Saved by a bit of last-minute sanity! - Keith Roulston editorial
The huge urgency over the plans of the provincial government to reshape rural Ontario changed suddenly, Tuesday afternoon, forcing me to quickly rewrite this week’s column before deadline.
The change came in the decision, announced by Steve Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, to withdraw a bill, scheduled to close for public comment on Monday, that would have allowed three houses per 100 acres of farmland.
Clark comes from the rural riding of Leeds - Grenville - Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, so he should have understood rural Ontario and known that this proposed legislation would have so ruthlessly altered the rural landscape. In my original column, I also blamed our local Huron-Bruce MPP, Lisa Thompson, Ontario’s Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, for supporting such a disruptive bill, since she had kept quiet, but now I’m wondering I’m wondering if she has been working behind the scenes to change the government’s mind. At least I’m hoping she was, since her mother was clerk-treasurer of East Wawanosh Township when Lisa was growing up on the family farm near Belgrave.
Rural experience wasn’t big in the background of Premier Doug Ford, the Progressive Conservative Premier of Ontario who proposed the legislation, who, in fact, tried to sneak it through the legislature when farmers are concentrating on getting their crops planted. Many were totally unaware of the proposal to allow farmers to sell three properties per 100-acre farm - potentially up to 24,900 residential lots in Huron County alone, according to the county’s planning staff. Each of those lots must have access to water and sewer services, so most will need a minimum of one acre in size, meaning nearly 25,000 acres of Huron County’s valuable farmland could be lost.
But the loss is bigger. Urbanites aren’t often aware that a new livestock barn must be located at a distance from a residence, the distance determined by the number of hogs, cattle, chickens or sheep the barn holds. More homes means more problems locating barns. Huron County is one of the largest producers of all these livestock commodities in Ontario.
But, I can hear some readers saying, Roulston lives in the country and he is not a farmer so who is he to talk? Point taken. For nearly a half-century my family has lived in an old farmhouse, 1,000 feet from the road, that probably would have been allowed to fall down otherwise when the farm was sold to a neighbour who simply grew crops on the land.
As someone who grew up on a farm, I wasn’t overly bothered recently when the cash-cropping farmer who now rents the land had a neighbour spread chicken manure on the field. We also have beef, dairy and hog barns within smelling distance, especially when it’s time to clean out the manure and spread it on fields. It’s part of nature, which, as an aged farm boy, I understand. I doubt you can add 25,000 non-farmers to the countryside who have the same understanding.
On our concession, we have a house on every farm property, many the original home, considering this was the original McGowan settlement, established by members of the same Scottish family. Adding a few dozen homes, many owned by people with no experience with farming, will put extra money in the pockets of farmers who choose to sell the lots, but add immensely to the problems of farming.
For Doug Ford, living in the Toronto area, the foremost problem is finding space to settle the half-million new immigrants a year being allowed into Canada by the federal Liberal government. Looking at the bulging shelves at urban food markets, it’s easy to see why he has no concern about how millions of the new Ontario residents will eat. But we continue to lose 319 acres of farmland every day, to urban growth in Ontario. That’s before we stood to lose potentially 510,000 acres to urban development on farms if this legislation went ahead. Meanwhile, other food-growing areas of the earth’s surface are also being lost by politicians who see only the importance of providing homes, not eating.
More than a dozen farm organizations spoke out to help stop the proposal. Premier Ford could only see things in current
Toronto terms and, to him, farmland is just land awaiting more valuable use for housing.
It was originally a Progressive Conservative government that came out with the policy of limiting the growth of residential development on rural properties. I remember when Huron County hired its first official planners. I recall talking to Gary Davidson and Nick Hill about the restrictions in rural growth it would bring. Thankfully, for now at least, those restrictions still stand.