Ottawa committee backs bid to rename park after Mary Papatsie
Final council vote scheduled for Oct. 8
Ottawa’s community services committee voted Tuesday to recommend that city council rename Emond Park in Vanier as Mary Papatsie Park. Papatsie, an Inuk woman who lived nearby, disappeared in 2017 and her remains were discovered in 2022. (Image from Google Street View)
An City of Ottawa committee has voted to rename a park in the Vanier neighbourhood after Mary Papatsie, an Inuk woman who disappeared in 2017 and whose remains were discovered five years later.
Ottawa city council will vote in October on renaming a park for Mary Papatsie. (File photo courtesy of the Papatsie family)
The city’s community services committee endorsed a motion Tuesday from Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stéphanie Plante recommending the name change for Emond Park, located at Emond Street and Deschamps Avenue.
The name change is scheduled to go before council for a final vote on Oct. 8.
Chris Greenshields, president of the Vanier Community Association, said the change would reflect the neighbourhood’s Inuit presence, noting it is home to the Inuuqatigiit Centre for Inuit Children, Youth and Families; Tungasuvvingat Inuit and St. Margaret’s Anglican Church, which has an Inuit congregation and pastor.
Though he did not know Papatsie personally, Greenshields and his wife attended her memorial in 2022 on behalf of the community association.
“We learned much of her community engagement, her sense of humour, and how much she was loved by her family,” he said of Papatsie.
“She was a member of a group of Emond Park neighbours who sought to make this park a better place.”
Greenshields said there is neighbourhood support for the move, as part of the community’s healing process.
The committee also discussed the park signage being displayed in English, French and Inuktitut, similar to Annie Pootoogook Park in Ottawa’s Sandy Hill area.
Discussions with the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation Consultative Culture Circle supported the renaming, Plante said.
The consultative culture circle has a mandate to provide feedback to Ottawa city council on Indigenous nominees proposed for commemoration.
Plante added that the Inuit community may want to erect a statue or plaque in recognition of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
“We have not gone down that road yet, we’re just focusing on the naming of the park,” she said.
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