The Leaf’s entry fee has deep roots

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/09/2022 (720 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The recent announcement that visiting Assiniboine Park’s newest amenity, the Leaf, will cost a family of four $48 marks the first time in the park’s history that an entry fee will be charged for citizens to enjoy an indoor garden experience.

The former Palm House, built in 1913, and the former conservatory, built in 1969, offered more than a century of enjoyment to the public without charging admission for entry.

Why the change now? How is it that this new facility, largely built with public funds, will not be accessible to many citizens who live on fixed incomes?

The decision was announced by the Assiniboine Park Conservancy, the entity that has run the park since 2008. It operates within the governance structure imposed by a former city council, and this includes less public funding and more requirements for the conservancy to be self-sustaining when it comes to running our city’s flagship park.

Historically, the mandate set by the city’s parks board was that the park be free to all citizens. A recent book on the park quotes the board’s 1921 mandate, which stipulated that the park be “…undisturbed by profit-making amusements, a sanctuary where the public enjoyed fresh air in idyllic surroundings.”

The visionary leadership of parks board chairman George Champion, who presided over Winnipeg parks for 26 years, was opposed to commercial entities in Winnipeg parks. He wanted Assiniboine Park — and, indeed, all parks — to be open to all citizens to enjoy these public spaces.

This week, a spokesperson for the conservancy said only 40 per cent of the operating costs of the Leaf will be covered by the city. The remaining operational costs must be covered by “admission, memberships, school programs, restaurant and special operations, special events and rentals.”

The seeds for this radical shift in operating our city’s most important park were sown 25 years ago.

Former mayor Susan Thompson and a majority of city council engaged George Cuff, a consultant from Alberta. They adopted his sweeping plan to merge departments and to do away with the board of commissioners and to usher in a new senior-staff governance model.

One of the casualties was the city’s parks and recreation department. Park maintenance functions, including forestry services, were moved into the public works department. For the first time in the city’s history, there was no department head responsible specifically for parks.

Today, parks and tree services compete for budget dollars with street and sidewalk renewal demands. As most citizens will know, parks and trees have fared badly in this competition, to the point that today we cannot even remove diseased trees in a timely fashion, let alone replace them.

The story is the same when it comes to recreation programing. Our summer wading pools are open less than they used to be, and recreation programing has been cut.

While some may take aim at the Assiniboine Park Conservancy as being responsible for the steep admission fees for the Leaf, such a view misses the real big-picture facts of parks and recreation services in Winnipeg.

Since, 1997, Winnipeg city council has retreated from proper stewardship over parks and recreation functions. City council’s creation of the conservancy model was a horrible decision, one that drove a stake through the integrated regional parks model built by George Champion.

In addition to creating the conservancy, city council under former mayor Sam Katz also imposed budget cuts on Assiniboine Park. We are now asked to accept user fees at the door of our newest park amenity as inevitable and irreversible.

As a city councillor, Glen Murray (quite correctly, in my view) opposed the Cuff report; he and a minority of the 1997 council did not want the parks and recreation department to be eliminated.

The Leaf’s planned admission fees will see many citizens and their families blocked from enjoying this new facility, which taxpayers have largely paid for. The notion of “free” vouchers for those unable to afford admission fees is, quite frankly, both embarrassing and offensive.

The current civic election offers the perfect opportunity for debate on what kind of city we all want going forward. What kind of vision will guide operation of our parks services? I am sure citizens would welcome this debate, and would certainly benefit from hearing candidates’ positions on the issue prior to casting their ballots on Oct. 26.

Paul Moist is a former labour leader and a research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Manitoba.