Sara Nixon
Perhaps you read Nathan Ince’s 2024 Active History article about John Norton. You may be interested to know that his cabin is preserved at The Brown Homestead in Niagara, alongside the family home of John Brown. The Brown Homestead stands on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples, land later granted to Brown for serving with the Butler’s Rangers, on the side of the British, during the American Revolution and operating as a waystation for thirsty travellers during the era of the War of 1812. Now, a charitable foundation manages the site and its buildings to preserve this enduring remnant of rural Niagara history and to reimagine it as a vibrant community gathering place that nurtures a growing passion for connection, learning, and innovative thinking. As a public historian and the Community Engagement Manager at The Brown Homestead, I have built a career working to engage the public with why heritage matters. Local history, and the built heritage that helps define the character of a community – like The Brown Homestead – matters. Heritage gives texture to our shared sense of place, belonging, and local identity.
However, Ontario’s heritage industry faces a challenge. On January 1, 2027, the Province of Ontario will remove some 36,000 heritage properties listed on Municipal Heritage Registers in communities across the province if they have not been formally designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. It’s a startling move buried amongst sweeping changes first implemented by Ontario’s Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act, the omnibus housing legislation passed in the Fall of 2022. Taking a “Designate or Lose It” approach, the amendments to the Ontario Heritage Act introduced a two-year time limit for properties on the Municipal Heritage Register, wherein if they were not designated by the deadline they were to be removed from the registry altogether. Furthermore, they can not be re-added to the registry for a period of five years following their removal. Though proclaiming that these changes were to prevent non-designated properties from languishing indefinitely on heritage registers, the Province’s decision only exacerbated the issues facing Ontario’s heritage sector.
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