January 18, 2007:

The Directors of the Glengarry Landowner’s Association and the Prescott-Russell Landowners’ Association will not be supporting local MPPs Jean-Marc Lalonde or Jim Brownell in this fall’s provincial election because of the politicians’ complicity in passing the Clean Water Act – one of several pieces of legislation that the McGuinty government has enacted that the Landowners believe will seriously alter the face of rural Ontario.

The decision was made after directors of both associations attended and participated in a public information meeting that was hosted by the MPPs in Alexandria on January 17th. Both politicians admitted voting in favour of the legislation in Queen’s Park, yet it was quite evident that they had given no serious consideration to the consequences of the legislation’s impact on farmers and other rural residents in their respective ridings. The Clean Water Act contains absolutely no provisions to compensate farmers or other rural residents for loss of land use or forced compliance upgrades that will occur because of the Act and associated regulations. The Landowner directors discovered that, during committee hearings, the Opposition had proposed an amendment to the Act that would have introduced compensation provisions for affected landowners, but the Liberal-dominated committee voted it down.

The Landowners will be holding public information meetings to ensure that rural residents understand how the legislation intrudes on their property rights, and, at the same time, remind voters that their local MPPs supported this legislation and should be held accountable in the fall election.

Jamie MacMaster, Director
Glengarry Landowners' Association

Douglas Tisdall, Director
Prescott-Russell Landowners’ Association