Re: Ameliasburgh Town Hall (News, October 7). At last Thursday’s all-candidates forum in Ameliasburgh, according to the Gazette, Councillor Sam Grosso told voters that “Picton Terminals is governed by provincial and federal governments. There isn’t much more we can do.” He called it “a David versus Goliath fight” — meaning Goliath would win, and he, David, wasn’t going to bother fighting. Or something. Likewise, Councillor Janice Maynard is quoted saying the County would have lost in court and could not justify the legal bills.

Voters deserve the full record before October 26, because it tells a different story. Council had the power on Picton Terminals. It chose not to use it.

Let’s start with what is true. Ottawa and Queen’s Park each regulate a slice of this site. Transport Canada handles marine security, and Picton Terminals is registered as an occasional-use marine facility, a category limited to ten or fewer visits from ships on international voyages. 

The Ministry of Natural Resources decides whether the rock coming out of the ground needs an aggregate licence, and this spring it told the County it does not. Those are real limits.

But neither of those agencies decides what the land may be used for. That is the County’s job.

In 2018, in a case brought by the residents’ group Save Picton Bay, Justice Wolf Tausendfreund of the Ontario Superior Court interpreted the County’s zoning bylaw on this property. He allowed bulk transshipment to continue on the Hallowell portion. On the Sophiasburgh portion, he found the only protected use was vehicle storage, and ruled that the industrial equipment and aggregate stockpiles there were “not permitted under the current bylaw. It must be removed.” Residents have since shown Council aerial images they show stockpiles and a crusher on that same land.

In 2020, Council unanimously refused to rezone the site for a cruise port and container storage. Councillor Maynard moved that motion. Picton Terminals stacked containers anyway. 

In 2022, the County went to court for a permanent injunction against container storage, and in 2023 it issued a bylaw order and laid a charge. Last December, Council voted 11-1 to have bylaw staff investigate the Sophiasburgh land. A municipality with no real oversight does not do these things. This one did, because it can.

Then, in 2024, Council stopped. On October 8, 2024, by a vote of 7-6, it passed a bylaw approving a settlement with Picton Terminals. As part of that deal, the County agreed to ask the Province for a Minister’s Zoning Order (MZO). That request is now before the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. If granted, that MZO would permit bulk transshipment across all six parcels owned by the Doornekamp family, roughly 62 hectares, with open storage and stacked containers. That is much of what Council refused in 2020. An MZO overrides local zoning, and residents cannot appeal it.

So the question is not whether Council had authority. It is why a Council that had the authority chose to hand it over to the province.

Council was warned. Before the vote, Councillor John Hirsch described a letter from Transport Canada “confirming what many of us have believed all along: that the Federal Government has no jurisdiction over the port facility.” Lawyers at Goodmans, writing for the County Conservancy, told Council that agreeing to request a zoning order as part of a lawsuit settlement, “may fairly be described as the County selling zoning.” Six councillors voted against the MZO settlement: John Hirsch, Kate MacNaughton, Phil Prinzen, Phil St-Jean, Sam Branderhorst and Mayor Steve Ferguson. Seven voted yes, including Councillors Grosso and Maynard. 

Councillor Maynard voted against the draft settlement terms in June 2024 and then in favour of the settlement bylaw that October. Voters are entitled to ask what changed.

That leaves an uncomfortable question. Councillor Maynard moved the 2020 motion refusing the rezoning. Last December, both she and Councillor Grosso voted to send County bylaw staff to investigate the Sophiasburgh land. They know the County has authority here, because they have used it. So when they tell a room full of voters there the County is powerless to act, voters must ask: did these councillors deliberately mislead voters, or do they not understand the basic facts of a file they have voted on for years? Neither answer is acceptable.

The cost worry is real; one estimate put the legal bill near $400,000. Reasonable people can weigh that. But it was a decision about money and risk, and councillors should own it as one. Telling voters the County was powerless is a different claim, and it is not accurate.

And what a dangerous precedent this sets. When a municipality backs down because it does not want to pay the legal bills, the law in Prince Edward County applies only to people who cannot afford to fight it. Every big developer watching has learned the lesson: spend more on lawyers, and the County will not only walk away, it will ask the province to rezone the land for you. Before October 26, ask every candidate two questions: Does the County have authority over land use at Picton Terminals? And: Where do you stand on the MZO now sitting with the Minister?