On Friday afternoon, a group of people gathered in North York's Olive Square Park for a solemn commemoration of the victims of the 2018 Yonge St. van attack. While Olive Square will one day be the site of a permanent memorial to the people killed or wounded on April 23, 2018, eight years later, that remains just an idea.
Slow progress but new momentum
Lily Cheng, the city councillor representing the area, acknowledged the frustration over the pace of progress. "I know people are disappointed perhaps that things have not moved as quickly," she told the Toronto Sun on Friday. "It's a very big city with so many priorities, and we are just always fighting for resources and time."
Although the park has not changed much since Cheng spoke about the memorial last year, she said behind the scenes the plan has gained "traction" and progress has been made. "Having a location and a budget, I think, were the missing ingredient for quite some time," Cheng said. The city now has a web page with a timeline, details on the design competition, and a link to sign up for updates. The parks department has begun studying the ground conditions. There is "new momentum," she added.
Holistic approach to memorial
City hall gave Olive Square Park a minor refresh last fall, installing a new plaque and upgrading lighting and seating. The first stage of the memorial design competition is due to begin this spring. "Then there's the whole process of looping back with the survivors and the families and the steering committee," which includes community members, Cheng said. The city's timeline would see the park close in spring 2028 and reopen that fall.
"This is not going to be just like a sculpture that we just plop somewhere in our city. The whole park will be the memorial," Cheng said. She noted that "that holistic approach" means a lot to people in her ward of Willowdale. "After the tragedy, we really inhabited that space. It meant a lot to the community. That's where we gathered. It was the first point of contact for the neighbourhood after the tragedy."
The approach also reflects one of the legacies of the attack: the connections formed in grief. As an example, a local food bank traces its origins to the community's response to the massacre, Cheng said.
Background of the attack
Eleven people died and more than a dozen were wounded in the attack, carried out on a stretch of Yonge St. south of Olive Square Park. The murderer, Alek Minassian, was convicted in March 2021 and sentenced to life in prison in June 2022. Even without a permanent memorial, Torontonians have gathered each year to mourn. Cheng and a couple dozen others did so on Friday afternoon, calling this year's commemoration "almost poetic."
"Eight years ago, 24 hours after the tragedy, we stood at Olive Square and then we walked in the rain in prayer. We kind of had a silent prayer walk from Olive Square," she recalled. "It started raining, right at the end of our commemoration that we had today. So yeah, it was beautiful to kind of capture how much we held each other through that difficult moment."
