By Ontario Landowner's Association
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
The Ontario Landowner's Association (OLA) is calling on Dalton McGuinty to explain his government's position on compensating rural Landowners after comments made by Wendy Francis, a member of the Save Ontario's Species Coalition (SOS). Francis was responding to questions on the issue of compensating Landowners in a telephone interview with OLA Vice President Jamie MacMaster, who regularly contributes articles to The Landowner Magazine
"It's not surprising that the Liberals attach little importance to the issue of compensating landowners who lose property value and land-ownership rights because of environmental or conservation-based legislation." said MacMaster. "This SOS group has a powerful influence at Queen's Park, they are quite possibly running the show, and they are dead against any notion of fully compensating effected landowners. Here is what she (Francis) said on the issue of compensating landowners":
"Well the problem with that is the money issue. I mean it would be so expensive. So we don't have a policy and we don't think that when something is for the public good that a policy is needed."
"There it is in black and white" said MacMaster, "but, what is even more troubling is the attitude that surfaced in a comment she made later on in the interview. Any rural resident - and that includes all farmers here - who think they can come to some sort of reasonable agreement with McGuinty and these SOS folks should sit down and have a good long think about what this comment is telling us".
"Frankly I don't understand and I don't have sympathy for farmers who try to tell us that they're hard done by. Everyone has to live with land-use restrictions, even city people. And when some law is passed that is for the public good, farmers are just as subject to the laws as anyone else".
"That's their position on rural Ontario: they don't know, they don't want to know, and they don't give a damn. Mr. McGuinty owes all of rural Ontario an explanation. We need to know first of all what his position is on providing rural property-owners with full and timely compensation, and then he has to explain why he has associated himself with groups that are prepared to run roughshod over the property rights of hard-working rural folk. It's pretty simple, does he agree with Francis's comments or not…It's a yes or no question." If he does not agree, then he has to tell us what his government's position is."
"We have some real concerns about who is steering McGunity's ship" said Jack MacLaren, president of the fifteen-thousand member OLA. "Just look at those recent radio ads by the SOS applauding his proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act. He promises to bring in a law that gets them (SOS) lots of private land at no cost to them, so naturally they're going to cheer; it kind off makes you wonder who actually wrote the Act."
"The Liberals are headed for the rocks, because their Provincial Policy Statement on Land use, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act show that they don't give a darn about rural Ontario." MacLaren continued; "By holding by-invitation-only meetings at short notice in urban centers instead of out in the rural areas, the McGuinty government has abandoned the democratic tradition of open consultation."
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