About
The Grand River Watershed
Map of the Grand River Watershed
The Grand River is one of the largest rivers in southern Ontario Canada - flowing approximately 300km from the headwaters to the mouth at Port Maitland where the Grand feeds into Great Lake Erie. The Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee and Neutral peoples, have called this land and the waters their home for millenia. The history of colonization, including residential schools here is difficult and significant, noting that both the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation Reserve are located within this Watershed. Today First Nations, Metis and Inuit from many Nations live, work and play in this watershed. As settlers who originated from elsewhere around the world, we are grateful to live, learn, work and play here. It is important for us to recognize this is treaty land, and that we all have responsibilities. Of particular significance with regards to our responsibilities is the Dish with One Spoon Wampum. We recognize the need to take our responsibilities seriously, to continue to learn, and to do better. As Robin Wall Kimmerer said: "All flourishing is mutual."
To learn about the Dish with One Spoon Wampum, watch this short video that features Rick Hill from Six Nations of the Grand River: https://youtu.be/W5QOK57_Ask?si=l4oNbPv2xEr-WAiQ
The Haldimand Tract - the land six miles either side of the Grand River, extending from source to mouth - is located entirely within this Watershed. To learn more about the Haldimand Tract, as well as other agreements and Treaties, we recommend visiting the Yellowhead Institute Treaty Map website:
Indigenous Treaty Making: https://treatymap.yellowheadinstitute.org/indigenous-treaty-making/
Treaty Map: https://treatymap.yellowheadinstitute.org/map/
Story of this Publication
The Grand River Watershed Regional Update began in the fall of 2022 with a series of informal emails written by a small group of concerned citizens to update community members when the omnibus Bill 23 (aka the More Homes Built Faster Act) was tabled at Queen's Park by the provincial government under Premier Doug Ford. Bill 23 contained significant, sweeping changes that would impact municipal planning, Conservation Authorities, environmental protection, source water protection and more - part of their plan to speed up new home construction by 'cutting red tape'. The Ford government insisted they were addressing housing affordability- stating that increased housing supply would result in more affordable housing prices.
Here's an excellent Bill 23 explainer from :
Under Ford's leadership, the Progressive Conservatives took advantage of their majority government to pass Bill 23 swiftly into law, after skipping the requirement to complete consultation with First Nations and ignoring input from the elected opposition, experts and the public.
Around the same time (late fall of 2022) the Ford government announced changes to the Ontario Greenbelt. They removed several parcels of land from the protection of the Greenbelt, despite the fact that Greenbelt protection was meant to be permanent. There was significant public outrage that the protection of the Greenbelt had been breached, but then it was revealed in a special report by the Ontario Auditor General that certain developers with strong ties to the PC government had made requests for these parcels to be removed. Grassroots organizing took off and public pressure became so intense that eventually Doug Ford changed course - he made a public apology and announced the parcels of land would be returned to Greenbelt protection. At this point (July 2026) the government has given up on their housing target of building 1.5 million homes by 2030, or pretending their actions are increasing housing affordability. They have been relentless in forcing many drastic legislation and policy changes through. The Greenbelt Scandal also continues without resolution - there is an ongoing RCMP investigation into the matter that in July 2026 reached the milestone of being 1000 days old!
When the weekly emails began, we thought it would be an undertaking that might last a few weeks, but that turned out to be naïve - the provincial (and at times the federal government) policies and legislative changes that impact our local communities have never stopped. So we've continued, and the weekly updates have been going out for nearly 4 years.
One of the most significant reasons we feel this update is important is the struggle for members of the public to access reliable (factual) news and information in Ontario. Not only is it challenging to follow what is happening given the significant changes to social media and news media, we note the Ford government recently made significant changes to restrict Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.
Managing these updates had become a bit of a challenge as the readership has grown to more than 500 subscribers, given that we have no budget. However, with the myriad of complex challenges and concerns, we remain committed to continuing to share the weekly updates at no cost. We have shifted to the Leaflet platform to take advantage of a free one year subscription. We are planning to continue to publish updates every week. The Leaflet platform makes the updates easier to share, and we now have the ability to retain our updates from previous weeks - as of July 6, 2026 the updates are posted on the home page.
We look forward to having you share your ideas, suggestions and feedback, and keep us posted on what is happening in your communities.
Thanks for reading!
Kevin Thomason , Mike Marcolongo and Joan Faux