Contributing Member Brandon Rhéal Amyot raises concerns about the design and inherent bias of the City's latest survey.
Posted by Brandon Rhéal Amyot, Contributing Member
Let's Talk About Barrie's Park Safety Survey
The City of Barrie recently released a survey about "Prioritizing Safety & Cleanliness in Parks and Public Spaces." There are some serious concerns about how this survey was designed and whether it can truly guide public policy. Let’s dive in on a few issues that stand out:
1. Leading Questions
The survey asks leading questions and pushes respondents toward negative responses. For example, Question 2 asks “Do you think encampments are affecting neighbourhoods?” This makes it sound like encampments & their residents are the problem without giving the chance to say otherwise. While there is a chance to specify “other” in some answers, there are too few open-ended questions. This limits the ability to provide meaningful feedback on what could improve public spaces and what could address the housing, affordability, mental health, and drug crises.
2. One-Sided Picture
Question 4 lists only negative activities occurring in parks or public spaces like drug use, trafficking, and panhandling. There’s no mention of positive or neutral use, painting a one-sided picture of what happens in these spaces. This, in some ways, exaggerates safety concerns.
3. Lack of Context
The survey also asks (in Question 5) if the City should appeal a court ruling on evicting encampments (Justice Valente's Waterloo, Ontario ruling on the Section 7 Charter rights of encampment residents), but provides zero context about the legal or ethical reasoning. This makes it hard for respondents to give informed opinions.
[Ed. note: As stated in a tweet by Jeff Schlemmer, Executive Director of the Community Legal Clinic York Region, an appeal is not even a possibility, as the City of Barrie was not party to that case, and even if they were, the appeal period is long past.]
4. Oversimplifying Safety
The oversimplification of safety is another issue. When asked how safe you feel in parks (in Question 3), the only options are "safe", "neutral", or "unsafe." Safety is nuanced — people feel different at night, during events, or based on who they are or who’s with them. We need more details.
5. Missing Voices
The survey doesn't consider the perspectives of the unhoused or encampment residents. Ethical public engagement means hearing from all affected groups, especially marginalized ones. We have, sadly, seen the City, Mayor Nuttall, and Barrie City Council ignore or forget these voices in consultation. A more recent example of this is the flawed structure of the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan Committee.
[Ed. note: For more information on best practices in public engagement, and expectations regarding public participation in decision-making, please se our Position Paper on Community Engagement.]
Why should this matter to you as a resident of Barrie?
How we ask questions shapes the answers we get — and the solutions we find. The City should engage residents but needs to do so with better balance, more context and broader scope to be truly representative and ethical.
One of the pillars of the City's 2022-2026 Strategic Plan is Responsible Governance, which commits to ensuring accountability and transparency. Our Council approved this pillar and is to be guided by this in all it does. Public consultation on issues as crucial as housing, health and safety, and our public spaces should be handled responsibly. It wasn't.
Let’s push for a better way to engage on important issues. Fill out the survey noting your concerns, contact your councillor, get engaged year-round, support local efforts to do outreach (BHHJN, Ryan's Hope, Barrie Encampment Support Network , Busby Centre, Engage Barrie Organization, etc.), and don't forget to remember this come voting time in October 2026.
Survey Link
Council Contact Information
Engage Barrie Organization encourages our members and guests to contribute blog posts on a variety of topics that fall under our "equitable, empowered, engaged" umbrella, in the hopes of sharing a variety of perspectives and experiences.
Please be aware that the views and opinions expressed by our blog contributors do not necessarily reflect any official position of Engage Barrie Organization.
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