About face

Council opts to seek second legal opinion

Tuesday evening’s regular meeting of council once again took an unexpected turn on the Picton Terminals file. After returning from a closed session, Mayor Steve Ferguson announced that Council had decided to seek a separate legal opinion on the matter. Council approved the motion in an 8-4 recorded vote with councillors Harrison, Nieman, Grosso and Pennell opposed.

On that evening’s agenda was the bylaw that would would have authorized the mayor and chief administrative officer to execute the settlement agreement between the municipality and Picton Terminals. Due to the new motion being approved, that bylaw didn’t come forward.

There were four scheduled deputations that still went ahead, although the speakers had to change their direction somewhat. David MacKinnon has been before Council five times speaking about Picton Terminals, and said his biggest worry was the threat to the health of County residents. “Everything I have learned about Picton Terminals suggests that it will continue to threaten the health and welfare of Prince Edward County residents as it has in the past,” said MacKinnon.

MacKinnon pointed to what he believes is a lack of proper consultation with the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, which to him, is simply unacceptable.

“It is the advice, that in Canada, in 2024, one can put a done deal before an Indigenous group and then claim that the resulting discussion will be sufficient or complete.”

He also noted his concerns with the inclusion of the word “draft” in Council’s resolutions.

“In my world, a draft document remains a draft until that restriction on usage is removed by the originator of the document and in this case you never removed it. Consequently, the settlement that has been described as final must be viewed as a draft only and is subject to change,” he added.

Ryan Wallach said he was pleasantly surprised with the news that Council was seeking a second legal opinion. He also noted that he sees major flaws in the settlement agreement that be believes should be looked at further. One of those is related to the escarpment.

“The draft settlement states that Picton Terminals acknowledges the importance of respecting the natural escarpment and shorelines, but it caveats it with outside of the areas reserved for port operations. The problem with the language is we have seen Picton Terminals claim that the entirety of its property is reserved for port operations, which means there will be no part of the escarpment that is protected,” said Wallach.

He also noted the settlement should make Picton Terminals comply with all components of the Aggregate Resources Act and pay the County royalties for aggregate extracted.

“For over a decade, Picton Terminals has extracted aggregate and sold it for tens of millions of dollars without paying the County any royalties all because they claim it wasn’t engaging in aggregate extraction activities, but it was developing its port and the rock it was selling was considered waste,” he said. “It is past time for Council to stop playing these settlement games with Picton Terminals, which is clearly behind this whole mess,” said Wallach.

Leslie Stewart was representing the County Conservancy, which has hired the law firm Goodmans LLP to look over the settlement. She told Council that it has not yet accepted any settlement.

“Municipal law does not allow for draft settlement agreement to become legal and binding without the passing of a bylaw. There was no delegation of authority by Council to make a binding settlement offer,” she said, adding that her group will consider “all options for remedying this illegal conduct.”

Last month, it was announced that Picton Terminals was partnering with Parrish & Heimbecker, Limited on the construction of a new bulk agricultural marine terminal at Picton Terminals in Prince Edward County. According to the release, the state-of-theart facility would provide crucial support to farmers in eastern Ontario by offering a closer, more efficient delivery option for their corn, wheat, and soybean crops.

Trevor Crowe operates Reynolds Farm which sits seven kilometres from Picton Terminals. He told Council he was delivering a message from the farming community.

“I read the settlement agreement and in my mind it seemed to strike a balance between the concerns of the citizens, the needs of the municipality and the needs of Picton Terminals,” he said. “Picton Terminals does need to operate with a degree of autonomy, even though a lot of people here don’t like that. I think they would like to just see it shut down completely.”

Crowe explained that the nearest port is over 180 kilometres away in Prescott, and that a grain terminal in Picton could help farmers get grains to market at a better price.

“We spend over $100,000 year on trucking and fuel. Shipping by boat is 10 times more efficient,” said Crowe. “For us as a family farm, this is an exciting opportunity. I don’t want to see that get tied up in legalities. Farmers in the County need all the help they can get.”

The construction of storage silos and receiving buildings is set to commence this fall, with the terminal expected to be operational by 2026.