(Jed Tallo/GazetteStaff)
In our Bay of Quinte riding, where only 45% of eligible voters cast ballots in 2022’s provincial election, we don’t need clever voting schemes to effect real change. We need to increase voter turnout, and to amplify a range of voices across the political spectrum. Strategic voting proponents want fewer voices at the table, and to convince thousands of Ontarians that voting with your values and conscience is irrational and unwise. This is fear-mongering. It requires the silencing of multiple parties and platforms, and marches us toward a suffocating two-party system.
A 2021 analysis in The Tyee showed that strategic voting campaigns have backfired more than they’ve succeeded, helping facilitate Conservative victories by confusing progressive voters and further splintering their votes. Voting should never be confusing. If a party wants your vote, they make their case. And when you walk into the polling station, you make your decision.
For those falling under the spell of a strategic voting plea: keep your vote, and encourage those coalitions to focus on the 55% of people who didn’t vote at all before asking you to give up yours.
Brock Warner, Picton
As I mentioned in my last Letter to the Editor, Ben Doornekamp couldn’t wait to blow up the Picton Bay historic cliff face. There was absolutely no reason to put eight silos at the water’s edge. But putting the silos down at water level it allowed him to blast a centuries-old limestone cliff face and carve back into the rock to make a platform for them. This allows Mr. Doonekamp to quarry more rock for another contract for millions of dollars as the MNRF looks the other way, classifying it as incidental rock.
Meanwhile, it has taken a small group of private citizens to bring forward a charge of illegal rock quarrying. Something that should have been taken on by the municipality, or by the ministries of the environment, natural resources and fisheries, or by their federal counterparts.
The most unbelievable aspect of all of this is that the work began before any building permits were obtained. Building permits were presented to the County on December 17, 2024 after the blasting of the cliff face had started. Now the planning department says a variance is required, as the silos do not meet the required high-water-mark setback. Yet the Settlement Agreement that Doornekamp signed said that he will get any approvals necessary for work to be done on the property.
Most people would assume that this means obtaining a building permit prior to starting any work. A letter obtained from Oceans and Fisheries advises that the site preparations will be detrimental to fish habitat.
These eight silos will be some of the tallest structures in the County. They will sit 150’ high. The bucket elevator will sit on a yet-to-be created in-fill dock extension into the bay and will be approximately 14 stories high and sit on the water’s edge. Further work is being proposed to the west to infill another shipping dock. We do not consider this to be a minor variance. All of this is being done without any site plan control or oversight of any kind.
Why a company with a solid reputation like P&H would enter into an agreement with Picton Terminals, is beyond comprehension. P&H did not renew a lease that expired in Port Colborne at the end of 2024.
The Port Colborne grain terminal includes a rail link. Picton Terminals is miles away from a rail link. Something does not compute.
The patterns are becoming all too familiar.
Total disregard for any regulatory organization.
Above the law, meaning laws and rules do not apply (destroy the rock face prior to getting approvals).
Total disregard for neighbours (ceaseless, invasive noise and dust) — yet the Settlement Agreement he signed stated that he will be a “good neighbour.”
Forcing neighbours to sell their rural farmland and historic houses so he can quarry it all and make millions.
What’s in it for me and only me attitude.
Do these behaviours remind you of someone?
Leslie Stewart, The County Conservancy
I write regarding the upcoming “Committee of Adjustments” meeting, February 18.
Picton Terminals (PT) has requested a “minor” bylaw variance to allow the construction of grain silos at the water’s edge.
PT’s posturing should not be surprising, given its history of flagrant disrespect for County bylaws and views and its history as a poor neighbour and poor citizen in Prince Edward County.
Although put forward as a “minor variance,” please do not be fooled once again by PT’s pitch. In my opinion the variance is not minor in nature, the development is not appropriate or desirable, nor does it respect the County’s Official Plan.
Surely the risks of spillage and contamination into Picton Bay from such structures and increased bulk shipping cannot be ignored again.
I understand that documentation from Quinte Conservation clearly shows that the proposed silos do not meet minimum setback requirements for any new development on the Great Lakes, setbacks which are in place to protect our fragile natural resources.
Council as a whole should study closely and make decisions regarding this proposal. Decisions on a development of this nature should not be left in the hands of planning officials.
This request for a “minor variance” should not be approved. Council should demand a thorough Environmental Impact Study, to be conducted by accredited experts and undertaken at the expense of the proponent.
Only with such information in hand should Council, not planners, review the application and consider whether it is appropriate for the site or not.
JC Sulzenko, South Marysburgh
See it in the newspaper
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