[All] Fw: Windmills in Collingwood may be linked to land banking schemes.

[Louisette Lanteigne]

Wind Farms, Land Banks, Farms and Water.  It is all linked.

Lulu

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Louisette Lanteigne <butterflybluelu at rogers.com>
To: "ahorwath-qp at ndp.on.ca" <ahorwath-qp at ndp.on.ca>; "tabunsp-qp at ndp.on.ca" <tabunsp-qp at ndp.on.ca>; "catherinefife at on.ndp.ca" <catherinefife at on.ndp.ca> 
Sent: Friday, March 8, 2013 10:37:58 PM
Subject: Windmills in Collingwood may be linked to land banking schemes. 
 

Dear Ms. Horwath, Ms. Fife and Mr. Tabuns
As I understand it, there is a Wind project from a German firm that wants to place enormous wind mills in close proximity to the Collingwood Airport posing an obvious flight hazard. An article on this can be viewed here: 
http://www.theenterprisebulletin.com/2012/12/04/council-voices-disapproval-of-wind-project

The close proximity is a reasonable concern but in my view I believe this is a CRAFTED scenario designed specifically to delay wind farm installations in Ontario by creating a situation so bad, it demands revised policy.  Here is why I believe this issue was fabricated with the intent to delay wind farms. 

Currently there are numerous multi-national firms buying up massive tracts of farmlands for quarries, dumps and development and "Land Banking" schemes. 


First we had Seth Klarman's Baupost Group in Boston purchasing the lands for the Melancthon Mega Quarry. The quarry project was cancelled but this US based group still owns that farmland. 

In Oxford County, Calgary based Walker Industries wants to build Canada's forth largest mega dump which would go below the water table.  http://www.woodstocksentinelreview.com/2013/02/07/peer-review-panel-appointed-to-watch-guard-walker-environmental-assessment

In Brant County, Walton International Group  (linked to investors from Singapore) has purchased 4,400 acres of prime farmland.
http://www.brantnews.com/news/brant-residents-voice-concerns-over-development


In Waterloo Region Activa Holdings is the Region's largest land owner, funded by German investments and many of their projects are in proximity to water sensitive features and farmlands as well. 

In light of these issues, I found a very interesting article that contains the following statements: 

-Institutional investors are extremely interested in Canadian land, which is far cheaper than in much of the world. 


-Ontario, British Columbia and other, smaller Canadian provinces have no restrictions on foreign ownership of farmland. 

-Land grabs in Canada have not been well-documented. Provinces do not keep inventory on large-scale land acquisitions.


-There are also speculations that buying Canadian farmland may be a smokescreen for access to fields of potash, oil and gas.


“Around the world a lot of land grabbing is actually about gaining control of water, which is far more scarce than land; without water, you cannot farm, and a lot of land grabbers are from water scarce countries. This has been acknowledged by the head of Nestle.”


To read the entire article please visit here: 
http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/land-grabs-canadian-connection


In my view, there are people trying to create issues with wind in order to create the delay to grab the land for future development prospects. If the windmills are there THEY CAN'T USE IT for dumps, or pits or development.  Those windmills may actually serve a function to help protect farmlands and watersheds for the long term. 

Interesting to note that Walton Industries and their parent company, Interborder Holdings Limited are both located in Calgary but have offices in Singapore, Germany and Hong Kong.  The EVP of Interborder Holdings Ltd. is CBC political commentator Rick Anderson who is a political strategist. He went from being a an active Liberal member, then he joined the Reform Party and later he worked with Premier Mike Harris in Ontario.  

About 30 years back there was a Liberal vision to build Waterloo Region to a huge city thinking it would be cost effective to do because we have plenty of rich aggregate deposits in our area. Our official plan includes a future pipeline to Erie and many of our elected officials still believe if we get that pipe, growth potentials will be unlimited. As a result we have international land purchases happening all over this area in spite of the fact current science shows our ecological systems area already collapsing due to development, pits, pavement and dumps over top our recharge areas. 

We have legacy spills of TCE, NDMA and 1,4 dioxane that has already cost millions to address. We have overpopulation, effluent, pesticides, closed wells due to roadsalt and water shortages that have resulted in permanent water bans. Every time they cut into our primary recharge areas, it concentrates all the known contamination issues we are already dealing with in our wells, in the Grand and it's having adverse impacts on downstream communities and Lake Erie.  

A pipeline to Lake Erie won't work because blue green algae is a growing issue. We have zebra mussels that clog up intake pipes and lowering volumes due to climate change. Erie is on the verge of collapse and these pits, dumps and developments over the primary recharge area simply aggravating this ecological and economic disaster all the faster. 

Please, to protect Ontario's economy, farms and water resources by putting a stop to these multinational land purchases and work on prohibiting development on A1 farmlands and primary recharge areas. We have no time to waste. If we can secure Ontario's ability to produce food and protect the water that allows us to do it we will prosper greatly in the future. The world will need our ability to provide food. In the age of climate change, those lands are priceless and will give us the key to long term economic prosperity for our province of we protect them. 

Thank you kindly for your time. 

Louisette Lanteigne
700 Star Flower Ave.
Waterloo Ont.
N2V 2L2
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