EDITORIAL & OPINION — COMMENTARY — Living Legacy a backroom deal

In a letter published in The Northern Miner’s April 20 issue, Chris Hodgson, minister of northern development and mines, defended his Lands For Life initiative by indicating that Ontario’s land-use planning has tended to be “top-heavy, driven primarily by government bureaucrats,” and that it has “has appeared haphazard.” The Lands for Life initiative was to represent a fundamental change in the development of land use strategies.

Throughout the initiative, the government continued to indicate that the Lands for Life process was to be fair, open and transparent to all. On Oct. 30, 1998, the Ministry of Natural Resources released a report containing the consolidated recommendations of the Lands for Life initiative, developed through open public consultation and compromise between all Crown land user groups. The recommendations included a detailed listing and map showing all-new areas recommended for alienation; a total of 2,720 sq. km of Crown lands were to be withdrawn from mineral exploration and development.

On March 29, 1999, Ontario Premier Mike Harris announced Ontario’s Living Legacy land use strategy — a strategy that will see a minimum of 24,000 sq. km of Crown land withdrawn from mineral exploration and development. This is an 782% increase in lands withdrawn over those recommended by the Lands for Life initiative. The increase was not made by open public consultation or compromise but by bureaucrats and politicians in backroom deals with special interest groups. This is a slap in the face to all those citizens who believed and participated in the Lands for Life initiative, and especially those who were members of the “round tables” who thought they would finally make a difference on how government would work to the benefit of all.

Minister Hodgson said in his April letter, “we could go back to the old system of land-use planning used by the Liberals and NDP, in which government imposes new land use restrictions on you, and you’ll have to learn to live with it. But that is not right.” If Chris Hodgson is a man of principle and stands behind what he says, he should immediately withdraw his support for Ontario’s Living Legacy, and resign his position as minister of northern development and mines in protest, because he knows Ontario’s Living Legacy “is not right.”

— The author is a consulting geologist based in Peterborough, Ont.