History - the present and the future legacy for Guelph

Others will speak to the history of this wonderful landscape - as a meeting place for the Huron, Wendat and many other indigenous peoples; of the building of the Ontario reformatory beginning with the vision in 1905 of William Hanna as a place to reform and rehabilitate, rather than punish - a first for Ontario. The design of the landscape based on the Cities Beautiful and Beaux Arts style. its time as a rehabilitation hospital for WW1 veterans - the Speedwell Military hospital. The many years when the reformatory was a working farm, feeding itself and institutions all around it, teaching inmates skills that would help them find employment when they left the reformatory. All of this documented by the Guelph Civic Museum the stunning indigenous paintings by inmates, which are sadly now only retained as photographs - the province chose to paint over them.

Poet and civil rights activist May Angelou said:

"I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going. I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment. I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place"

I too want the past of the wonderful landscape honored and preserved - but I am more interested in how keeping this landscape in public hands can help shape the future of the city of Guelph

I refer you to the essay by Irene Renata Kadek - who wrote in the Guelph Mercury in May 2006 (copies available at the Guelph Civic Museum) of a vision to Preserve the former Reformatory Lands as a Park - she says it so much more clearly and elegantly than I ever could.

Why do I want this wonderful landscape preserved in public hands? Its pretty personal, I have children and grandchildren - and I want them and everyone else's grandchildren to be able to enjoy the wonderful vistas that i have been able to walk and enjoy , and to know where they have come from. The OR lands are not just a Guelph treasure, they are a provincial treasure and with care and imagination could become a huge tourist draw for our city, while providing us with a wonderful new urban park, at a time when our city is growing exponentially (200,000 residents by 2041) and all those people will need open spaces, for recreation and to provide us all open land to help us to continue to rely on ground water to for all of our drinking water needs.