Dear Friends, Supporters, and Fellow Advocates,
It is with a heavy heart that I share this update.
Hartrick House is gone.
A building that stood for over 170 years that watched Ajax grow from farmland to the community we call home, that predated Confederation, that sheltered generations of families and stories we will never fully know — has been demolished.
No words make that easier to say.
To Every Single One of You
To everyone who signed this petition - thank you. To everyone who shared it with a friend, a neighbour, a stranger — thank you. To everyone who donated to our GoFundMe, who gave what they could so that we could at least try — thank you. To everyone who stood with us in front of Ajax City Hall on August 7th, in the sun, with signs and voices and hope — thank you. To everyone who wrote letters, made phone calls, attended council meetings, and refused to be ignored — thank you.
You did not have to do any of this. Hartrick House was not everyone's fight and yet so many of you made it yours. That means more than we will ever be able to express.
What We Did Together
Let the record show what this community accomplished with limited resources, no institutional support, and nothing but conviction:
• We launched a petition that gathered the attention of an entire community
• We raised funds through a GoFundMe — not enough for everything we needed, but enough to take the next step
• We commissioned an independent preliminary heritage evaluation — without access to the inside of the building, with a fraction of the resources the Town had available — and it confirmed that Hartrick House met the threshold for heritage designation
• We organized a public protest in front of Ajax City Hall on August 7th
• We requested a Special Council Meeting to present our findings only to have it fail quorum when Mayor Shaun Collier, Ward 3 Local Councillor Lisa Bower, and Ward 3 Regional Councillor Joanne Dies chose not to attend
• We wrote to the Ontario Heritage Trust
• We wrote to the Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism Graham McGregor
• We met with MPP Rob Cerjanec in person and made our case at the provincial level
• We did everything that was asked of us, and then some
The system did not fail us because we did not try hard enough. The system failed us because it was not designed to protect us in this situation. That is the real lesson of Hartrick House — and it is one we must not let be forgotten.
Hartrick House may be gone, but what it revealed cannot be unbuilt.
It exposed a loophole in the Ontario Heritage Act that allows a municipality to own a property, rezone it, sell it to a developer, and demolish it all without ever commissioning a heritage evaluation. It showed that when third-party appeal rights are removed, communities are left without recourse. It proved that a group of neighbours with a GoFundMe and a belief in what is right can still produce expert evidence that matters even if the system ultimately chose to look away.
We are also encouraging everyone to:
• 📬 Continue writing to Ajax Council — let them know that this will be remembered at the ballot box
• 📣 Share this story — the more people know what happened here, the harder it becomes for it to happen somewhere else
• 🏛️ Support heritage advocacy organizations fighting to strengthen protections across Ontario
• 🗳️ Vote — council members who failed to show up when it mattered should be held accountable when elections come
The Election Is Coming — And We Have a Choice
Throughout this entire process, what we witnessed was not simply a difference of opinion about one building. What we witnessed was utter ignorance, incompetence, and a profound disregard for the community by the very council we elected to serve us.
We watched a Town that owned a heritage property refuse to evaluate it. We watched councillors fail to show up to a meeting when a community brought them expert evidence at their own expense. We watched a 170-year-old building one that any other council in any other city would have moved to protect get demolished without a second thought.
And that last point deserves to be said plainly:
In another city, with another council, Hartrick House would still be standing today.
This was not inevitable. This was a choice. A choice made by people we elected, who will soon be asking for our votes again.
There Is Something You Can Do Right Now
One of our very own, someone who has been part of this fight, who has stood with this community from the beginning has decided to turn grief into action.
Stephen Sullivan is running for Ward 1 Regional Councillor for the Town of Ajax.
We ask you wholeheartedly to support him.
Stephen is not a career politician. He is one of us. He is a smart, principled young man who is never afraid to ask the difficult questions even when the room goes quiet. He is never afraid to admit when he is wrong because he knows that integrity matters more than ego. He is exactly the kind of voice that has been missing from that council chamber.
If Hartrick House taught us anything, it is that who sits at that table matters enormously. Decisions made behind those doors are irreversible. We cannot get Hartrick House back. But we can make sure that what happened to it never happens again — and that starts with putting the right people in the right seats.
Stephen will make sure our voices are heard. He will ask the questions that others are too comfortable to ask. He will show up — because unlike some of the people currently sitting on that council, showing up is something he takes seriously.
Please support Stephen Sullivan for Ward 1 Regional Councillor. Follow his campaign, share his name, and most importantly — vote.
To everyone who has been part of this journey: you turned your heartbreak into action, your frustration into fuel, and your love for this community into something that will outlast what was lost.
Hartrick House is gone. But this community is not.
With grief, gratitude, and an unbroken determination,
Zainul
On behalf of
Save the Hartrick House Community Group
"A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots." — Marcus Garvey