Good afternoon.
My name is Bill Roesel, and I’m the president of The Friends of Ojibway Prairie. I’m here today with my colleague, Mike Fisher, from our board of directors.
The Friends of Ojibway Prairie is a volunteer registered charitable organization dedicated to promoting public awareness of the Ojibway Prairie complex and its unique biological, cultural and historical importance.
We would like to thank the committee for providing us with the opportunity to talk to you about why the Ojibway Prairie complex is so important to our community and why it is imperative to ensure that the complex and surrounding natural areas are protected to the highest degree as a national urban park.
We also recognize its particular importance to indigenous communities, with the Ojibway Prairie complex sitting on the traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy of first nations, which includes the Ojibwa, the Odawa and the Potawatomi.
The Ojibway Prairie complex and surrounding lands are a special place, well worthy of the highest level of protection. The key features of the Ojibway Prairie complex are its tall grass prairie and oak savanna ecosystems. The tall grass prairie and oak savanna ecosystems are some of the most endangered ecosystems in Canada. Despite this, the Ojibway Prairie complex is the most concentrated site for rare species in Ontario.