Oshawa Harbor Lake Ontario

joker460 · Jul 11, 2011

An excerpt from the Oshawa Express

Around and around in circles we go. That’s politics in the city of Oshawa.

The dizzying speed at which politicians – both local councillors and MPs who represent this area in Ottawa – are spinning their rudders on the future of a marina is frightening.

It’s been more than five, long years ago that the Port of Oshawa marina boarded up the gate and sent the recreational boaters out into Lake Ontario to find another place to dock.

The decision to close the marina itself was awash in politics.

The federal harbour commission, a bunch of federal-government appointees -- some over the years with little or no knowledge of running a harbour – said at the time that they had to close the recreational marina because there was an old dump nearby.

This old automotive dump was many decades old, so old in fact that no one could remember it. And there was little evidence offered at the time the marina was closed to indicate what, if any, environmental damage this dump was having on the area.

Yet, the harbour commission, in its wisdom, decided that it would be better to pave over the marina and make a parking lot. Somehow, that would solve the problem of a dump.

The harbour commission runs both the commercial port lands and, for many years up to the fall of 2002, a recreational marina. There was certainly an interest in operating a commercial port, but perhaps not so much interest in running a recreational marina.

It’s a lot of work chasing a weekend boater for docking fees but maybe less work billing a
shipping company for dropping off coal, sugar or some other cargo.

So, the marina closed. The boaters all moved away and, thankfully, the marina wasn’t paved over to make more parking, presumably, for continued commercial operations.

Well, city politicians jumped into the fray and said they still wanted a marina there but didn’t want to pay to clean up an old dump. It’s been over five years and they are still saying the same thing. Meanwhile, the docks sit empty. Over the years there have been negotiations between various levels of government, lots of studies yet, still, no boats.

For any municipality, the waterfront is the crown jewel. Travel anywhere and in every city the happening spot is along the waterfront. In Toronto, it’s Harbourfront, in Montreal and Quebec City it is the old city, in Vancouver it’s Stanley Park.

In Oshawa, instead of restaurants, luxury condos and a boardwalk, we get to see piles of steel, coal and other industrial clutter.

Now, the city is spending more money on
yet another consultant. Yet, more studies. Yes, round and round we go. Where we stop,
nobody knows.

It’s time for city and federal politicians to take the blame for their inactivity.

Oshawa Harbor Lake Ontario

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