Trenton-area farmer Brian Crews was taking down trees, working what he still believes is a woodlot, to expand his crops, when the notice from the Lower Trent Conservation Authority arrived at the farmgate. He was ordered to stop work immediately. Two CA officers had responded to a complaint and, looking over from a neighbouring property, noted that the woodlot was a wetland.
It was the first time Crews learned that part of his land was considered wetland and he’s not happy about it. He’s also not alone. Many landowners are finding out their land is a wetland while developing it. What’s worse is that this problem has been going on for at least a decade.
On Sept. 29, Waterloo Region rural landowner Jason Geil was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $30,000, after using a dump truck and bulldozer to fill an area on his own property. It was the first time a landowner in Ontario was sent to jail for flouting the wetland designation.
h/t Jamie
And so will come the law of unintended consequences, as any landowner that hears of this will immediately start work to get rid of any wetland not currently designated, and start draining those already designated (hey climate change is supposed to make things drier right?)
naxis ain’t got nothing on environmentalists.
Myself and many others have experienced this “regulation by stealth” as the CONservation authorities work to expand their power and stifle development. Open a gravel pit, dig a pond and leave it for a couple years and it will likely be declared a wetland. Upper Thames claimed a neighbours back yard immediately beside my pit was a wetland even though it was very dry gravel ground and 3 meters above the water table! FWIW Upper Thames owns quite a few gravel pits in the London area adjacent to the Thames where they lease out the property and get paid royalties.
One of their favourite moves is to designate any flat not exceptionally well drained woodland as a wetland area. This stops farmers from clearing said land and severely depresses it’s value. Another tactic is the declaration of small weedy or brush areas as protected habitat even if only a couple years growth is present courtesy of Essex Region Conservation Authority.
This kind of regulatory element affecting private property is very dangerous.
An attack on one of the very foundational aspects that has led to the prosperity of the western world.
Do gooders implementing and imposing regulation on others that they deem to be the right of the larger community. There goes your property rights.
In 2007 the Sask NDP government passed the Property and Development ACT.
This Act has been a boom for the “Planners” and if not held in check has and will continue to impose their urban views on rural land owners.
The Wall government was urged to revisit this Act and make changes….but did not have the courage.
Maybe Ontario should elect a Conservative government to support landowners’ rights.
“Maybe Ontario should elect a Conservative government to support landowners’ rights.”
I think a lot of rural voters thought they had done that when they made their X for Double-cross Doug. But they obviously chose to ignore the real message during his campaign when he cowered to the greenies and flip-flopped on his GTA development position. Then once elected he really backed up his allegiance to the green parasites by firing the only true conservative and property-rights advocate in his caucus: Randy Hillier.
Why are Canadians so freakin ignorant about Canadian civics?
– All lands ( including oil, trees, fish, minerals etc..) in the Dominion of Canada are the private property of the Windsor family of England ( The Crown).
– Canadians may obtain the revocable PRIVELEGE of Tranferable Rights to Real Estate ( like a lease that can be bought and sold) but have no title to the land!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
– Canadians are merely lowly Subjects of the Crown and are in no way to be confused with Americans who are SOVEREIGN CITIZENS who can obtain TITLE to their lands and possessions.
In SK they have been draining wetlands for a 100 years. They are now reaping the benefits. If your downstream you might be under water.
Yards are flooded 1000’s of acres of crop land is now buried with water. Roads are flooded and railroad track is threatened. Google Quill Lakes and see whats going on. Sk’s record on wetland drainage is pitiful.
The province is now trying to figure out what to do. It’s all fine and dandy if you drain a wetland and gain a few acres of arable land but if some guy 50 miles away loses his land well…too bad for him.
I spent a good portion of my life fighting for property rights. I know the game well. I also know the value of wetlands. Property rights, land ownership and wetlands are difficult topics and stranger bedfellows
This is a classic “takings” where the state declares a private resource a public good without compensation, essentially “taking” it from the owner. It’s rampant in the US and apparently Ontario is catching up. It’s why non-fugitive resources should be privatized. The market then determines the value of resources. The Greens would hate that as they would then have to pay for what they can presently influence the government to steal for them.
But what if the property doesn’t self-identify as being wetland?
How date they assume its identity.
I believe it is explicit in the constitution we have no rights to property. One more reason we need a new country.
concerned: EXACTLY!! We have no right to property. Paying property taxes gets you d*ck all! And if the government of Canada wants your land so be it….I saw what happened in Pickering, ON land for a new Airport that was never built but the original people didn’t get there property back NO!! The Federal gov’t doesn’t give a sh*t about us Canadians!!
Drain the swamp!
Further, to scar at 2:18
Want a good laugh? This, from the Ontario PC Party Constitution – Statement of Principles:
We believe that economic freedom, entrepreneurial spirit and the right to
private property are essential to economic prosperity and political
freedom
Followed up by a double knee-slapper from The CPC:
A belief that the best guarantors of the prosperity and well-being of the People of
Canada are:
2.1.12.1 the freedom of individual Canadians to pursue their enlightened
and legitimate self-interest within a competitive economy;
2.1.12.2 the freedom of individual Canadians to enjoy the fruits of their
labour to the greatest possible extent;
2.1.12.3 the right to own property.
I’m currently involved in litigation with the Conservation Authority in my own neck of the woods.
Those people are evil.
globalists, socialists, communists, PROGRESSIVES . They are all the same. Different pile of shit but stinks the same.
Planners don’t build anything. They only stop people from doing what they want to do on their own property.
Planners proposals in my neck of the woods tried to declare a wide swath of area as “ green” trying to stop gravel extraction etc.
When I asked the advocates if they as a collective would agree to make me whole should they freeze certain activities on my land they were at a loss for words. Not knowing what what that even means.
Manitoba is downstream from everybody. MN,ND,SD,SK and ON. It collects excess water from those states and provinces. There is concern that a heavy snowpak will result in millons (billions?) of property damage and public infrastructure if widespread flooding occurs. The Red river is already at or near flood level.
Wetlands act as a sponge by absorbing flood water and releasing it later. Destroying wetlands destroys life itself. It makes no sense to contaminate the air or water we rely on. Destruction of vital habitat is in the same boat.
I get property rights. I understand what the ownership of private property means to society. It’s one of the basic tenants of capitalism. Those very rights tho are juxtaposed against existence of the planet itself. Drainage rights by land owners are in the cross hairs of those very rights.
Watershed through northern Manitoba also starts in Banff and Jasper parks in Alberta.
And ends where the two BC yahoos killed each other
You need to read the Ballad of Carl Drega. Stories from the Liberty Movement. A very good read. It’s about how the bureaucracy has destroyed people and their lives via their own rules and regulations. Beyond the control of elected officials. Canada has over 500,000 pages of rules, and laws and regulations. That is a stack of paper over 14 stories high. At some point people have to put an end to the lunacy. In Canada in the Criminal Code they have a law, that states. Guilty of an Act or an Omission. You are guilty for doing the act and guilty for not doing the act. Tear it all down and start again. In Carl Drega all stories from real life. People eventually snapped and started shooting the so called officials that destroyed their lives. Just like the stories in the title of thread.
Man I thought it was just here in BC. These planners get together at conferences and create new policy that gets adopted by local councils. Then its law. Dig a ditch to make sure your property doesn’t flood and next thing you know its a “fish bearing stream”. A default designation that you have to prove wrong. By hiring a biologist that has to study the dry ditch. Of course your going to get in trouble for digging the ditch first. Legal battles all over the place. Just hope there isn’t an eagle nesting tree within a mile. They wont let you cut firewood, on your property for a big chunk of the year. Next move is a cataloguing of all wells. Cause they are going to tax the ground water. No joke.
On a completely unrelated note (I promise). In 1929 my Dad was 22, in college. The crash bankrupted a bunch of farms around the small midwestern town where Dad’s family had taken root. They had borrowed money from banks in a nearby big city (crop and equipment loans mostly) and the bankers showed up at the county seat to foreclose on the farms. The farmers showed up as well. The bankers had paperwork. The farmers had firearms and pitchforks. One of their number told the bankers there wouldn’t be any auction or foreclosures that day and go home to their families. The bankers went, the farmers and their farms survived and mostly paid back the loans over time. Just sayin.
As noted here is where the real power lurks in our Kleptocracy.
Not only can you not find out what the”law” is,you cannot ever know what the law means.
It is a maze of shifting goal posts,adhoc buggery and rules making on the fly.
“Respect my authority”.
Environment Canada’s definition of a hazardous substance spill is right up there.
These “helpers” are the result of ever growing,ever more useless bureaucracies.
Not only are they proud to live off of your work and produce,they take great pride in their abilities to harm and hinder every effort you make.
And 50% of the “average workers” income now goes to provide their wages and benefits.
The true cost of their destructive fancies is in the ever reducing return on labour,ever increasing costs of earning a living.
And to top it all off,after we are fined,harassed and imprisoned,when the same rules apply to their recreational homes or side projects..they get a pass.
Can-Ahh-Duh looks more like 1778 France every day.
Christchurch New Zealand is a testament to the mendacity of the Greys.
Grey minions of the Parasitic Horde.
JR, the spineless will never rise up and 63% of Canadians support this crap.
Who owns all the natural water in Saskatchewan.?? Sask Water does.
https://www.saskwater.com/
Who controls the movement, drainage and storage of natural water in Saskatchewan??
The Water Security Agency does.
https://www.wsask.ca/About-WSA/
So I have a 300 acre slough on my land with 6 feet of water in it, And because I love Donald Tump and J.R. Ewing, I should have the right to hire a track hoe, drain the water onto my neighbours 50 bushel an acre durum crop, and he shouldn’t have a word to say about it. Even if we’ve been good friends and neighbours for three generations. Gee guys, I’m living in the wrong country.
Gotta go!! ”Dallas” reruns are on in 5 minutes!!
PS: Now you know the real reason why Sue-Ellen drank.
Here is another travesty of justice. Asset Forfeiture, just another government rip off.
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/asset-forfeiture-and-destruction-american-liberty
Since when do these buricrats have control over Private Property? this is rediclous i mean we should protect wetland but not at the cost of someones private property I mean the Burcats would declare Death Valley as Wetlands when it ever rained there
And there really are people who think that we should not take action against these communists.
By endorsing, without thought (and in some cases, care) of long-term consequence, every bit of green energy/enviro madness that might turn them a profit, farmers and their organizations have been unwitting enablers to the regulatory persecutions and prosecutions they are now facing. Want some Examples? The insanity of the corn-sourced ethanol market; windmills; solar panels; bio-fuel; grants for everything from riparian remediation to drainage to low impact tillage. I got a farm newspaper yesterday that is just bubbling with the news that there is a new provincial policy in place with a goal to increase bio digesters by 50% within 5 years…and everyone will clap and give no thought to the costs exacted on their own freedoms or the increased tax-burden placed on the shoulders of their fellow citizens.
When you take cash from the green devil, he’ll keep coming back for his kilos of flesh.
The whole of Western Civilization is built upon the cornerstone of Property Rights. And the Right To Defend That Property. And with that Right, the responsibility to not destroy your neighbors right to his property.
John Locke on Property:Sec.30. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian’s who hath killed it; it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though before it was the common right of every one. And amongst those who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have made and multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original law of nature, for the beginning of property, in what was before common, still takes place; and by virtue thereof, what fish any one catches in the ocean, that great and still remaining common of mankind; or what ambergrise any one takes up here, is by the labour that removes it out of that common state nature left it in, made his property, who takes that pains about it.
Beware The Tragedy Of The Commons.
I guess what the article comes down to, is who determines what is a wetland in this case. In my opinion, when the state decides that you can not work your land because they deem it a wetland. Then the correct thing is that the state pay you full fair market value for your property. If they refuse then they are an outlaw regime and have no right to your property.
When you’re living on the prairies and you see a slough
You ditch it, drain it, burn it too
You can’t leave prairie wild and free
It’s especially important to remove every tree
Now put away the tractor, a combine won’t do
It takes a backhoe to drain a slough
Then you plant some wheat, some canola too
You fear the heavy rain, but you don’t want drought
If the hoppers come you spray them out
And if you’re really lucky come the harvest moon
You’ll be another wealthy farmer from a town like Saskatoon
Can you ditch it, can you drain it, can you burn it?
Can you fence it, can you plant it, can you spray it?
You can ditch them, you can drain them, you can burn them black
But rain sleet and snow will see the sloughs come back
Precipitation is the farmer’s foe
Always on the backhoe
Always on the go
I have done what we all are free to do.
Worried about what a neighbor might do that would impact us and our property and life style….we bought him out.
“I have done what we all are free to do.
Worried about what a neighbor might do that would impact us and our property and life style….we bought him out.”
True. But it’s not my neighbours that worry me – it’s my governments.
The solution is obvious, import more people. Zone for housing. More urban ridings. Fewer Fly-Over voters. Money for the developers & political parties across the country. See Justin smile. See Justin elected PM. See a fractious Nation, Post-Nation.
Win, Win, Win !