By Pepper Parr
June 22, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
When people hear what is happening it sounds like the kind of thing you hear about in some banana republic where the roots of a democracy have yet to firmly plant themselves.
A community faces a major issue with a large piece of property where they believe the owner of the property is breaking all the rules. They form an organization and take their case to city council. They contact local media and the story begins to unfold.
The community group delegates to both city council and Regional Council and in both instances make a strong case. The city does a little digging and quickly realizes there is a problem and begins to organize.
They find that the property owner is not cooperating and after a lot of huffing and puffing both sides end up in a court room.
Placing this large hulking piece of equipment less than 20 yards from a property line is outright harassment. The landfill had already been placed on the property. The physical harassment has now been taken to a judicial level.
The city wins its case. Justice John Murray finds that the Burlington Air Park must comply with the city’s site plan by law.
The Burlington Air Park decides to appeal the Justice Murray decision. The appeal court makes up its mind in less than half a day. The air park must comply.
Prior to the appeal, the Burlington Air Park serves Notices of Libel on two citizens and the Burlington Gazette. A Notice of Libel calls for the person that wrote something to retract what they wrote and apologize. Neither the Gazette or the two citizens, Monte Dennis and Vanessa Warren felt there was anything to apologize for.
Prior to the appeal court hearing all three: the Gazette, Dennis and Warren were served with Statements of Claim asking for $100,000 in exemplary damages.
Readers of the Gazette will know what we wrote. Key the words air park into the search engine on our web site and the more than 20 articles will appear.
Monte Dennis wrote a response to a Letter to the Editor that appeared in the Hamilton Spectator. This was a citizen doing what every citizen has a right to do. We note that the Burlington Air Park chose not to include the Hamilton Spectator in the claim for damages. Vanessa Warren wrote the following comment in the Gazette:
The Kovachik family opened the airpark in 1962, and for 44 years operated in harmony with its neighbours and its rural surroundings . You are not allowed to capitalize on that history. The history that you ‘re accountable for is amounting to an environmental disaster in our pristine protected countryside, and you may not manipulate that truth unchallenged anymore.
This is not an airpark improvement issue. This is a landfill issue, a water protection issue, a storm water management issue, a truck entrance and road use issue, and a property destruction and flooding issue.
Are we to celebrate that you ‘ve spent money to improve your for-profi t business? Who doesn ‘t do that? You say you ‘ve spent 4 million in improvements , but what about the income you ‘ve made from charging for untold hundreds of thousands of tons of unregulated fill? What about the protected watercourse you ‘ve destroyed? What about the regionally significant woodlot you gutted? The cost to the environment, the community and the City for your ‘improvements ‘ has been too high to bear.
Ask your immediate neighbours – none of whom have “recently purchased their homes” – bow things have improved for them? Flooded fields are unfarmable. Backyards and septic beds are underwater from silted run off. Sight lines and property enjoyment are destroyed. Anxiety about well water safety is high, and you will not permit the MOE to release on-site testing data. Writing that you ‘ve “always respected your neighbours .. .” is more than untrue; it’s cruel.
There are no unsubstantiated claims. Terrapex Environmental found unacceptably high levels of contaminants like hydrocarbons and heavy metals in the paltry 52 soil reports you were able to provide. Off-site water testing may be fine to date (again, where’s the data?), but how long might it tale for those contaminants to leach into wells?
The City of Burlington legally won the right to impose it’s Site Alteration Bylaw on airpark property , and yet you still will not comply. The community would truly love to know that your property is NOT full of contaminated fill – why don’t you give us the verified, third-party data to prove it?
We are all so weary of your attempts to manipulate . Standing up to you and stopping the trucks was never political, it was ethical, and you have no ethical credibility left.
Vanessa Warren
Vanessa Warren, founder of the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition chose to run for public office and represent ward 6 because she felt the community was not being well served by the incumbent. The owner of the land park is now uses the courts to silence her.
What makes the claim against Vanessa Warren so serious is that she is a nominated candidate for the ward 6 council seat where the air park is located. One could take from the Burlington Air Park legal action that they do not want to see Vanessa Warren on city council.
In an Open Letter to city council the group that has been leading the fight against the air park, the Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition (RBGC) asked that the city “defend public engagement and public advocacy – the cornerstones of our democratic system – from the Burlington Airpark’s SLAPP suit, so that this type of legal coercion does not silence the citizens of Burlington.”
Prior to the provincial election there was a bill on the order paper calling for laws that would prevent what is being called Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP). It was a private members bill brought forward by the New Democratic Party that got all party approval but that bill died on the order paper when the election was called.
The RBGC hopes it can persuade the provincial government to pick up the bill and make it a priority. They would be delighted if the province moved real quick and then made any legislation retroactive.
The issue is serious, very serious. When people with significant funding at their disposal decide to use the power of a law suit to silence people who care about their community and are prepared to speak out publicly the courts should not be the place where these public issues get worked through.
The Burlington Air Park has paid more than $62,000 in court ordered costs – so the judiciary is doing its part.
What is profoundly disappointing is that the public has yet to hear anything from the Mayor of Burlington or the Regional Chair Gary Carr. These two men lead public opinion and they have in the past put their views forward on important issues. When the Mayor saw for the first time the damage done to the Sheldon property on Appleby Line by the air park landfill he was reported to have said he was appalled.
Disappointing too is the reaction from the private pilots who are seeing the airport they have used for years put at risk. The Gazette has talked to a number of these pilots – not one is prepared to say a word publicly. One exception is Andrew Forber who has commented on several occasions at some length.
Having people fear making public comments is a very unhealthy situation for any democratic society.
Much of the history of the struggle between good and evil is explained by philosopher Edmund Burke’s observation. Time and again those who profess to be good seem to clearly outnumber those who are evil, yet those who are evil seem to prevail far too often. Seldom is it the numbers that determine the outcome, but whether those who claim to be good men are willing to stand up and fight for what they know to be right.
City staff battle with the air park on an almost daily basis over the illegal use of gateways to the air park property and access to the site. Staff are focused and well led and they persevere – but we are hearing nothing from the people who are in a position to mold public opinion. Taking the position that they cannot comment on an ongoing court case is hiding behind skirts
The people of Burlington need to hear from the good people.
The issue of SLAPP suits is presently the single most threatening issue to our Democracy.
SLAPP suits are used to silence any opposition to projects by corporations or wealthy individuals.
SLAPP suits are often used when a project will not stand up to a Peer Review, public scrutiny, or in fact, scrutiny of any kind.
Money spent on SLAPP suits by questionable project developers would be better spent hiring qualified competent technical people to create a project that could, in fact, stand up to a little criticism.
The number of comments do drop when SLAPP suits are employed. Look up the issue south of Barrie called the “Big Bay Point Project”. The environment, in that case, suffered while the project bashed recklessly ahead, with little, or no proper, input from anyone who “dared” to comment.
This is not the Democracy that I was taught about in my youth !
A couple of other notable situations – Horizon Wind has sued the City of Thunder Bay for $126m as a result of opposition to a proposed wind farm. Swift River Energy has sued the Township of Muskoka Lakes, the mayor and a councilor for $3m for their opposition to a proposed hydro plant that will alter the scenic Bala Falls. Swift River Energy and Horizon Wind have the same CEO.
In both these instances, one can surmise that these SLAPP suits actually play to the hand of the Province, since it assists them in ramming through unwanted projects.
For some background http://www.savethebalafalls.com
This must be frustrating for the Gazette. I’m not an aficanado on the topic of the airpark, but I have noticed much less comentary on this topic by your readers recently than I would have expected. I doubt it is from apathy or lack of interest.
It is a shame that the private members anti SLAPP bill died on the operating table. That is a concept that will have to be re-thought by the Premier, who is presently waging a libel suit of her own. I’d love to hear the people of Burlington speak freely on all subjects. More-so for our elected ones. City officials should declare to have definitive and transparent stances on all issues.