Ontario's Premier Accountability Dashboard · Queen's Park Watch
Walter Kehm
Independent
Landscape architect known for designing Trillium Park and Tommy Thompson Park on the Toronto waterfront. Resigned from the Ontario Place/Therme redevelopment project in 2023, stating he had become "persona non grata" for advocating on behalf of the trees, wildlife habitat, and 192 bird species present on the West Island. Later became a vocal public critic of the combined sewer overflow rerouting plan, calling the West Channel "an entrapped bathtub" with inadequate water circulation that would become a "breeding ground for E. coli, Listeria and other water-borne diseases."
Connected Scandals
To prepare Ontario Place for a private Austrian spa, the Ford government rerouted a raw sewage overflow pipe into the West Channel of Lake Ontario — bypassing public consultation, exempting the project from environmental review, and proceeding over the objections of physicians, landscape architects, and 2,250 Ontarians who formally opposed the plan.
Former design consultant on the Ontario Place/Therme redevelopment who resigned in 2023 over environmental concerns. Publicly warned that the West Channel CSO rerouting would create a "breeding ground for E. coli, Listeria and other water-borne diseases," describing the channel as "an entrapped bathtub" with inadequate water flow to disperse pathogens. His resignation and subsequent advocacy represent a documented case of a project insider raising professional accountability concerns that the province ignored.