Champlain Monument: after the April 13 vote

On April 13, 2026, Council voted on the Mayor's report MC-26-06, which proposed approving a redesign concept for the Couchiching Beach Park statuary and increasing the capital budget for the project from $250,000 to $950,000. The motion was Lost. A subsequent motion to receive the report as information was Carried. The statuary remains in storage. There is no current redesign mandate. It is worth being precise about ownership: the monument is not a City asset — title to the statue and the land immediately around it passed to the federal Crown in 1955, it is administered by Parks Canada, and Parks Canada removed it for conservation in 2017. At that same April 13, 2026 meeting, Council passed a resolution asking Parks Canada to transfer the plinth land to the City. Any reinstallation depends on Parks Canada's agreement, not the City's budget alone.

The decision did not happen in a vacuum. The Chippewas of Rama First Nation issued a formal statement on January 7, 2026 stating that the Nation had already participated in good faith, that the work had concluded, and that the community did not wish to reopen these discussions. In late March 2026, Mayor McIsaac wrote to Chief Ted Williams asking whether Rama's position had changed. Rama's formal response confirmed it had not, and that the Nation had chosen not to participate further in the process. The Mayor's own correspondence, attached to the April 10, 2026 Council Information Package, quotes the January 7 statement and accepts the answer.

The Council vote on April 13 was, in my reading, the right one. Bringing forward a $950,000 redesign in the face of Rama's clearly stated 'no' would have required the City to either ignore that 'no' or pretend it had not been given. Neither is acceptable.

What I would do, as Mayor: accept Rama's stated position and not re-initiate consultation on the statuary. Leave the figures in storage. Redirect the original $250,000 capital placeholder to Couchiching Beach Park improvements that do not require Indigenous consultation that Rama has explicitly declined — accessibility upgrades to the existing waterfront promenade, drainage work, interpretive signage about the broader history of the site that does not depend on the monument. The point is to spend the money the public has already allocated on the park's actual users.

I want to be honest about what this position is not. It is not a position on what should ultimately happen to the statuary as an object — that is a longer conversation. It is also not an invitation to Rama to come back to the table; the Nation said no, and 'no' is a complete answer. The City's job now is to act with restraint, not to keep asking.