THIS O.M.B. HEARING ISN'T DEMOCRACY

I think I'm getting old or perhaps just jaded. I've just spent two hours at an Ontario Municipal Board hearing in Woolwich Council Chambers in Elmira, Ontario. A quick head count showed me about sixty residents and citizens of Woolwich Township were present. They were not in a pre-Christmas festive mood. They were not amused in any sense of the word. What I came away with was the understanding that process, procedure and rules have long replaced democracy. This is no accident.

Five local residents from the Conestogo-Winterbourne area were formal Participants at this O.M.B. hearing into the proposed Jigs Hollow Pit aka the Kuntz Pit. I've heard most of them speak to Woolwich Council over the last couple of years and as always they were prepared, intelligent and professional. Their sense of being betrayed by Woolwich Council was very clear. Their command of all the issues was incredible. After each of their presentaions to the O.M.B. they were cross-examined by the lawyer for the gravel pit proponent. This lawyer was not impressive or in my opinion credible. He asked leading questions some of which were vague and appeared occasionally to be misrepresenting the facts. All four Participants who spoke this morning were incredibly poised. Without going out of their way they made the gravel pit's lawyer look like a horse's patootie. He got caught numerous times attemting to make points and then rapidly retreating to his next argument.

Many things about this process were appalling. The statement by the O.M.B. Chair that the Board weren't too concerned with one party (the Township) reneging on their own Motion removing Recycling operations from the proposed pit last June was shocking. Similarily I was appalled at what I believe the Chair said to the proponent's lawyer that she the Chair would temper the Participant's Presentaions and cross-examination testimony with the already submitted written evidence of experts on behalf of the proponent. To me this suspiciously sounded like the Chair had more confidence in long winded, esoteric formulas and theorys presented by credentialed experts than in the common sense and logical observations and studies by the local citizens.

One of the biggest elephants in the room in any O.M.B. and or environmental hearings has always been the purchasing of professional opinions by the parties with the most money. Any and all Chairs should be putting the weight of testimony on those who are working for themselves on their own time and money. Instead in this perverted system the bought and paid for consultants reign supreme. One of the participants made it very clear that at the Settlement discussions, the interests of the local citizens were not represented. The Region, the Township and the proponent all took care of themselves while the citizens were thrown to the wolves. Yes Township Staff and a Councillor or two will be willing to defend what they did. Sixty-one people present aren't buying what they are selling. The local citizens were deceived and manipulated for the financial benefit of the few.