Toronto just gained a wedge of new land right on the waterfront

Toronto just got a little bit bigger, reclaiming a wedge of the harbour and adding it to the city's 630 square-kilometre footprint.

Waterfront Toronto has completed its partial filling of the Parliament Slip, adding a new pocket of land to the waterfront that will prove integral to the regeneration of the post-industrial East Bayfront area.

Crews have been hard at work reshaping the largely disused industrial slip since 2024 as part of a project to extend Queens Quay East and realign Parliament Street, creating space for new road infrastructure, a development block for new housing, and a path for the planned Waterfront East LRT that will serve growing communities along Queens Quay from Bay Street into Ookwemin Minising.

Lakefilling has changed the shape of Toronto many times throughout the city's history, and the method was again employed to fill in the irregular shape of the Parliament Slip and construct a new dockwall.

To create this new extension of the city, clean material was placed into the slip and compacted into place using a technique called vibro-compaction. As the name suggests, the technique involves controlled vibrations via a long probe to settle and pack down material through shaking, similar to how you'd swish around a de-liquified slushie to settle the contents at the bottom of the cup.

With the area home to native and introduced aquatic species, special care was taken to ensure the health of the area's underwater inhabitants. Before construction began, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) safely cleared the area of fish and partitioned the work space off with underwater curtains.

The former wedge shape of the slip has since been filled in, but is still visible in aerial imagery of the site.

Waterfront Toronto has shared a time-lapse video showing Toronto's newest chunk of land take form.

With this new land in place, the sharp angle of Queens Quay East will soon be rectified as the lakefilling allows the city's interrupted street grid to heal.