Doug Ford, we’ve got news for you from southwestern Ontario. We’re here trying to grow food for the nation, commercially harvest fish from Lake Erie, and you opt to dump all over us, especially the people who live in and around Dresden.
Your government’s asinine move on April 17 to pave the way for the rapid development of a landfill site just one kilometre north of the North Kent community is nothing short of a ticking environmental time bomb.
All the company that owns the property needs to do now is to line up for environmental permits after you pulled the need for an environmental assessment.
What a difference a year makes. Or was this in the works all along?
York1 tried last year to set up shop with a 24/7 landfill/recycling operation on Irish School Road, and the citizens, as well as the municipality, reared up in very loud protest.
You, Mr. Ford, skipped out on a hospital announcement in Wallaceburg last spring, avoiding a pile of protestors in the process. Fogged out? Perhaps fogged up.
However, prior to that, when a reporter asked you about the York1 proposal at a press conference in Windsor in March of 2024, this is what you had to say: “If the people like something, we do it. If they don’t, we don’t do it. It’s about as simple as that.”
So much for simple. No provincial roadblock ever went up to effectively kill the proposal to activate the long dormant landfill and massively expand upon so close to Dresden and too damned close to feeder tributaries of the environmentally significant Sydenham River.
Instead, the province announced last spring there would need to be an environmental assessment done on the site, paid for by York1, something that could take years.
Fortunately, the citizen’s group Dresden CARED (Citizens Against Reckless Environmental Disposal) didn’t take you at your word. Others relaxed, but they didn’t.
Why trust government, right?
Because government, apparently, does not have your back, at least not if you live several hundred kilometres away from Toronto. Out of sight, out of mind.
Well, sir, there is no way this will remain out of sight or out of your mind. The people, the local media, and area municipalities won’t let you forget about this.
