Baranyai: Public good is in doubt when farms are expropriated

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Expropriation is a drastic measure. In the case of land acquisition for the public good, even when property owners receive high compensation, it should be a tool of last resort. When negotiations break down and governments move forward, we expect them to demonstrate that their acquisitions are motivated by reasonable necessity, not unjustified haste.

The municipal authority to expropriate land is granted by the province. People are reluctant to accept such authority when it is exercised with moderation. Most people understand the necessity of placing a new hospital in a central location or the obligation to reroute rail lines away from Lac-Megantic.

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It is quite another when governments threaten to expropriate protected agricultural lands, paving over crops and demolishing barns not to protect critical infrastructure or public safety but to attract industry.

That’s the threat to Wilmot Township, just outside Kitchener, where the Region of Waterloo is looking to acquire about 312 hectares (770 acres) of prime farmland to repurpose for industrial use. There’s no specific buyer in the pipeline and no indication of what kind of industry might populate the area’s cheesemakers and rolling farmland of corn and cabbage.

The initiative is a response to Premier Doug Ford’s call for “build-ready” land to attract investors who want quick building permits and easy access to services such as water and gas.

In March, several landowners received an offer from a private land consultant. They say they were told that if they didn’t negotiate, their land would be expropriated and they shouldn’t bother planting because the deal would be done by August. (It wasn’t.)

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The Wilmot process has been remarkably opaque. The province says it’s providing funding but is not involved in the negotiations. Even Ford’s ministers have criticized the threat of expropriation so early in the discussions.

The Prime Minister has made faster approvals for housing and infrastructure projects a flagship policy initiative, introducing legislation to build public transport faster (by eliminating expropriation hearings), build more homes (by eliminating third-party appeals) and the Get It Done Act, which allows land to be expropriated before environmental impact assessments are completed.

“We are fully aware that the province is running the bus,” said Alfred Lowrick, a retired food executive who now runs the grassroots group Fight for Farmland. In an interview Tuesday, he raised concerns about a lack of community involvement and development beyond Countryside Line, contrary to the region’s own Official Plan.

“The Countryside Line is essentially our green belt in this area,” he says. “There’s no incursions from developers buying this land for future use.”

Lowrick also questions the basic fairness of buying land at far lower agricultural prices for profit-seeking industries, a difference of hundreds of thousands per hectare. No notices of eviction have been issued to date.

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In April, Ford said the province was looking for willing participants. “A lot of smaller towns, like Wilmot, need money. So what better way than to clear land and create some development?”

Lowrick says city councillors don’t feel they have enough information about the potential uses of the land to declare the borough a reluctant host, and he worries that by the time a developer is identified, it may be too late.

Industry may indeed be good for small towns expecting population growth. But it is not clear why factories need to be located on prime farmland for any reason other than the prime minister is in a hurry.

“The Ford government will do what the Ford government does,” Lowrick says with some resignation. “We’re looking at this as ground zero. If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.”

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