The Narwhal article quotes Wasaga Beach’s chief administrative officer. And lays out his complicated past with the Provincial Parks creation:

Andrew McNeill’s family, one of the original settler families in the town, lost a thriving cottage business in 1974 when the park was created. 
“It was a colossal mistake,” McNeill adds. “In the process of doing that they really undermined the entire economy of Wasaga Beach. Residents and business owners, to this day, are very upset and angry with what happened.” 
Fast forward more than 50 years and McNeill is now the town’s chief administrative officer, and a part of the push to rectify ownership of the beach. 
Mr. McNeill’s comment is much more telling than the Mayor’s disingenuous comment of “protecting the beach”.  Mr McNeill makes clear that: “the actual beach frontage is a very small sliver,” McNeill says. “We’re not going to touch it.”
The amount of provincial land the town is getting back is negligible, McNeill says: 60 hectares, or three per cent of the entire park. And of that three per cent, the town has plans to “reimagine” only half, most of which is currently paved parking lots that could be transformed under the town’s waterfront master plan, which hasn’t been released yet.  As a resident of the Beach since 1965 I can tell you that most residents are not “very upset and angry “ about the expropriation or the creation of the parks. Many of us are worried about the lack of transparency about what will be privatized and what will be lost to future generations in the pursuit of the promised financial benefit to the town.