Letter: Deferral is not enough: Port Perry Agricultural Society calls on Township to resolve lease uncertainty now

The Port Perry Agricultural Society (PPAS) welcomes the community's extraordinary response to July 13th's Special Council meeting, and thanks every resident who showed up, spoke up, and made clear that the Port Perry Fairgrounds are not for sale. But the PPAS will not mistake a deferral for a victory. The uncertainty that has put this organization and this community's most beloved institution at risk has not been resolved. It has simply been postponed.

Let's be direct about what the current situation means in practice. The PPAS is operating on a month-to-month lease. Not a one-year lease. Not a multi-year agreement. Month to month. Which means that at any given moment, with only six months' notice, the organization which has stewarded these Fairgrounds since 1910 could be shown the door. No responsible organization, no business, no charity, no community group, can plan, invest, or grow under those conditions. Sponsors cannot be secured. Capital improvements cannot be made. Staff cannot be hired with confidence. Partnerships cannot be built. A month-to-month lease is not a foundation. It is a countdown clock.

And this is not a simple operation which can be thrown together on short notice. The Port Perry Fair — a Labour Day weekend institution which draws thousands of families to Scugog every single year — takes twelve months to plan. Twelve months of booking entertainers, coordinating vendors, organizing competitions, engaging volunteers, arranging livestock programming, managing logistics, and working with sponsors whose commitments need to be confirmed well in advance. The planning for the 2027 Fair begins now. Not in the first quarter of 2027 when Council will revisit this matter — now. Every month of lease uncertainty is a month of planning paralysis. Every month of delay costs this organization real money, real relationships, and real capacity to deliver the event which Scugog has counted on for 140 years.

The Fairgrounds are also not a one-weekend-a-year asset which sits idle the rest of the time. The PPAS runs programming year-round. Public events, private rentals, and community gatherings take place on these grounds throughout all four seasons. Families walk the fields. Youth groups gather here. The grounds serve the community every single week — and every one of those activities requires lease stability, advance planning, and the ability to make long-term commitments a month-to-month arrangement with a meagre six-month notice period makes impossible.

The PPAS is grateful Council listened. We are grateful the community made its voice heard loudly enough to stop this in its tracks, for now. But the next Council will inherit this decision, and the PPAS and the people of Scugog deserve to know before that point what the future of this site looks like. A 170-year-old institution should not be running on borrowed time and thirty-day increments.

The PPAS is calling on the Township of Scugog to move immediately to provide a long-term lease which reflects the Fairgrounds' status as an irreplaceable community asset, not as a contingency. The community has spoken. Now it is time for the Township to respond in kind.

For more information:

Paul Puckrin, President, Port Perry Agricultural Society. secretaryppfair@outlook.com