It snowed last week. In a momentary lapse of recollection, I thought of getting my cross-country skis and heading to Bonnerworth Park. 

Then I remembered the grotesque industrial hoarding and piles of frozen dirt along Monoghan Road, Bonaccord, and McDonnell Streets south of Parkhill Rd. that now surrounds what was Bonnerworth Park. 

So much for the years I have enjoyed skiing in my local park.

Here’s the brutal truth: The bad guys won this round. Green space has been surrendered to pickleball courts and a parking lot. In a violation of a neighbourhood’s wishes, the City of Peterborough has bullied ahead. 

Local voices have been overwhelmed by outside interests devoted to a single sport that will limit a variety of recreational activities. Defenders of the development plan point to the inclusion of a revamped skate park and a bicycle pump track.  

I must say in hindsight that citizens like myself should have stayed better informed about the plans as they emerged. It was only when passed at council that the overall scheme became shockingly clear to me.

Locals such as the resident of The Mount, a nearby affordable housing complex, who flew his kite at Bonnerworth every day the weather allowed. Locals like the elderly in residences directly across the street from who will wonder where all the green went

This is the cultural and social backdrop that confronts local residents and our bevy of Save Bonnerworth Park lawn signs. This is the recreational vision of a city government led by Mayor Jeff Leal.

I’ve been back in this city for almost six years. I’m very happy with that choice, but of course Nogojiwanong—Peterborough is far from perfect. 

Peterborough has a bizarre penchant to pave parkland. Sadly, Bonnerworth Park joins Quaker Square, with its abundance of concrete and absurdly tiny skating rink, and Morrow Park down Lansdowne way. 

This wee city routinely privileges cars over pedestrians and bicyclists in a manner that’s out of step with progressive places like Montréal here in North America. 

Allow me to go into historian nerd mode for a moment. Northrop Frye wrote that Canadians suffered from a “garrison” mentality. We just can’t stop from beating back Mother Nature. 

Even in an era of so-called Reconciliation, The City of Peterborough clings to that colonial mindset with policies like the decision to destroy the green space at Bonnerworth Park.

Mr. Leal was an Ontario Liberal cabinet minister,yet he and his loyalists on council and in the city bureaucracy have taken a leaf from the Doug Ford playbook. Muscle the opposition. Get shovels in the dirt. Real nice.

The Bonnerworth Park experience in faulty democracy echoes Premier Ford's high-handed approach to the Ontario Science Centre, Ontario Place and other aspects of Fordlandia's car-centric, anti-green, anti-local approach to politics.

I have yet to meet a resident who lives in the immediate vicinity of Bonnerworth Park that approves of the plan. Our local councillors were defeated by Team Leal and councillors from other parts of the city.

Enterprising, selfless leaders from the Friends of Bonnerworth Park group got a bad break when its lawyer was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Mind you, their backs were already up against the wall due to the what some opponents see as a lack of transparency.

By the time the committee re-grouped after its lawyer had to step aside, the baseball diamonds at Bonnerworth Park had vanished, the big machines were churning away and the hideous looking fencing was installed. This is "urban development" and participatory democracy in the Leal mode. Ontario municipal liberalism? Gotta love it.

Of course such travails are small fry in a world of conflict and in a city with glaring income inequality in the midst of homelessness and opioid crises. However the process that doomed Bonnerworth Park as a green space loved by many is extremely problematic.

Unless the Friends of Bonnerworth park can muster the strength to halt or significantly modify the proposal, the die is cast. Pickleball Nation will arrive in cars to squat on their new parking lot and play their sport at its new Mecca at the expense of the local community. I wish the opposition luck.