PRESIDENT'S LETTER
SPRING 2008
Dear PALS Supporter,
What an up and down few months we’ve had. As you can see by recent press reports, the down is for tender fruit and grape growers, first with the cancellation of Labrusca grape contracts, then the threatened closing of the CanGro canning plant ; and finally, the bank foreclosure of the co-operative winery- the Twenty Bees. The up- news, which preceded all the bad news, was the promise (as reported in our last newsletter) by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to proceed with a Ministry-led study of the use of restrictive covenants to protect the tender fruit lands “permanently.”
Nevertheless, even this latter initiative is not clear good news, as the promised study work has stagnated, with no word of its commencement three months after the fact. Of course this is most likely linked to all of the foregoing difficulties faced by the industry. Somehow, it is all quite reminiscent of the late 1980s, when government actions and extremely bad weather left tender fruit farmers ‘out on a very fragile limb’. At that time, drought, a winter deep freeze and hail, were followed closely by Free Trade, which cancelled out tariff protection - a factor in to-day’s CanGro situation, where there is no protection from fruit coming from very far away e.g. China, and any company wishing to carry on the business will have to compete for large contracts with companies from around the world. e.g. the huge U.S.A Dole company.
While this time round, the weather has not been as evident a factor for fruit growers, many Labrusca grape growers are again pulling out vines (as in 1988-90) , but this time without large payments from the Provincial government and only a small amount from the Federal government. Due to the over-planting of the less hardy wine varieties in the last several years, we hear the Grape Growers Marketing Board is not asking for replant money for farmers, but rather compensation . Meanwhile, of the tender fruit growers who supplied CanGro with pears, clingstone peaches and cherries some have found other markets, some will be working hard to switch to the fresh market varieties of peaches, some will receive company settlements and some, without a company contract or track record with CanGro, are left without anything for all the labour and investment they have put into their crops. So far no-one has managed to come to the rescue.
It was this very kind of situation that the successful ( and then cancelled ), PALS initiated, Provincial government Tender Fruit Land Program of 1994 was answering to, and why so many farmers signed up to place restrictive covenants on their land in return for government payments over the next several years. We hope we can be part of a solution for Niagara fruit farmers this time round. However, given the huge economic difficulties the whole province faces these days, one can only wonder what lies ahead for them.
In the meantime, we urge you to join PALS as we continue our 32 year endeavor to promote the farmer, the excellent fruit and the importance of land preservation. We also ask you , and everyone you know, to buy local fruit and support the farmers who grow the fruit!. Also, send your local MPP a letter showing that many Ontarians care about the rare and endangered land and farmers. Together we just might make a difference.
Val O’Donnell
2005 /06 BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Joan Ashcroft Brenda Blunt Dorothy Daley Liisa Harju Gracia Janes
Val O'Donnell Ranjeet Sidhu Doug Woodard Barbara Woronowicz
PRESIDENT’S LETTER FALL 2007
Dear PALS Supporter,
I’m pleased to report, that with the help of our long-time supporter MPP Jim Bradley we have finally made some considerable progress towards our ultimate goal of protecting the unique Niagara fruit lands permanently.
You may recall that in the early summer of 1995, just after a Provincial election, the government of the day cancelled the Niagara Tender Fruit Land Program. As all parties of the Legislature had supported the program when it was announced in 1994, this was an unexpected decision. It meant that six years of intensive work by PALS, to attain a program that would see the Government purchase conservation easements/restrictive covenants from fruit farmers, was lost - as was the potential to protect Niagara fruit lands “in perpetuity” for future generations of farmers and the public.
Since then PALS has spent the intervening years keeping the spirit of the Tender Fruit Land Program alive - the last four seeing our Treasurer Gracia Janes, as a member of the Regional Niagara Chair’s Agricultural Task Force, gain the support of that committee’s many farm sectors, for a recommendation to the Government “that an inter-ministerial task force be set up to explore the possibility of using restrictive covenants to protect fruit lands.”
After a February PALS Board meeting with Leona Dombrowsky, Minister of Agriculture, many subsequent communications to her and to the Minister of Municipal Affairs ( see Spring 2007 newsletter), and, with the support of Tourism Minister Jim Bradley, Minister Dombrowsky finally acceded to our request . In a letter of August 7th she stated, “ Therefore I am prepared to create an interministerial-led study that considers the role of conservation easements for protecting Niagara fruit lands.” and commended PALS “ for its dedication and critical work to protect Niagara tender fruit and grape lands.”
There is much hard work yet to be undertaken, and we sincerely hope that our view will prevail, that Niagara is a very special farming area- producing, as fruit land expert, the late Ralph Krueger, often stated, the best tender fruit in North America. Both the fruit lands and the farmers who farm them deserve to be protected from urban pressures and the ever-constant uncertainties of government changes in policies and direction, for the long term.
We will keep you posted in the critical months ahead.
Val O’Donnell
President's Letter Winter 2007/2008
Dear PALS Supporter,
As we continue our multiple efforts to protect Niagara’s fruit lands, prime farm lands and eco systems, the ghosts of land use battles past seem to be with us still. So, on a recent PALS -organized eco tour, it was not surprising that some of our longest serving Board members felt a sad sense of deja vu, as the bus followed a potential southern route of the proposed Mid-Peninsula expressway (see quotables) - through the wonderful natural world of shadow fruitlands, prime farmlands, the Niagara Escarpment, and the Welland River watershed from Niagara Falls, and Welland to Dundas, Ancaster, Burlington, Hamilton and back.
For PALS has fought many times against highways and a plethora of other urban uses that might destroy this very special place - with some successes e.g. soil stripping, severances; strong water line extension policies, and the very successful 1978/79/80 hearings to protect 3,600 acres of Niagara fruit land - and some failures e.g. the 406 Highway, running through the west St. Catharines fruit lands, the recently completed Red Hill Creek Expressway in Hamilton, churches outside the urban boundaries, a golf driving range, and aggregate mining on the Fonthill Kame.
The bus tour highlighted not only the kinds of lands under threat and what might well be lost if the expressway is built, but also significant holes in the Government’s vision for the countryside. For, what good is it to protect Greenbelt lands and the Niagara Escarpment when development is now leap frogging the Greenbelt onto many thousands of acres of prime farmlands, and, in the case of Niagara, Burlington and Hamilton, the proposed expressway may well, if approved under the current Environmental Assessment, cut through the Escarpment, shadow fruit lands, and natural areas, and significantly impact a major watershed area.
A certain lack of vision is also reflected in our ongoing discussions with Ministry of Agriculture bureaucrats about the use of restrictive covenants /easements to protect the fruit lands "in perpetuity. Despite our earlier optimism, ( Fall 2007 Newsletter), we are now very aware, that although we are strongly supported by Minister Bradley, and Minister Geretsen seemed keen also, they now have different portfolios, and , the promised "Inter-Ministry-led" Task force, with Ministry officials from Tourism, Agriculture and Municipal Affairs& Housing, lacks farmers, PALS members, and regional planners. To make matters worse, the lead bureaucrat "remains to be convinced" of the value of an easement program, to protect these rare lands in "perpetuity."
This "ghost" of bureaucratic obstinance was last encountered in 2004/5 when the Deputy minister of Agriculture held back easement cheques to qualifying farmers, and the incoming Government then cancelled the Tender fruitland program. Another battle to be repeated to permanently protect Niagara fruit lands - stay tuned!
Val O’Donnell
QUOTABLES
PRESERVATION OF AGRICULTURAL LANDS SOCIETY (PALS)
‘Working to Protect the Best Farmlands in Canada since 1976'
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
14th Floor, 777 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario
M5G-2E5
Brief re: ‘Growing the Greenbelt: Draft Criteria for Consultations
Dr. John Bacher PhD. March 25, 2008
Introduction- Strengths of the Greenbelt
The Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society welcomes this opportunity to comment on the expansion of the Greenbelt. This is an important initiative by the government, and one that is needed to provide serious protection for our agricultural land base.
PALS believes that the establishment of the Greenbelt was a long overdue measure. For apart from the Greenbelt lands similarly protected by the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act - to the southern shore of Lake Simcoe - the Act provides the type of protections envisaged in the original 1978 Preliminary Proposals of the Niagara Escarpment Plan. In doing so, it provides protection to both the Niagara Fruit Belt, the most valuable farmland in Canada from the perspective of a microclimate to grow tender fruit and grapes and a great range of agricultural crops, and most of the watersheds that cross the Niagara Escarpment.
The Greenbelt Act also pioneered in developing a broader form of provincial regulation of the rural landscape, than the exclusively agriculturally orientated land reserves of British Columbia and Quebec. It protects not only valuable agricultural lands, but a range of environments, especially environmentally significant forests and recharge areas.
PALS recognizes the Greenbelt’s strength in two other ways. First, unlike any other area of the province, it provides permanent protection from urban encroachment, for the unique farmlands of the Niagara Fruit Belt and Holland Marsh. Secondly, it imposes on the rest of the province, a moratorium on all urban expansions until 2015.
Limitations of the Greenbelt
However, there are significant limitations in the Greenbelt. First, while the province’s best Niagara Fruit lands are properly part of it, the vast majority of the excellent Class One to Three agricultural lands in Ontario are excluded from its protection. Indeed many of the environmental features protected through the Greenbelt- the Escarpment, the Oak Ridges Moraine, and other forests and natural areas, tend, by their nature to be poorly suited for agriculture.
Secondly, in municipalities that still have agriculturally zoned land , only in Niagara and the City of Burlington, are the urban zoning boundaries right up against the Greenbelt boundaries. In all the other municipalities in the Greenbelt, there is a gap.
This has been termed the “White Belt”, by the Neptis Foundation, and the “Black Belt”,
by the late farmer Peter Grandoni, in recognition of the tendency for these areas to become engulfed by urban sprawl.
The first priority regarding the expansion of the Greenbelt should be to expand it right up to the urban zoning limits of municipalities where this does not take place. This includes, Hamilton, Milton, Vaughan, Markham, Oshawa, Pickering and Georgetown.
PALS is not convinced by the arguments that have been used to exclude lands from Greenbelt in the “white”, or “black” belt. Part of the problem is the refusal of the province to accept the City of Toronto’s goal to accommodate more than its provincial growth projection allocation of 500,000 people. Another problem is that the over zoning of industrial land has not been recognized. Such over-zoned lands over time are largely converted to residential purposes, but the failure to recognize this is a major contributor to sprawl. There are also, as Neptis points out, lands which over time tend to be converted to urban purposes e.g. quarries, golf courses, and most significantly brownfield sites. While PALS has seen figures of the total acreages of brownfield sites in various municipalities, we have yet to see a single example of these lands being taken into account in developing estimates of land need.
The Need to Expand the Greenbelt on Prime Farmlands South of the Canadian Shield
Regarding the extension of the Greenbelt outside of the “black belt”- in effect to other municipalities- PALS wishes to stress that in principle, the Greenbelt should be the norm in determining urban boundary expansions throughout the predominately agricultural privately owned rural landscape of southern Ontario. These lands are different from the predominately crown land pattern of ownership characteristic of the Canadian Shield. Essentially, therefore, there should be a Western Greenbelt east of Kingston, defined by the fertile land south west of the Canadian Shield, and an Eastern Greenbelt for the agricultural lands of south eastern Ontario.
The Need for Orderly Land Use Mechanisms for Agricultural Land Protection
It is important to consider the major difference between the protections of the Greenbelt and that afforded by the Planning Act to agricultural land. The reformed Planning Act now, for the first time, imposes a five year freeze on any re-zonings of agriculturally- zoned land, requiring that such changes be part of a comprehensive municipal plan review. It also gives the additional protection that an individual municipality has the right to refuse such requests, without the ability of developers, as in the past, to appeal these decisions to the Ontario Municipal Board. (OMB.) In turn, what the Greenbelt does is require (outside of Niagara) that any such changes wait till 2015. This is just two years longer than the freeze imposed everywhere by the Planning Act.
Our suggested expansion to the Greenbelt simply ensures that the review of urban boundary expansions by a provincial tribunal, will be more orderly than the process of OMB hearings on applications throughout Ontario on a case by case basis. Such a process, in PALS long experience going back to our founding in 1976, will be one that will encourage urban sprawl, based on the opportunistic use of population projections. A comprehensive review will be the basis of more realistic projection, where there will be just one estimate for the province. This would replace the current use of projection figures, which if combined, would exceed the actual growth in a population by a factor of ten.
Support for Our Recommendation
There may be a tendency to regard PALS’ request for an extension of the Greenbelt to be based on extreme views, unappreciative of the sensitivities of farm residents. In this regard, we wish to draw to your attention a recent resolution passed by the Ecological Farmers of Ontario, which reads, “We are quickly losing prime farmlands in Ontario because of the lack of adequate provincial farmland preservation policies. The Ontario government must recognize that the Greenbelt Proposal has already and will continue to, impact farmlands due to leapfrogging development outside the Greenbelt. We therefore call upon the Provincial Minister of Municipal Affairs to amend the Greenbelt Plan to extend greenbelt protection to all prime farmland in Ontario, and to re-evaluate the zoning by-laws adversely affecting farmland already encroached upon by urban sprawl.”
Conclusion
Finally, PALS notes that in the proposed criteria that the government has suggested for Greenbelt expansion there would only be one area, where the Greenbelt- base would be able to expand. This is the Region of Waterloo, one of the municipalities least in need of such protection, because of its strong zoning policies for almost 30 years. While Guelph has requested to be in the Greenbelt, according to Draft Criteria #3, it could not be, since it is not adjacent to it.
PALS’ recognizes that the criteria proposed for Greenbelt expansion will be pleasing to many municipal governments. It is not however, what is needed to protect the farm community from sprawl, or to address the serious environmental problems of the province caused by it, some of which, notably the threat to our watersheds, now have dramatically increased because of global warming. We hope your government has the vision and courage to take a decisive step toward the province becoming an authentic model for environmental sustainability.