How the war against the mega quarry was won – by Jason Van Bruggen (National Post – November 23, 2012)

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.

Read more

Critics celebrate surprise end of mega quarry north of Toronto – by Renata D’Aliesio and Karen Howlett (Globe and Mail – November 22, 2012)

Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

MELANCTHON TOWNSHIP — While in their vast vegetable fields Wednesday, harvesting the last of their brussel sprout crop, Bill French and his son received a stunning text message: The bid to develop one of the largest rock quarries on the continent, one that would have encircled their family farm for 50 to 100 years, was dead, unexpectedly abandoned by the Canadian and American investors behind the divisive project.

The French family rejoiced as the text messages kept coming. The hard-fought battle that had united a motley crew – farmers and urbanites, politicians and entertainers, aboriginals and top Toronto chefs – was over, for a while at least. Some of Southern Ontario’s finest farmland would no longer be transformed into a massive limestone pit.

“It’s really good news,” said Mr. French, 57, said as he sat on his red tractor. “I was surprised they withdrew it this early. I thought it would go on for another five years.

The story behind the mega-quarry began six years ago when Ontarian John Lowndes began buying up prime farmland in Melancthon Township, about 120 kilometres north of Toronto. Mr. French and other farmers contend Mr. Lowndes portrayed himself as only interested in producing potatoes, but suspicions soon surfaced. Those suspicions were confirmed last year, when The Highland Companies submitted an application to the province to develop a limestone quarry.

Read more

Coalition of farmers and urban foodies halts Ontario mega-quarry – by Joe Friesen (Globe and Mail – November 22, 2012)

Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

It would have been the biggest quarry in Canada, but it was stopped in its tracks by an unusual coalition of farmers, urban foodies, artists, environmentalists and native bands, one that suggests a model for organizing opposition to resource projects.

The movement against the Ontario quarry was launched with nothing more than a basic story. An American company had convinced local farmers it was buying up chunks of land for a potato farm. Potatoes were only part of the plan, however. It soon made an application to build a massive quarry that the opposition said would threaten the groundwater and soil in one of the most fertile land belts in the country.

The plan seemed outrageous to many locals. But how could anyone else be convinced to care if it wasn’t happening in their backyard? The rest of the province had to be persuaded that the fight was about them, too. That meant mobilizing people in the cities. The best way proved to be through their stomachs.

On Wednesday, the Highland Companies withdrew its controversial application to build a limestone quarry in Melancthon township, about 100 kilometres northwest of Toronto, citing a lack of support in the community.

Read more

The need for aggregate puts the GTA between a rock and a hard place – by Renata D’Aliesio (Globe and Mail – December 10, 2011)

Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

PLEASE NOTE THIS ARTICLE IS FROM DECEMBER/2011.

Deep beneath vast fields that grow a dozen varieties of potatoes lies a valuable gray rock tinged with light browns and blues. The rock is hard, durable and dense, part of the 400-million-year-old Amabel Formation that once belonged to a warm, shallow sea.

To Toronto’s high-rise condominium developers and road-construction engineers, this high-quality limestone, known as Amabel dolostone, is an invaluable ingredient in the making of superior concrete and asphalt. Builders turn to it when they need to make the sturdiest of structures. The CN Tower, Highway 401 and Pearson International Airport all contain bits of Amabel dolostone.

Yet this precious rock, a building block of the ever-growing Toronto region, is at the heart of a quarry battle of the likes never seen before in Ontario. Quarries are almost always controversial. No one wants to live near an industrial pit with loud blasting, thick dust and a steady stream of big trucks. But the fight over the proposed Melancthon Quarry, about 120 kilometres north of Toronto, is different.

Unlike previous conflicts over quarries that tended to remain largely local schisms, the Melancthon battle has reverberated far and wide. The effort to stop the massive pit has united farmers and urbanites, renowned Toronto chefs and aboriginals, environmentalists and affluent entrepreneurs.

Read more

NEWS RELEASE: McGuinty prorogation enables subpoena of Premier & other Ministers in $275 million seat-saver scandal

Senior-most Liberals Will Be Forced to Face Questioning On Flamborough Quarry

TORONTO, Oct. 29, 2012 /CNW/ – Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and other senior Cabinet Ministers will be subpoenaed and compelled to testify in the judicial review of the Liberal government’s decision to kill the proposed Flamborough Quarry. The judicial review will help determine whether the government acted improperly in cancelling a quarry in the riding of Liberal MPP Ted McMeekin in advance of the 2011 provincial election. St Marys Cement has also filed a NAFTA claim based on the regulatory failure in this case, and is seeking damages of not less than $275 million.

In May, St Marys Cement served a Notice of Application to review the decision by the McGuinty Liberals to issue a Minister’s Zoning Order and a Declaration of Provincial Interest to stop the proposed Flamborough Quarry. The provincial government brought forward a motion to have the application dismissed, a motion that has now been dismissed by the Ontario Divisional Court. The government has appealed this ruling.

Due to a common law principle that protects sitting members from being subpoenaed while the house is in session or on break for holiday, the decision by Dalton McGuinty to prorogue the Legislature presents the first opportunity for the Premier, in addition to Ministers Jim Bradley and Rick Bartolucci, to be forced to testify. The legal process will now be initiated with the full intention of hearing from key decision-makers around this decision to save the seat of a Liberal MPP.

Read more