The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.
In early 2011, while visiting our relatives’ farm near Melancthon in Dufferin County, Ont., my wife and I learned about the now infamous “mega quarry” proposal tabled by The Highland Companies, which were looking to turn the area’s rolling hills into one of the largest open-pit excavation sites in North America. This project involved drilling a pit deeper than Niagara Falls beneath the area’s fertile farmland, and permanently disrupting the source water for five pristine rivers.
My wife Blaine and I decided that this could not happen on our watch, and we took on a role as volunteer strategists for opponents of the mega quarry. Conversations with neighbours, the farmers of Mulmur and Melancthon who had not sold their land to the Highland Companies, revealed a tale of David versus Goliath. Potato farmer Dale Rutledge showed us woodlots that the quarry proponents had carved up to circumvent laws preventing complete woodlot removal. Fifth generation farmers, Ralph and Mary Lynn Armstrong, had been approached and encouraged to “retire to Florida” by people wishing to buy their farm under the guise of creating a giant potato farm.
Not being traditional “activists,” we formed a rabble-rousing group of communicators, all volunteers, and called ourselves the Comm Comm (Communications Committee). From early 2011 onward, we met several times a month to plot what were essentially marketing strategies to create a movement to appeal to everyone who valued food and water.