Exceeding the speed limit on a highway is breaking the law, a clear violation of the Highway Traffic Act, not subject to interpretation.
Exceeding your catch limit when fishing is an enforceable violation, not an interpretation of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act.
Yet when the City of Thunder Bay contravenes its own environmental study report, a Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change and Environmental Assessment Act document, the city’s position is that it’s an interpretation of the act.
The EAA is the law in matters of the environment, which include "air, water or land" – "or the conditions that influence the life of humans or a community."
It is an act like the Planning Act, the Elections Act and the Municipal Act, under which the city operates and strictly abides by.
The city’s current proposal for widening Golf Links Road, as an example, will be constructing ditches where there should be zero ditches, boulevards of zero depth, with no swales, on portions of the Stage 2B contract.
The city’s ESR categorically states there will be "the retirement of existing roadside ditches in the area" and supporting illustrations reinforce the concept of the elimination of ditches.
The city’s proposal for ditches, where there should not be any in stages 2A and 2B, are measurable and significant discrepancies – possibly up to two or three feet in depth extending over thousands of feet. It "merely represents a level of project refinement," is how the city has responded to the residents for these obvious inconsistencies with the approved ESR.
The city, as the proponent, conveniently and unilaterally determines that it is not an offence when it "does not strictly adhere to an ESR," contradicting Section A.2.6 of the municipal class EA, which states the proponent is not free to arbitrarily change or omit these provisions.
We ask they check with the MOECC. We have.
Why is the city paying a consultant with taxpayer dollars to justify and perpetuate its dubious interpretation of the EAA? Why can we, the residents, not avail ourselves of the legal opinion, pro or con, provided by the city solicitor’s office to administration and engineering staff, also paid for with taxpayer dollars?
What is lost in translation, or in the process, is what we are asking of the city – that is to build Golf Links Road as four-lane road, in the manner it was initially promised in its own document, prepared by the city on behalf of the city and approved by the city and the MOECC, accepted by the city and its residents.
This is what we expect, as should the city – nothing more, nothing less. This is a committed obligation which the city now has difficulty living up to, in its haste to proceed with its high priority, underfunded strategic infrastructure project.
How did it come to this?
We were forewarned that it would be business as usual at city hall. Should it have to be forever thus?
Ron Shiomi,
Thunder Bay
