Pushing Back
Northern residents fight big city dump plans
by Charlie Angus
HighGrader Magazine Summer 2000
It was a very bad month for Gordon McGuinty. After 11 years of headaches, finangling and controversy, McGuinty had hoped that by this June he would be coasting into the winner's circle. At stake, a potential one billion dollar contract to haul Toronto's garbage to the Adams Mine in Temiskaming.
Instead, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. An outpouring of regional opposition, including civil disobedience, stole the thunder from McGuinty's "We're a happy northern garbage family" sales pitch. He was dogged by questions about the price of his plan and the safety of its experimental design.
And then on June 18, the biggest bomb of all fell when a Metro Works Committee report offed McGuinty from favoured son status and recommended the City go with a combination of three of McGuinty's competitors.
McGuinty was enraged. So apparently was the Province. Within the day, the Tories were trying to apply the screws to Toronto. But it now appears the North Bay-based Rail Cycle Consortium is swimming upstream. They are facing increasing opposition in the north and at the City level. As well, they are facing the prospect of a new bidding war against four other competitors each of whom seem able to provide more flexibility, cheaper rates and, above all, less controversy.
Unless the Province steps in, to once again tilt the playing field in favour of the North Bay-based venture, we could be watching the final dive of the North's Garbage Impresario.
Airlift
Trouble began for McGuinty when it was announced that members of the Metro Council Works Committee would tour the Adams Mine site at the beginning of June. As part of their required due diligence, the Committee was touring each of the five sites on Toronto's short list for the contract. Two contenders were in Southwestern Ontario and two were in Michigan. All of the other visits went off without incident.
At the Adams Mine, however, McGuinty had to resort to using helicopters to fly the Council members into his site. He was hoping to avoid the large calvacade of protest vehicles 250 cars in total which lined the road leading into the potential dump site.
The protest convoy had been called on a half-day's notice. The protest, complete with coffin, pallbearers and and a contingent of mourners decked out in black armbands, lined the road to the Adams Mine dump in the hopes of meeting with members of Toronto's Waste Committee.
Gordon McGuinty was clearly worried about the protest. Just prior to the event, McGuinty told local media local that opposition had already cost him a short term contract with Toronto in 1995. He said the latest protest could be the final nail in the coffin for his plan.
When news filtered down through the waiting crowd that Toronto councillors had been flown into the site, it turned a good natured protest into an angry one as the hundreds of vehicles found themselves sitting in the middle of nowhere, with further access to the mine blocked by a cordon of provincial police.
Local businessman Pierre Belanger was one of the protest organizers.
"I find it humiliating to be standing here today," he told the crowd. "It is humiliating for people of Northern Ontario to have to stand outside and beg Toronto not to use us as their garbage can."
During a hastily-called scrum by protest organizers, a number of farmers argued about whether to burst through the police cordon and confront the Council members directly.
It was decided, however, to turn the lumbering three-kilometre calvacade around and head out to the local airport in the hopes of meeting up with the Toronto crowd when they were leaving.
About two hundred protesters braved the near freezing weather to hold a vigil outside the Kirkland Lake airport. By the time the councillors arrived, however, the crowd had dwindled to about 50 people.
Much to the apparent dismay of dump promoter Gordon McGuinty, the Toronto contingent, led by outspoken Toronto Councillor Jack Layton, finally opted to meet the crowd that had been dogging them.
Protesters describe the meeting as frank and open. But the underlying anger was apparent.
Dairy farmer John Vanthof told Layton point blank that area farmers were fed up with the process and vowed to intensify their campaign if Toronto decided to award the contract to the Rail Cycle Consortium.
"The garbage train has to travel through our farms and I'm telling you it isn't going to go through. How many helicopters do you think it will take to bring a million tonnes of garbage into the Adams Mine?"

Blocking the Tracks
On June 12, McGuinty's headache got much worse as the farmers proved the mettle of their words.
Under the watchful eye of provincial media cameras and reporters, over 50 farm tractors and 150 local residents blockaded the ONR tracks near the small Francophone farming community of Earlton.
The train blockade came at the end of a 12 day campaign to conduct a local letter writing campaign against the Adams Mine. Organizers had hoped to get 1,000 residents to voice their opposition to Toronto Council, but dump opponent Francine Patterson says well over 3,500 letters were collected.
"In a population base as small as ours, that's an overwhelming response," says Patterson.
The writing campaign culminated in a major event in New Liskeard on June 10 featuring local musicians, choirs and square dance groups.
But it was the tractor blockade which caught Toronto's attention.
Standing in front of the tractor blockade John Vanthof said the farmers had decided to settle the dump issue once and for all.
"It's not up to Metro Toronto to decide what is going to happen in Northern Ontario. Today is the day we start to protect ourselves."
Protest signs made reference to both Walkerton and convicted oil-well bomber Wiebo Ludwig.
"Today we gave the ONR half an hour's notice," boasted one farmer. "The next time we will not give them any."

Metro Walks Again
In the face of this mounting controversy, McGuinty was still banking on the hope that he had the inside track with Metro Works bureaucrats. On June 19th, their report came down and it was a major blow. The plan called for extending the life of Keele Valley by cutting down its tonnage use and diverting some of the waste to three of the other short-listed sites. This surprising mix of alternatives left the Adams Mine completely out of the running.
The news took everyone by surprise. Notre Development had always been looked upon as the inside favourite of city bureaucrats because, despite its hefty price tag, it offered a long-term solution.
But the Adams Mine was becoming an increasingly unpredictable political minefield. As well, the politics of garbage had drastically changed since the mid-1980s. Toronto, with its million tonnes of year waste, has been moving in the direction of diversion and recycling. Being trapped into a long-term commitment to provide tonnages to an overpriced dump, was not the kind of green friendly solutions councillors wanted to entertain.
But perhaps the biggest kicker was the price $65 million more than the nearest bidder. Nearly $70 million if you count the money McGuinty was on the hook for to Metro for floating his project through the mid-part of the decade (he offered to knock down the tonnage fee as a way of paying off the $4.3 million debt to Toronto).
McGuinty may have been expecting trouble at the council level, but he was flabbergasted by the rejection from city bureaucrats. So was the Province. Within less than a day the Tories were huffing and puffing in the Legislature about closing down Keele Valley, a move which would help put the Adams Mine back on the top of the list.
No doubt the Tories felt compelled to intervene boldly because the Keele Valley dump was in the backyard of Tory big boy Al Palladini. But the move didn't hurt Notre's odds either.
Right now it's still unclear whether the province's intervention will be enough to save the white elephant. McGuinty's other competitors have come forward offering to pick up the slack and even renegotiate their bottom lines. With hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure costs facing him, McGuinty simply doesn't have a lot of room to manoeuvre.
In the north, McGuinty's supporters are getting fewer and shriller. In 1990, high tipping rates promised numerous spin offs and recycling centres at the abandoned pit. But as he competes against increasingly low cost competitors, McGuinty has been forced to strip away all the perks and promises, so much so that Toronto councillors were left scratching their heads when dump pom-pom girl Mayor Betty Anne Thib-Jelly of Englehart, proudly proclaimed that recycling efforts would still take place at the Adams mine.
"We'll be recycling the pit,"she stated.
Other regional officials, who may subscribe to less rosy views, are being kept in check by a legal gag order (witness the silence of Kirkland Lake mayor Richard Denton who was elected because of his outspoken opposition to the dump).

A final decision on where Toronto will send its waste may not come until late summer or even the fall. But if McGuinty's appearance before Council on June 23 is any indication, the bloom may be off the northern garbage rose.
While he still seems to have some allies on the Committee (Bill Saundercook and Joan King), he is facing increasingly skeptical responses from other members.
At one point during his presentation, when McGuinty referred to the fact that his site had passed an Environmental Assessment, he was cut off by Councillor Ila Bossons.
"Mr. McGuinty," she said, "It wasn't an full environmental assessment it was a scoped hearing. There's a difference."
Perhaps the only thing that will save this beast for another day is if the Province once again steps in and tries to close the border to Michigan. Such a move would be highly provocative and could cast a glaring light on the Harris' home-town favourite. With Walkerton on their plate, it remains to be seen how much stomach the government has for a major fight with Toronto over a controversial dump.
But with this baby, it ain't over until it's over. Watch for more fireworks.

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