Photo above: Inglewood resident Keri Parfitt and her husband Kevin.
Let’s face it. Women have the capacity to change the world. For the better, or otherwise.
Those who apply their vision, intelligence, and creativity, with integrity, fairness, and courage, have my utmost respect and admiration. The world desperately needs more of you.
Our JSC Empowering and Impactful Women of Caledon series focuses on such women who have made a positive impact on Caledon. They all share one thing in common – a desire to leave the world better than they found it.
This next story in our series is about Inglewood resident Keri Parfitt.
While the length of time a human can survive without food can measure in weeks, the length of time we can survive without water is mere days. Three seems to be the generally accepted number. Yes, just three days. Dependent of course of a few variables like age, health, temperature, exertion levels. It is unquestionable that water is essential to our very existence.
While we may not all spend a lot of time thinking about that, for people like Inglewood’s Keri Parfitt, it is always front of mind. Indeed water – and its protection and conservation – have been at the heart of much of what she has done since she completed her education with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Environmental Biology.
While giving in to an entrepreneurial urge in 2011 to start a small business of her own – Wicked Shortbread which, as everyone local knows, has wickedly good cookies – her education and experience working on municipal (York and Peel) water conservation projects made her an expert, and advocate, for source water protection.
Keri also understands that everything is connected. And that applies to our water sources as well. That’s precisely why alarm bells went off when she heard about a developer’s proposal that would potentially allow tons of fill to be dumped into a rehabilitated gravel pit in northwest Caledon.
Keri and Kevin at a CVC/Village of Inglewood Association joint initiative in Inglewood in June 2025. Photo credit: Credit Valley Conservation.
Those bells led Keri to her current role as chief organizer and motivator for a group that is dedicated to saving the site, know locally as Swan Lake. The property is home to a pristine 40-acre pond and habitat for swans and other wildlife. It is a perfect shining example of the standard we hold gravel companies to in terms of rehabilitation once they have completed their work. The properties it borders includes farms and, yes, wells.
Keri feels that, looking at the big picture, it appears in the “pursuit of fast development” we are exploiting the things essential to our very existence – water, farmland, and food.
Those alarm bells only got louder when a number Caledon councillors seemed to not be listening as she and other residents expressed their concerns.
Keri at event with Anna deLangley owner of nearby Belain Farm. Photo credit: Mira Budd
“As a Caledon resident the question for me is how much of this destruction is necessary and how much is being driven by greed and profit” she worries. “Ultimately, given what is happening in the world, we need to be able to be more independent. Food and water systems should be our primary concerns.”
“Instead, we are talking about weakening protections, reducing water quantity, and quality, if we dump below water table” she adds.
Keri’s involvement in leading and supporting the resistance to the Swan Lake proposal is turning her into a local hero and, some would say, an icon. Her work experience with municipalities helped inform her position and her delegations to Town Council. Her entrepreneurial skills come in handy for her thoughtful and effective social media and other communications on the issue. Growing up in a multicultural area of Toronto prior to first moving to Peel, and visits to a family member’s farm, gave her excellent insight into a diverse range of people’s lives and needs.
Her relentless passion to do the right thing by the environment, to insist on people-over-profits decisions from local politicians, and to demand fairness for her fellow residents, undeniably make her a remarkable, and impactful, Caledon woman.
