Hwy. 69 construction impacting property owners

Editor’s note: The following is an open letter to Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Over the past four years, the Rock Lake Property Owners Association Inc. has documented and reported numerous potential and actual violations of provincial and federal acts, protocols and provincial direction, ect., regarding the Highway 69 realignment.

We have participated in the Public Information Centres and shared our environmental and social concerns.

In October 2014, we provided your ministers, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and other agencies with a copy of a report that contained documents and photographic evidence of some of these contraventions.

Our association’s continuing attempts to have the documented concerns investigated and addressed by these agencies has not been successful.

While some ministries have provided limited information, others have not responded to our repeated requests. Additionally, on several occasions, our association has requested your personal assistance to ensure that our rights and the natural environment are being protected as required by provincial and federal legislation.

To date, you have not agreed to our association’s request for assistance in this most grievous matter.

In our report, we requested that you (Premier Wynne) establish a Multi Agency Review Group to investigate all of the concerns/violations, improve oversight on these projects, clearly define compliance roles and responsibilities, and review the guidelines and protocols.

As stated previously, our association is willing and prepared to work with the review group to achieve these goals. To date, we have not received any confirmation that you are prepared to honour our request.

In your mandate letter to the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, the Hon. Glen Murray (September 2014), you directed the Minister “hold polluters responsible for decisions that affect the environment.”

In our opinion, after four years of frustration from the lack of adequate mitigation, the lack of progressive compliance measures, pollution and sediment in waterways, excessive dust and noise, loss of enjoyment of our properties, social disruption, etc., it is now time to hold the polluters responsible for their decisions.

Please reflect on this quote from Albert Einstein: “Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.”

James Gomm
director, Rock Lake Property Owners Association Inc.