There's significant money earmarked in the federal budget for Windsor.
Windsor-Tecumseh Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk says the federal government is pledging $36.1-million over 5-years to establish an Ojibway National Urban Park, with the funding being used to open and operate it in West Windsor.
The proposed park will include Ojibway Park, Spring Garden Natural Area, Black Oak Heritage Park, The Tallgrass Prairie Park, Ojibway Prairie Provincial Nature Reserve and Ojibway Shores.
Windsor-Tecumseh Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk says this has been a long time coming. "This is something that so many in our community who have been fighting for, this means that confidently within the next 12-months, we will have an Ojibway National Urban Park that is fully open and fully operational and this is tremendous, historic news for our community."
Kusmierczyk calls it "tremendous, historic news for the community".
"This gives Parks Canada all the resources that they need to finish the job of negotiating with land owners to get the land agreements in place, the government agreements in place to set the boundaries for it and to open and operate it, so Parks Canada has all the resources they need."
Kusmierczyk says the next step is to secure all the land transfer agreements.
"It really is up to us in terms of how fast we can get those deals finished and I'll be looking for leadership from city hall and the City of Windsor and Queen's Park and the province to get those land transfer agreements fully in place. We want to see that park open as soon as possible."
Ojibway Park is still not officially an urban park which would include protections that are offered in other places like Banff National Park or Jasper as legislation to deem it as such is stalled in the Senate.
The area is home to hundreds of endangered species, which rely on migration through surrounding local parks for survival.