\u201d<\/p>\n The news took many by surprise. Over the summer, residents and business owners in the town of Wasaga Beach have become concerned about the lack of transparency and details surrounding the plan. Many tell The Narwhal it all seems sudden, poorly thought out and harmful to the environment that defines their town. They also fear it could set a precedent for parts of other provincial parks to be opened for development.<\/p>\n Adding to the concern is the timing. The Ford government passed\u00a0Bill 5<\/a>\u00a0shortly before the announcement, legislation that centralizes decision-making with the province, reduces environmental oversight and weakens endangered species protections. The provincial parks legislation is the last law standing to protect plover habitat. Without that in effect in Wasaga Beach, some worry these tiny, endangered birds will be without a summer home to raise their young.<\/p>\n The plan and the precedent<\/p>\n In November 1956, the then-Village of Wasaga Beach (dubbed \u201cyour children\u2019s safest playground\u201d at the time) wrote to the province of \u201ca serious problem\u201d: the council couldn\u2019t stop drivers from speeding on the beach beyond the high-water mark because it didn\u2019t control the beach; private landowners did.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a bit of a Wild West nature to Wasaga back then,\u201d Ted Crysler tells The Narwhal. His family has lived here since the 1930s and he ran to represent the local riding for the provincial Liberals in the election this year. As a boy, Crysler remembers seeing cars and biker gangs drive right to the water\u2019s edge and all along the sandy strip. Thrilling as it was to see, it wasn\u2019t safe, and that\u2019s what the town wanted to rectify.<\/p>\n Former Ontario Parks employee Ted Crysler says the provincial agency does its best to maintain Wasaga Beach\u2019s facilities and steward its sensitive ecosystem \u2014 but it\u2019s held back by insufficient funding, he believes. At the same time, the longtime resident of the town isn\u2019t sure the municipality will have the resources to do the job, either. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t have the answer,\u201d he says. (Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio\/The Narwhal)<\/p>\n \u201cThe entire area is growing rapidly since it is probably one of the finest beaches in the province,\u201d the town wrote in the 1956 letter. It continued that developing and controlling the area was becoming more challenging, \u201cparticularly in view of the fact that the lands are not comprised within the boundaries of the incorporated Village of Wasaga Beach.\u201d The then-council posed a solution: consider the beach as an \u201carea from which an Ontario Provincial Park should be formed.\u201d<\/p>\n The province agreed and, over the 1960s and 1970s, expropriated land from local residents and businesses to form the 1,844-hectare provincial park that exists today. The park enclosed the local population of 25,000 at the shoreline and now covers a quarter of the town\u2019s total area.<\/p>\n Andrew McNeill\u2019s family, one of the original settler families in the town, lost a thriving cottage business in 1974 when the park was created. In its place, the province built parking lots so \u201cpeople from Toronto can come up and enjoy the beach,\u201d McNeill tells The Narwhal.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a very aggressive and contentious expropriation program,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been referring to this as the Joni Mitchell approach, where back then, the province literally came in, tore down paradise and put up a parking lot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a colossal mistake,\u201d McNeill adds. \u201cIn the process of doing that they really undermined the entire economy of Wasaga Beach. Residents and business owners, to this day, are very upset and angry with what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n The Town of Wasaga Beach has plans to \u201creimagine\u201d about half of the 60 hectares it will receive from the province, most of which is currently paved parking lots, according to CAO Andrew McNeill. (Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio\/The Narwhal)<\/p>\n Fast forward more than 50 years and McNeill is now the town\u2019s chief administrative officer, and a part of the push to rectify ownership of the beach. In August 2024, the town passed a unanimous\u00a0motion<\/a>\u00a0to ask the province for a little more than two of eight beaches and surrounding lands to be transferred from Ontario Parks to the town, so they could use it to boost their local economy.<\/p>\n In the\u00a0proposal<\/a>\u00a0published following Doug Ford\u2019s response this May, the province is offering the town double the amount of beach it requested: four out of eight beaches, spanning from the most eastern tip, just past the mouth of the Nottawasaga River, to 16th Street.<\/p>\n The Ford government is doing this by amending the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, the legislation which created more than 340 parks across Ontario. It mandates the need for legislative approval to transfer more than 50 hectares, or one per cent, of permanently protected parkland, subject to environmental assessments and with ecological well-being in mind.<\/p>\n The amount of provincial land the town is getting back is negligible, McNeill says: 60 hectares, or three per cent of the entire park. And of that three per cent, the town has plans to \u201creimagine\u201d only half, most of which is currently paved parking lots that could be transformed under the town\u2019s waterfront master plan, which hasn\u2019t been released yet.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the town\u2019s economic objectives could be accomplished without making amendments to the [provincial parks] law,\u201d Adam Ballah, with the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition, tells The Narwhal. With the town only planning to develop about 30 hectares of the land it\u2019s given, that portion is under the 50-hectare threshold codified in the law. \u201cThe province could do that tomorrow without complications.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, it is making changes that could affect other provincial parks. While the amendments to the law haven\u2019t been released in detail, there is concern any changes could make it easier to reduce park sizes in favour of unmitigated development \u2014 a stepping stone to something more.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Ford government is being tricky in how they\u2019re dealing with this,\u201d Ballah says. \u201cThey\u2019re being underhanded or not forthright. Begs the question of why they\u2019re doing this.\u201d No one from the Environment Ministry or Premier\u2019s office responded to questions from The Narwhal by the time of publication.<\/p>\n The Ford government weakened Ontario\u2019s endangered species legislation through Bill 5 earlier this year, which means Wasaga Beach\u2019s status as a provincial park is now the primary legal protection afforded to the piping plovers that nest there. Advocates for the tiny bird worry that if the beach\u2019s park status is removed, there will be no legal obligation to protect the bird\u2019s sensitive habitat. (Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio\/The Narwhal)<\/p>\n McNeill believes the law change is a means to provide a unique solution for a unique park in the town\u2019s backyard. \u201cWe believe this makes sense for us, and in my opinion, it\u2019s not precedent-setting,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He has a litany of explanations for why the land transfer is beneficial to the town, almost all of which are financial. Ontario Parks promised to create a four-season resort destination, but it hasn\u2019t materialized. Other beaches across the province, and even the country, are managed by local governments because \u201cwe\u2019re closer to tourists, to issues like garbage collection, traffic, maintenance,\u201d all traditional municipal services. Visitors come to the provincial beach but don\u2019t really spend a lot of money in the community, leaving the town at an economic disadvantage. Plus, the provincial park took away 25 per cent of its property tax base.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are the world\u2019s longest freshwater beach. We need proper investment here to ensure that the product we\u2019re sharing with all our visitors, including you this weekend, is of a quality worthy of being the world\u2019s longest freshwater beach,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is not about anti-environment and anti-plovers and anything anti-green. We are very green-minded.\u201d<\/p>\n Besides, \u201cthe actual beach frontage is a very small sliver,\u201d McNeill says. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to touch it.\u201d<\/p>\n Piping plovers returned to Wasaga Beach in 2007 after a decades-long absence. Now, the beach is \u201cthe most important and most productive nesting site for piping plovers in our province,\u201d according to Sydney Shepherd from Birds Canada. (Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio\/The Narwhal)<\/p>\n The plovers and the park<\/p>\n Whether you look at a map or physically stare down the stretch of sand, the amount of beach going to the town may be a sliver in shape, but a significant one at that. It is 60 per cent of the world\u2019s longest freshwater beach, and it contains all of the piping plover habitat in Wasaga Beach.<\/p>\n From April to August, piping plovers migrate across the Great Lakes region in search of beaches to nest on. These tiny, fluffy birds, recognizable only by their orange beaks and legs, seek out wide, undisturbed sand and gravel beaches with dunes and vegetation.<\/p>\n As Ontario\u2019s human population rocketed, development increased and beaches became smaller and neater. Plovers all but disappeared from the province in the 1980s. After a 30-year absence, thanks to conservation efforts in the United States, they miraculously\u00a0returned<\/a>\u00a0in 2007, first to Sauble Beach (now Saugeen Beach) on Lake Huron, and then to Wasaga Beach a year later. Since then, according to Birds Canada, the town\u2019s sandy shores have been home to 59 nests and 87 fledglings, the most out of any other beach frequented by plovers.<\/p>\n The plover population that has been born on this beach makes up nearly 50 per cent of fledglings in Ontario. Many of them have gone on to establish their own nests elsewhere in the Great Lakes region.<\/p>\n \u201cWasaga Beach is the most important and most productive nesting site for piping plovers in our province,\u201d Sydney Shepherd, the Ontario piping plover coordinator for Birds Canada, tells The Narwhal. \u201cA change in the way their nesting habitat is managed could impact the Ontario piping plover, but really has a potential to impact the population as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n Inadvertently, plovers have become a part of Wasaga\u2019s identity as much as the beach itself. The tiny birds and beachgoers have coexisted in the provincial park for 18 years, thanks to a significant conservation effort that began soon after their arrival and was formalized in legislation.<\/p>\n Piping plovers reside in vegetated sand dunes such as these ones on Wasaga Beach. With Ontario\u2019s weakened endangered species law, there is a concern that the dunes may not be protected from raking if they lose their status as provincial parkland. (Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio\/The Narwhal)<\/p>\n Plovers are endangered under federal law, which instructs that both the bird and its habitat be protected by Ontario\u2019s Endangered Species Act, and in Wasaga\u2019s case, under the provincial parks legislation. The passage of\u00a0Bill 5 has effectively nullified the former<\/a>. The Species Conservation Act that is meant to replace the previous law narrows a bird\u2019s habitat to its nest, and removes protections for areas beyond it where that bird might, for example, find food. That means sand dunes that attract plovers to Wasaga Beach may not be protected against raking.<\/p>\n Currently, plover habitat is successfully maintained by Ontario Parks officials in collaboration with Birds Canada and local volunteers, who fence off each nest and closely monitor it to ward off humans and predators.<\/p>\n Two provincial park wardens make the rounds along Wasaga Beach. In recent years, the Town of Wasaga Beach has criticized Ontario Parks over its management of the beach, alleging a lack of facilities, infrastructure and cleaning. (Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio\/The Narwhal)<\/p>\n This year was the first in two decades where, despite two pairs of plovers creating nests on Wasaga Beach, no fledglings were born. The town noticed and used it to make the case for local management of the beach.<\/p>\n In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), the Town of Wasaga Beach noted how the land transfer was a move away from \u201ca siloed approach\u201d that \u201chasn\u2019t worked \u2014 not for the province, not for the town, and certainly not for the plovers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFact: Only 2 #plovers attempted to lay eggs on our 14km shoreline this year, and none \u2014 0 \u2014 survived natural predators, which include other protected birds (seagulls and falcons),\u201d the town wrote on the social media platform.<\/p>\n Many have interpreted this messaging as subtle criticism of Ontario Parks. Since the creation of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park, the government agency and the local government have worked together on building sports grounds, creating educational programs and protecting the beach. Most significantly, Ontario Parks has balanced protecting one of the most endangered birds in North America with the local needs of the busiest beach in the province.<\/p>\n But over the last two years, this relationship has frayed over issues like unsanitary or closed facilities, the state of the beach and the enforcement over certain rules like no dogs on the beach (a rule across provincially protected beaches in the province) and leaving the sand dunes (where the plovers live) unraked.<\/p>\n The criticism may have been fair, but at its core was an underfunded government agency, Crysler says. He worked at Ontario Parks in the 1980s, stewarding the same spaces that are being transferred to the town today.<\/p>\n \u201cParks are ecologically focused; they\u2019re not commercially focused,\u201d Crysler says. \u201cYou have to be careful because you can\u2019t make a park people-only.\u201d<\/p>\n Ontario Parks\u2019 priority is the proper maintenance of the beach and the dunes, \u201cwhich are fragile ecosystems \u2026 and constantly changing. They\u2019ve done their best,\u201d he says. \u201cBut if the park doesn\u2019t get the money from the province, how are they supposed to do it? They can\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Ontario Parks is mainly self-funded, with user fees, including for parking and camping, covering the majority of its budget. There are no financial documents from the government agency publicly available after the\u00a02018-19 fiscal year<\/a>, when Ford took office. Crysler says the budget has never been enough for the agency to meet the increasing pressure from a growing population on natural habitats, which humans have been accessing drastically more since the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n In Wasaga Beach, that revenue pool has taken a significant hit.<\/p>\n In October 2024, the Town of Wasaga Beach went to court to assert its ownership of this strip of Wasaga Beach, located where the Nottawasaga River meets Georgian Bay. Ontario Parks is now working to transfer management of the area to the town. (Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio\/The Narwhal)<\/p>\n Last October, the town went to court to ascertain its ownership over Allenwood, the most eastern part of the beach strip in the provincial park, just past the point where the Nottawasaga River meets Georgian Bay. The town\u2019s\u00a0argument<\/a>\u00a0was simple: in 2012 they purchased the beach property for $240,000. That makes them the rightful owners and managers of the beach, not the Ministry of Environment. In February, an Ontario judge\u00a0agreed<\/a>.<\/p>\n For the past several months, Ontario Parks has been working to\u00a0transfer<\/a>\u00a0the management of Allenwood to the town \u2014 and the rest of the 60-hectare land transfer will follow. That means handing over a lot of work, including garbage collection services and beach raking, and the ministry foregoing parking fees at the lots included in this section of the beach.<\/p>\n It also means where the beach is transferred from Ontario Parks to the town, there will be virtually no protection in place for the plovers, the dunes in which they nest and the vegetation on which they rely. The federal government could step in with its own protection but that might take time or\u00a0might not happen at all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Worst-case scenario: the plover becomes extirpated, meaning it is driven to extinction in Ontario. Because once a plover stops nesting on a beach, it rarely comes back.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would need the town to step in and put in place their own protections, their own legal bylaws,\u201d Shepherd says. \u201cWithout them, protecting them would be entirely voluntary.\u201d It would depend on this council and subsequent councils\u2019 willingness to be environmental stewards for the tiny bird.<\/p>\n Birds Canada initiated a meeting with the town in July with a solution, Shepherd says: the town should create a strong science-based master plan that all subsequent councils would be beholden to that balances recreation, tourism and the natural environment.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of these things can happen, and they have at Wasaga Beach for many years,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Ballah has another pitch that was actually first suggested by the town\u2019s economic advisory committee: create an arms-length commission that holds every future council accountable to environmental protection of the beach.<\/p>\n McNeill insists the beach and the dunes where the plover dwells are not the focus of the town\u2019s objectives.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be very clear, our goal is to be an environmental leader here. So we are not going to compromise anything,\u201d McNeill says. \u201cWe are going to protect the beaches, the dunes. We\u2019re going to work to ensure that endangered species like piping plovers thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n But residents who dub themselves \u201cplover lovers\u201d have reason to be concerned. There are few dunes left in Allenwood under the town\u2019s management; almost all of the beach has been raked. The biggest problem is that the town has presented no plan to ease fears that this year might have been the plovers\u2019 last stop at Wasaga Beach.<\/p>\n The path forward<\/p>\n Long before Wasaga Beach Provincial Park was created, there were buildings separating the sand from the town \u2014 restaurants, shops, hotels. There are still some there: a smokehouse, a souvenir shop, a motel. A massive\u00a0fire<\/a>\u00a0in 2007 burned down many that still haven\u2019t been rebuilt, including the abandoned arcade that stands in the middle of the construction. But on this late August weekend, these few establishments are quiet; only the waves of Lake Huron roar in their backyard.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to ignore that most of the ground adjacent to the beach is paved for parking lots, priced from $10 to $50 for the day.<\/p>\n McNeill recalls a past before the car-centric beach with rose-coloured nostalgia. \u201cWe\u2019ve been a tourism community for over 100 years,\u201d he says. At its peak, between the 1940s and 1960s, the town hosted more than five million visitors. It\u2019s less than half that today, he says matter-of-factly.<\/p>\n Something, he strongly suggests, has to be fixed.<\/p>\n Longtime residents and business owners don\u2019t disagree. A vibrant waterfront would provide benefits to them all, both social and financial. But many do have a significant caveat to the big sell McNeill keeps making, best stated by Rosalyn Campbell, one of the protesters on the beach this past Sunday: \u201cProvincial parks are sacred and should not be transferred or sold unless absolutely necessary,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd this doesn\u2019t seem necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI understand the need for tourism and economy,\u201d says Taylor Nicole, a 28-year-old resident of nearby Collingwood and founder of Eco Guardians of Ontario, a new group created in response to Bill 5. \u201cI grew up going to all the local haunts in the waterfront that are now gone.\u201d<\/p>\n But the town had years to rebuild, especially after the 2007 fire, she says. The only two things currently under construction are an elevated road along the most popular beach areas and a housing complex with retail space on the ground floor. The latter has raised concerns the beachfront will become a gated community, forever altering the open and accessible nature of the world\u2019s longest freshwater beach.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just feels like [the town is] trying to gaslight us to say, \u2018No no, we\u2019ll take care of it \u2026 we\u2019re going to take care of everything,\u2019 \u201d Nicole says. \u201cThey keep saying beach access will remain public, but in what way? Will it be an ecological experience or a money grab?\u201d<\/p>\n Many longtime residents and business owners in Wasaga Beach agree: a vibrant waterfront would provide social and financial benefits to the community. But Taylor Nicole, who lives in nearby Collingwood, wants more details about what the town is planning. \u201cWill it be an ecological experience or a money grab?\u201d she asks. (Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio\/The Narwhal)<\/p>\n The town has yet to specify what it wants to build, and that makes people nervous. \u201cI think the current council has a plan, but they haven\u2019t shared it. Maybe they\u2019ve shared it with Doug Ford. Maybe it makes sense to him, but nobody\u2019s ever put dollars and cents to it,\u201d Sylvia Bray, former deputy mayor of the town, says. \u201cFor me, my town\u2019s responsibility is the sewers, the roads, the access to my businesses \u2026 The council is elected to manage the town\u2019s finances. This whole thing, to me, is outside their scope.\u201d<\/p>\n Bray and her husband, Mark Winegarden, have lived in Wasaga Beach for 20 years, operating Grandma\u2019s Beach Treats, an ice cream parlour. A lot has changed, Winegarden says: the town was \u201calready struggling because there were now other things to do in Ontario rather than come to Wasaga Beach.\u201d Canada\u2019s Wonderland didn\u2019t exist in the heyday McNeill, and the town in its communications, refer to, he says. Development is good, but not at the cost of \u201cthe identity of what Wasaga Beach is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you take away five feet of it and then 20 feet of it and then 100 feet of it, a lot of that goes away, and with it go a lot of the main reasons that people call this home,\u201d Winegarden says. \u201cIf we do that to Wasaga Beach, it opens it up for that to happen everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n McNeill rebukes all of these concerns as a major misunderstanding of the town\u2019s intentions. \u201cFor some reason, some people are under the misimpression that the beach itself is going to be developed. That\u2019s not the case,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have no preconceived notion about what\u2019s going there. We\u2019re going to create a plan.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if there is no plan, some tenants are apparently known. McNeill says he can \u201cpretty much guarantee\u201d the plan will include parks, public parking and some kind of development. Nothing will be known for certain until the town has selected a team of designers, landscape architects, economists, ecologists, shoreline engineers, bird experts and the local conservation authority.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re at the early stages of actually starting that planning process, but it\u2019s going to be done right,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re not doing anything new here. All we\u2019re trying to do is fix a situation that\u2019s broken.\u201d<\/p>\n In explaining this to me, McNeill often repeats certain words and phrases. The infrastructure is \u201cbroken\u201d and \u201ccrumbling.\u201d The town\u2019s approach is \u201cgreen\u201d and adopts an \u201ceco-sustainable model.\u201d The town has to meet its \u201ctourism potential.\u201d The town can do this in a \u201cbalanced\u201d way. But it needs to \u201crebuild its tax base\u201d and \u201creset a 50-year broken relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n Come October, when the provincial legislature is sitting again, there may be more clarity about what exactly is being planned for Wasaga Beach. For now, many residents have little trust or faith that the world\u2019s longest freshwater beach will remain Ontario\u2019s beloved summer playground for tourists and plovers alike. (Photo Credit: Carlos Osorio\/The Narwhal)<\/p>\n \u201cThis move also puts us back in control of our own destiny, where we\u2019re not beholden to day-trippers and parking lots,\u201d he says. \u201cWe can actually build a complete community that is sustainable, and then tourism can be managed as an auxiliary to that. But it is our primary economy that\u2019s our business, and we need to do it well. And these goals are not mutually exclusive, right?\u201d<\/p>\n They\u2019re not. But there is no guarantee that a small beach town can strike this balance, and there\u2019s no legislation in place to require it.<\/p>\n Come October, when the provincial legislature is sitting again, there may be more clarity about what exactly is happening. But amid the public uncertainty about the plan for Wasaga Beach, and distrust of plans for Ontario towns and cities before this \u2014 the forced\u00a0urban boundary expansions of Bill 23<\/a>, the opening and then reversal on the\u00a0Greenbelt<\/a>, the\u00a0farmland expropriations<\/a>\u00a0for industrial use and more \u2014 there is little trust or faith that the world\u2019s longest freshwater beach will remain Ontario\u2019s beloved summer playground for tourists and plover fledglings alike.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, the beach is an environment. The beach and the dunes are ecosystems,\u201d Crysler says. \u201cA municipality is a much weaker level of government that has far fewer levers to protect this kind of environment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs the town going to have the resources to do it all? I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t have the answer,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s what I keep coming back to: I just don\u2019t know. And when you don\u2019t know, you just feel unsettled.\u201d<\/p>\n Catch more news at Great Lakes Now:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-coWasaga42-WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-coWasaga51-WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-coWasaga19-WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-coWasaga55-WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-coWasaga65-WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-coWasaga72-WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-coWasaga62-WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-coWasaga38-WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-coWasagaDrone04-WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-coWasaga40-WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-coWasaga61-WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n