Who will protect Ontario’s heritage?

Our heritage tells us who we are, where we have come from and what we have accomplished. This is how the government of Ontario describes the places, documents and artifacts that tell our story—the story of our province. These are its words.

But what happens when our government no longer believes these words? These ideas? These values?

Worse, what does it tell us about a government that is willing to sacrifice these values to ensure a developer’s profit? Were they values at all? Or just tokens to be bargained away?

Let me share with you the salient bits from a letter penned by Paula Kulpa. She is the Team Lead – Heritage Land Use Planning with the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport. (The complete letter is available at wellingtontimes.ca.)

Kulpa’s job, at least in part, is to look at a developer’s plans and assess the impact the development would have upon heritage features in the project area. She found much to worry about in the proposed wpd Canada project in South Marysburgh.

One hundred and three potential cultural heritage resources were recorded, according to Kulpa. Seventy-four of these properties met the criteria for cultural heritage value.

Twenty cultural heritage resources she identified may be impacted by construction vibrations, in her assessment. Twenty-one cultural heritage resources will be impacted by the view of massive 40-storey machines looming over them. Homes, barns and streetscapes along Royal Road, Maypul Layn and elsewhere south of Milford are described by the Ministry as treasured bits of this province—worthy of protection and preservation.

So what to do?

In terms of vibrations— Kulpa urges the developer and the construction workers to be careful. Try to maintain a 60 metre buffer— but when that isn’t possible—be extra careful. Also, be careful taking these machines down.

She also helpfully suggests the developer avoid cutting down or damaging trees “to the greatest extent practicable.”

The most alarming bit of this provincial heritage regulator’s letter, however, deals with the visual impact of turbines labeled T07, T09 and T11. Kulpa acknowledges that a wide swath of valued heritage will be eroded by the construction of these three turbines. And, she observes, there is no way to minimize this loss other than moving the turbines elsewhere.

But shockingly, Kulpa concludes that moving these three turbines is not an option. Nor is deleting them from the project. Why? Because, she has been persuaded that to do so would “impact the economic viability of the project.”

So there it is. Ontario’s heritage is important until it gets in the way of a developer’sincome stream. Then it’s expendable. With a few simple keystrokes, safeguards disappear. Protections established over decades of experience and often through heartbreaking loss are erased in an instant.

The Ministry official says this is necessary to ensure the “economic viability of the project” yet she offers no evidence or justification for this conclusion. It is an important point. Do all our heritage bureaucrats now double as business valuators? Is the heritage bureaucrat qualified to assess the economics, financing, operations and maintenance of an industrial wind turbine project too? Or has she simply taken the developer’s word for it.

How is it that a Heritage Ministry bureaucrat is even allowed to make such a decision? Her job, presumably, is to protect heritage value on behalf of all Ontarians—not to preserve a developer’s profitability.

When governments routinely ignore or set aside protections and regulations, erected over decades to make our communities safe, secure and healthy, they have taken the first steps toward tyranny. When they do it so boldly—with such little public resistance— nothing is safe.

These are not the first public safeguards that have been decimated by the Green Energy Act. Human health protections, endangered species protections, land use protections, even provisions to ensure a stable and reliable electricity grid have all been levelled by the GEA.

If these safeguards were ever important to the well-being of Ontario citizens, why have we so easily allowed our government to cast them aside?

rick@wellingtontimes.ca