{"id":1871,"date":"2013-05-07T14:55:26","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T18:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=1871"},"modified":"2013-05-14T16:10:21","modified_gmt":"2013-05-14T20:10:21","slug":"civic-square-makes-way-for-queens-diamond-jubilee-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/civic-square-makes-way-for-queens-diamond-jubilee-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Civic Square makes way for Queen\u2019s Diamond Jubilee Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the Government of Canada launched the Diamond Jubilee Medal last year to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen\u2019s accession to the throne, they sought to honour 60,000 Canadians who have followed the Queen\u2019s own example in giving back to their neighbourhood, their province, and their country.
\nNow, both these Aurora recipients and the grand lady herself will be commemorated in Aurora\u2019s newly-minted Queen\u2019s Diamond Jubilee Park.<\/p>\n

Council decided to re-name Civic Square Park, located on John West Way near Town Hall, in honour of the occasion. In addition to new park signage, a plaque mounted on a rock will be installed bearing the colourful Diamond Jubilee Emblem designed by 11-year-old British student Katherine Dewar as well as the Canadian emblem designed by the Government of Canada. <\/p>\n

After considering various options in and around town for the royal honours, Councillors seemed largely pleased with their decision last week.
\n\u201cI drove by Civic Square Park because I only remembered it as a soccer field and it has a very nice entrance,\u201d said Councillor John Abel. \u201cIt has a big, raised bed and I think it could be quite a tribute. As you drive by, I think it would be quite appropriate if we put some money into landscaping and it would be a garden befitting Her Majesty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor Paul Pirri, however, said he wasn\u2019t so sure. In previous discussions to get to this point, he spoke in favour of having a larger, more significant park as a tribute to the Queen, a \u201cdestination park\u201d that would draw people from around the community with various unique amenities. This proposal, he said, missed the mark.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is nothing more than a token gesture,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t see it as accomplishing anything. I definitely don\u2019t think it is a park befitting Her Majesty\u2019s name. If we\u2019re planning on doing something later on, we\u2019re just putting the cart before the horse and naming it for the sake of naming it and that is something I completely disagree with.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it is a park that is staying the way it is, I don\u2019t think it is a park befitting the name. I don\u2019t know why, but I am just extremely opposed to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that Council has signed off on the naming of the park, the proposed plaque will also bear the names of a growing list of Aurora recipients of the Queen\u2019s Diamond Jubilee Medal, a final list which will be published in late spring by the Chancellery of Honours at Rideau Hall.
\nWhile Councillor Evelyn Buck expressed a similar sentiment to Councillor Pirri that she \u201choped this isn\u2019t the last we hear about the park and we\u2019re going to make it something special\u201d, she had reservations about including the names of the medal recipients on the plaque. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that is a particularly good thing to do,\u201d she said. \u201cI am visualising a park name with all the other names and I think it is just taking away from the tribute we\u2019re paying. <\/p>\n

Nearly 20 names so far are slated to be included on the plaque, but this number could turn out to be significantly higher once all the local nominees from organizations partnered with Rideau Hall on the awards, including local police forces and charities, are tallied. <\/p>\n

Civic Square Park was the clear favourite in the royal naming stakes. Municipal staff originally proposed naming a parkette near St. John\u2019s Sideroad and Bathurst Street in honour of the Jubilee, but Councillors wanted to mark the occasion with a more significant park. A shortlist was presented to Council last month of parks that had not been named by or in honour of any particular individual. These included Town Park \u2013 an option which found favour in Mayor Geoffrey Dawe \u2013 along with the originally proposed Ballymore Parkette, Tamarac Green Park, Summit Park (which was later struck off the list due to its name being chosen in a public contest \u2013 and Civic Square Park. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir When the Government of Canada launched the Diamond Jubilee Medal last year to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen\u2019s accession to the throne, they sought to honour 60,000 Canadians who have followed the Queen\u2019s own example in giving back to their neighbourhood, their province, and their country. Now, both these Aurora […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-ub","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 18:01:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}