City of Gatineau seeking residents’ opinions on the future of outdoor rinks as winters get warmer

An outdoor skating rink is shown in this picture supplied by the City of Gatineau.

The City of Gatineau has launched a questionnaire asking residents about the future of the city’s outdoor skating rinks.

The city says the challenges posed by climate change are prompting the city’s recreation and sports department to analyze the relevance of maintaining or transforming several sites with outdoor skating rinks.

“The objective of this consultation is to validate the needs and priorities expressed by the public, gather their impressions, and better understand the challenges encountered while using the rinks in recent years,” the City of Gatineau said in a news release, translated from French.

An online survey will be available until July 6, asking residents how often they use outdoor rinks and how they think the city should improve or adapt them to warmer winters—from investing in refrigeration to adapting rinks for other purposes.

There will also be in-person consultation at several neighbourhood festivals around the city.

“With changing winters, it is essential to adapt our network of outdoor skating rinks. The ongoing consultation will allow us to better understand the expectations and needs of the population in order to build a more resilient and inclusive winter offering that is in line with the reality of our climate,” said Plateau District Coun. Bettina Bélizaire, chair of the Recreation, Sports, and Community Development Commission. “I invite all Gatineau residents to complete the questionnaire, either online or during one of the eight neighbourhood events, as your responses will help us better plan the future of skating rinks in Gatineau.”

Warmer winters have created problems for outdoor ice surfaces across the Ottawa-Gatineau region, most notably on the Rideau Canal Skateway, which had no season at all in the winter of 2022-23 and only 10 skating days in 2023-24.

The City of Gatineau says it conducted an assessment in 2024 to inventory outdoor skating rinks and address the main challenges related to their development and maintenance. This spring, city staff met with staff from other municipalities in Quebec to discuss winter operations.