Ontario Liberals seek probe into donor links to landfill

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The Ontario Liberals have asked the integrity commissioner to investigate the province’s decision to backtrack on an environmental assessment of a massive landfill expansion project backed by Progressive Conservative donors.

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The Liberals want the integrity commissioner to look at whether Premier Doug Ford’s government gave the project special treatment because its developers are lucrative donors to his party.

“The actions of the Ford government around the expansion of the Dresden landfill undermine trust in our political system and raise serious questions about the potential influence of money on public policy,” said Liberal MPP Ted Hsu, who requested the investigation.

“Today, we’re confronting a troubling question: Is public policy in Ontario for sale?”

The 30-fold expansion of a dormant landfill north of the rural farming community of Dresden in Chatham-Kent has spawned local backlash and concerns about possible ecological effects.

Citing the community’s concerns, the government ordered an environmental assessment for the project last year.

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But now, the province plans to revoke that assessment under a controversial omnibus bill working its way through the legislature.

The premier’s office and environment minister maintain it’s necessary because getting the project done quickly is the best way to ensure the long-term stability of a waste system that is nearing its capacity.

Environment Minister Todd McCarthy said the province can’t afford to keep shipping a large share of its waste to the United States, suggesting Ontario is facing a landfill capacity “crisis.”

He said Monday that the site would still be subject to other environmental laws and oversight.

“I will stand for strong environmental oversight in Dresden. I can assure the residents of that, I can ensure Ontarians of that, but we must address our landfill capacity challenges. We will be out of landfill within a decade if we do nothing. We are taking action,” he said during question period.

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The Liberals fired back by suggesting the government was leveraging the U.S. trade war to push through policy that would benefit insiders at the expense of transparency and accountability to local residents.

They also questioned whether the flip-flop was timed to coincide with a local byelection.

The province initially announced it would pursue the environmental assessment in March 2024. Shortly after that, the premier called a byelection in the local riding of Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, where the successful PC candidate Steve Pinsonneault campaigned against the expansion.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie called it a “question of integrity.

“You promise one thing during a byelection, and then you quietly walk it back when no one’s listening, no one is paying attention months or one year later: That’s the issue for us,” she said Monday.

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Pinsonneault’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The integrity commissioner’s office said it was reviewing the Liberals’ request.

York1, the company behind the project, is seeking to revive the dormant landfill about 1 km north of Dresden and expand it to service waste from across the province.

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Details of the developers’ donations and lobbying efforts were first reported by The Trillium, a Queen’s Park-based news outlet, and were cited by the Liberals in their letter to the integrity commissioner.

The Trillium reported that executives at the companies and their family members had donated about $200,000 to the PCs since 2018.

The Canadian Press has corroborated some of those political contributions recorded in a public Elections Ontario database.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Under the proposal, a small landfill dating to the 1960s that holds 40,000 cubic metres of waste could be expanded to a total of 1.6 million cubic metres, enough to fill almost 650 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Officials have said the company also wants to establish waste-processing stations to receive up to 6,000 tonnes of waste per day, even though existing permits for the property dating to 1998 only allow for a tiny fraction of that amount.

Half the waste would come from a range of sources, including some 500 tonnes of asbestos-containing waste, according to municipal documents. The other half would be soil and “soil-like materials,” including contaminated soil.

If approved, Chatham-Kent’s mayor has argued the project would have a “devastating impact” on the community and those around it.

“Only through a full environmental assessment process will the impacts of this proposal be fully understood, and we are confident that such a process would show that a landfill, recycling and waste facility cannot be located this close to a vibrant and historic town,” wrote Darrin Canniff in a letter to the environment minister posted publicly earlier this month.

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The municipality had previously raised concerns about a lack of consultation by the company and its initial proposal’s apparent lack of relevant research.

In letters to the province, the municipality suggested no studies had been conducted on potential effects to noise, air quality, traffic and human health, while only minimal information was available on how the project would affect ground and surface water resources.

The property is surrounded by prime agricultural land. The water around the site streams into the Sydenham River, home to some endangered species, including the spiny softshell turtle.

An environmental assessment would have had to consider alternative designs or locations for the project.

In a statement, the premier’s office echoed the environment minister’s comments about strong environmental oversights and protections, as well as Ontario’s strained landfill capacity.

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“The people of Ontario have spoken loud and clear — they want a government that will do whatever it takes to protect Ontario, to build a province that is more resilient, self-reliant and able to withstand anything that comes our way. That is exactly what our government will deliver,” the statement said.

The Liberals said the landfill flip-flop echoes other recent controversial moves that appear to trample local opposition, pointing to Ford’s now-reversed decision to open protected Greenbelt lands for development, the use of ministerial zoning orders to override municipal decisions and his government’s handling of the Ontario Place redevelopment.

The legislation that would nix the environmental assessment, Bill 5, is under broader scrutiny. While its stated aim is to speed up mining and infrastructure projects, critics have suggested it would give cabinet too much authority to exempt the government from labour and environmental laws.

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