The battle over the sale of Wilmot farmland has taken a brand new flip.
Waterloo MPP Catherine Fife and John Vanthof, the MPP for Timiskaming-Cochrane, despatched a letter Monday to Ontario’s auditor normal requesting a “value-for-money” audit of the controversial land meeting course of.
The letter was additionally posted to Fife’s X account, beneath the caption: “The lack of transparency is typical of this government and the people of Ontario deserve better.”
“Over the past year, the Ontario government has been funding and directing a plan for the Region of Waterloo to acquire prime farmland in Wilmot Township for the purposes of industrial development,” the letter begins. “The provincial government has mandated that this plan proceed largely in secret, requiring local officials to sign non-disclosure agreements that prevent them from explaining to the public the basis of decisions concerning this land assembly, including why the government would seek to place a new industrial campus in the middle of prime farmland and not other locations already planned for development. Farmers that resist demands that they sell their land have been threatened with expropriation.”
The property in query is 770 acres between Nafziger Highway, Bleams Highway and Wilmot Centre Highway.
Farmers, group members, enterprise leaders and politicians have all weighed in on the plan to buy the land.
One group, known as Battle For Farmland, has made a number of freedom of data requests to the area and all have been rejected. Additionally they just lately organized a tractor convoy and protest at each Wilmot and Area of Waterloo council chambers.
Fife’s letter requires an investigation into the federal government’s choices, together with if it follows provincial plans, insurance policies and legal guidelines. It additionally asks the auditor normal to find out if the federal government has “adequately considered the economic impact of the loss of prime farmland and the jobs they support, as well as other threats to the integrity of the region’s agricultural systems.” Lastly, the letter requests a have a look at the environmental influence on the soil and water sources.
