For the defence
CONE knew from the beginning that its role as protector of the escarpment would be far less well received in other quarters. In 1979, the NEC released a draft of the Niagara Escarpment Plan (NEP) and then set up a three-member panel to seek public input on the plan before submitting it to the provincial government for final approval. From 1981 to 1983, the panel held hearings in communities up and down the escarpment, and at each stop CONE had someone present, either to observe the proceedings or, in some cases, to make submissions. Seen as interlopers, CONE members often encountered open hostility from rural landowners and local residents, as well as those advocating real estate and aggregate development.
Once, Reid recalls, “some guy at the back of the room had a rope with a noose in it. And he says: ‘This is how we deal with people who try to steal our property rights.’ The cooler heads in the community were appalled.” MacMillan faced similar threatening tactics. “I walked into one hall and was buffeted by people who had their elbows out,” she says. “They tried to intimidate us. They burnt effigies of Bill Davis in the parking lot. They slashed tires on the cars of Niagara Escarpment Commission planners. It took courage to defend the escarpment.”
Courage and, as CONE members were to learn, a certain amount of compromise. In the midst of the hearings, the group waged a major battle against a proposal to build a condominium project on the slopes of the escarpment in the Beaver Valley. CONE commissioned a Richmond Hill hydrogeologist, Keith Lathem, to assess the impact of the complex on the landscape. Lathem testified that it could be built only by draining a nearby wetland and would also damage an aquifer. The group assumed that the hearing officers would take their petition under advisement and uphold the protections for the valley in their summary report, which was released in 1984. But, says MacMillan, “they didn’t even mention our evidence. They totally ignored it. We were devastated.” Worse still, the hearing officers recommended that the developer’s Beaver Valley land, as well as several larger parcels to the north of it, be redesignated under the plan to allow recreational projects.
CONE found many other aspects of the proposed plan objectionable. John Willms, an environmental lawyer and one of the group’s founding members, suggested that the group launch legal proceedings against the hearing officers and the plan on the grounds that it was biased and did not fairly reflect all the submissions. Willms believed that if they were successful, they could force the government to order another round of hearings.
CONE readied itself for a legal battle, but it never happened. After the hearing officers submitted their plan to the NEC and the provincial government, the NEC prepared its own set of recommendations for Cabinet. Well over a year elapsed before the Progressive Conservative administration of then Premier Frank Miller rendered a decision on the NEP, in June 1985. While it did not meet all of CONE’s goals, the new plan maintained restrictions to development in the Beaver Valley, effectively rejecting the condo project. “It was not a perfect plan,” concedes Rob Leverty, a former executive director and long-time board member of CONE. “We had to make compromises, but it was the best we were going to get at the time.”
The adoption of the NEP was a watershed for the coalition. CONE now assumed a new role as watchdog of the NEC and defender of the plan. The members realized that their opponents – principally developers and the aggregates industry – would apply continual pressure to ease the restrictions on commercial activity. They also recognized that the commission had to interpret and carry out the plan and that there was always room for decisions that favoured development. “Our opponents came back with a vengeance and tried to destroy the plan,” says Leverty. “We began to realize that our main task now was to make sure that it was implemented properly and that it was respected.”
In 1990, CONE and other concerned groups received a big boost to their cause when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization designated the Niagara Escarpment a World Biosphere Reserve.
CONE’s darkest years began in 1995, when Mike Harris’s Progressive Conservatives were elected. The Harris Cabinet quietly approved an order-in-council in early 1997 that transferred responsibility for the NEC from the Ministry of the Environment – its natural home, according to CONE – to the Ministry of Natural Resources, which has a dual mandate to promote resource extraction and protect the environment.
The Harris government used its power to name commissioners to the NEC to make it pro-development and antienvironment. “The Harris government made the Niagara Escarpment Commission very skewed,” says Cecil Louis, a CONE member who worked as a planner for the NEC from 1974 till 1977, when he retired. “You had a predominance of members who seemed to be against the plan and the legislation, and the votes on applications for development began to reflect that. That period was the lowest in terms of supporting the legislation.”
But times have changed since then. Subsequent governments more favourably inclined toward the escarpment have appointed commissioners supportive of the plan, says Louis, who, starting in 2002, has served two threeyear appointments himself. “The NEC is the best I’ve seen it in all my years of being associated with the organization. The commissioners are predominantly pro-environment.”
Unfortunately, that hasn’t guaranteed CONE a victory in every fight. Its most stinging defeat came in December 2006, when the Ontario Cabinet approved an 83-hectare expansion of the Dufferin Aggregates quarry at Milton. CONE and one of its member groups, Protect Our Water and Environmental Resources, were the only opposition voices during an 82-day hearing in 2004 before two representatives from the Ontario Municipal Board and the Environmental Appeal Board. In the end, concludes Margaret Cranmer-Byng, the two groups were up against a big organization with deeper pockets and more influence in the corridors of power. “CONE worked really hard on that one and we lost,” she says. “It was sad, but the aggregate lobby is very strong.”
The Dufferin Aggregates case served as a reminder – as if any were necessary – that the escarpment, one of Ontario’s most valuable natural wonders, will always be threatened by development pressure. Furthermore, another review of the NEP will take place in 2015 and, in all likelihood, developers and aggregate companies will argue yet again that the plan should be diluted. CONE will be there to shout them down. Having proved its value many times over the past 30 years, the coalition will prove itself again and again in the future. “An organization like CONE is essential,” says Louis. “It’s a watchdog with a bite, not just a bark.” Leverty, now an honorary board member in recognition of his years of service, adds: “There’s always going to be a need for CONE. On many occasions, it was the lone voice defending the escarpment when the government of the day or the commission failed to defend it. That’s the role CONE will play forever.”
D’Arcy Jenish is a Toronto writer and author of The Montreal Canadiens: A Hundred Years of Glory published this fall by Doubleday Canada.
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