Environmental Background

Durham/Pickering

The rural areas around the GTA are some of the most fertile lands in Canada. There are many threats to the farmland and tracts of woodland in this area, largely resulting from population growth and affluence.

Every year, fertile land, homes, and small woods are bulldozed to make way for new subdivisions. This urban sprawl hurts everyone, since the farmland cannot be replaced, and the delicate environments that are the watershed for the GTA cannot survive the deforestation and erosion that comes with development. Add to the mix the explosion in golf courses that consume immense amounts of groundwater, and it should be clear that we are headed for trouble.

In an attempt to address these concerns, a portion of the Oak Ridges Moraine was given some degree of protection, and a green belt was designated around the GTA. Not surprisingly developers and municipal governments have opposed much of this, as it impinges on their ability to make money and grow their tax base in an unrestrained manner.

In the 1970’s a large tract of agricultural land in Pickering was expropriated for a proposed Pickering Airport. The plan was duly scrapped, but the land remained in Federal hands. Many owners were allowed to rent back their land and homes. In recent years, however, this unfortunate plan has been resurrected, and residents have been regularly evicted, and the homes demolished. Some of the threatened properties are of notable historic value.

Clearly, the area is being depopulated to reduce the protests that will come when the airport is given a go-ahead. While provincially, we are moving to protect and preserve the green belt around Toronto, the Federal government is planning massive destruction of these lands and the agricultural heritage of this region.

For further information on this issue from an environmental perspective, please see the Sierra Club site at http://ontario.sierraclub.ca/campaigns/pickering_airport/.

Superior

Despite the distance from large urban areas (11 hours driving from Toronto!) and the scale of the landscape, the Superior area that I photograph in has its woes.

There is a proposal to develop an open pit aggregate mine on the north shore of Superior, just north of the Lake Superior Provincial Park. I don’t need to underscore the sheer stupidity o fthis plan. For more details, see http://www.ccmb.ca/

In and around the park, there are logging operations. While logging has been a part of life in Northern Ontario for a very long time, the industry is seeking to expand its activities. In Scandinavia, restricted areas are intensively logged and replanted, essentially as one would do with any crop. In Ontario, we seem to be unable to find a sustainable means of operating this industry, as demonstrated by past battles over attempts to “harvest” the last bits of old growth forest. Similar struggles are happening on Canada’s west coast, and in the U.S.