Concerned residents protested with signs and blowhorns at Shire Hall last week to oppose the County’s planned Ministerial Zoning Order (MZO) application for Picton Terminals. Councillors were making their way inside the Hall to a Planning and Development committee meeting.

As part of its settlement agreement with Picton Terminals, the municipality must submit an MZO application to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Paul Calandra, by the end of the year. 

If approved, the MZO will re-zone the Terminals — and all neighbouring properties it has acquired by December 26 — to to MX-Industrial Extractive, side-stepping any community consultation. 

The “Say No to MZO” campaign has collected 1400 in-person signatures on a petition. Penny Morris, who has been collecting signatures at her shop in Picton, Penny’s Pantry, said “the purpose of the demonstration was not to disrupt the meeting,” but rather make a final appeal to Councillors. “There’s time for a sober second thought,” she said.

The terms of the County’s settlement with Picton Terminals are binding — but the settlement collapses if the County’s MZO application should fail. Ms. Morris expects to have 1,500 signatures on the petition by the time the County’s application lands on Minister Calandra’s desk.

The campaign represents a range of grievances County residents have against Council and the province over this issue. 

The prevailing sense of frustration and distrust stems from the secrecy around the Terminals settlement, which came from a series of closed council session without any public consultation. 

“We have no understanding as to the rationale for this. We have to be the only municipality in this province that’s gone asking for an MZO so that they don’t have to be held accountable for their decisions,” said Jane Lesslie. 

John and Shelley McFarland, who live on Picton Bay, were concerned at the rock quarrying.

“They’ve been quarrying. They’ve never had a permit to quarry ever. We have to listen 24 hours to those rocks tumble down the slide into a ship. You can’t keep your windows open at night anymore,” said Shelley McFarland. “We would not be able to build a shed or a boat house on our property without a permit and look what they’re doing.”

 “It’s a joke.”

John McFarland lamented Council’s failure to represent its constituents. He suggested the County  enforce municipal permitting and zoning by-laws on developers.

“We don’t want to see Picton Terminals expanding. We want them curtailed.” 

Ian Beveridge is a resident who has been active on the Say no to MZO campaign by collecting signatures for the petition. In addition to the environmental impact of blasting limestone off the cliff, he’s concerned about the effect the expansion will have on public health.

“In the last couple of weeks there’ve seen four big tankers in the Bay. Their propellers kick up all the mud from the bottom. I don’t know if an environmental assessment has been done on what’s down there after years and years of industrial pollution. Years ago they used to just dump things into the Bay. It’s peoples’ drinking water.”

Environmental studies are one of the procedures that can be side-stepped with an MZO. The Auditor General’s report found that the Ford government issued 114 MZOs between 2019 and 2023, which is a 17-fold increase from the past two decades. 

The investigation, released earlier this month, found that none of the 114 MZOs were assessed on the grounds of necessity or appropriateness. It shows that 68% of claims of community benefit, such as housing or job creation, were unsubstantiated, yet they were approved without due diligence from the Ministry. 

The report includes 19 recommendations that the Ministry has agreed to adopt, including engaging with stakeholders (such as local conservation authorities) to assess environmental risk, document whether there is a rationale for a project to be zoned by an MZO, and a clear assessment of all key risks with associated mitigation measures. 

While Minister Calandra claimed, “a vast majority of recommendations we’ve already implemented with the new MZO framework,” released in April, the Auditor General notes that the Zoning Order Framework is a “set of expectations, not requirements.”

Amanda Robertson, NDP candidate in the 2024 provincial by-election, noted, “This Ford government has used MZOs really aggressively. It’s like they’ve almost forgotten that it comes with inherent risk — which the community bears. 

“It’s really hard to justify this heavy handed use when a lot of the issues we’re identifying here in Picton are around affordable housing, finding healthcare and the cost of living. 

“This MZO doesn’t address any of those issues.”