March 24, 2026

The Federation of Ontario Cottagers’ Associations (FOCA) is pleased to announce that the 2025 recipient of the annual FOCA Terry Rees Achievement Award is the Gloucester Pool Cottagers Association (GPCA) in the Muskoka District.

The Award was presented on March 7th at the FOCA Spring Seminar for Lake Associations, held at the Bayview Golf and Country Club in Thornhill and by Zoom webinar, with over 250 cottage country enthusiasts participating in the unofficial “launch” to the Ontario cottage country season with a day of seminars and lake association networking.

The GPCA is a group of over 400 families on Gloucester Pool and Little Lake near Georgian Bay. They received the 2025 Award for their advocacy efforts to engage varied stakeholders to implement a response to large shipping container ‘vessels’ that appeared on the lake in the summer of 2021. The GPCA formed a working group to investigate the implications of these structures on Ontario waterways, and then created a committee to work to update regulations to keep them from our waterways.

In 2022, FOCA assisted by bringing together a web meeting of stakeholders, including Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) partners and fellow lake associations, to discuss concerns.

In 2023, Ontario’s MNR amended a regulation under the Public Lands Act to prevent floating accommodationsfrom being placed or used as a camping unit on provincially-managed waterways. Since then, Parks Canada hasimplemented mooring restrictions on floating accommodations on the Trent-Severn Canal and Rideau Canal, and the two local townships where these floating homes first appeared – The Township of Georgian Bay and Severn Township – have now adopted local by-law enhancements to restrict or prevent placement of such structures over water in their municipalities.

In 2025, FOCA helped to circulate a Floating Accommodations Position Paper created by the “Float Homes Not Vessels Coalition” (FHNVC) to help other municipalities craft responses to similar threats. It is FOCA’s hope that this information will be shared with municipal partners across the province.

On Saturday, March 7, 2026, the 2025 Award was accepted by Cheryl Elliot-Fraser, President of GPCA, and Paul McKay of the FHNVC. “We are grateful for receiving the FOCA Terry Rees Achievement Award,” said Elliot-Fraser. “We are most appreciative of the support from FOCA members in working towards obtaining regulations pertaining to floating accommodations.”

“The Gloucester Pool Cottagers Association demonstrated exactly the kind of leadership this award is meant to recognize,” said Lesley Lavender, CEO of FOCA. “They brought together partners across jurisdictions, stayed focused on the long-term health of Ontario’s waterways, and helped turn a local concern into meaningful policy change that will benefit lake communities across the province.”