City Considering SLAPP against Terry Fox Road Extension Opponents

In a break with city policy, Ottawa's city solicitor is recommending the city try to intimidate the opponents of the Terry Fox Drive extension into dropping their legal action against the city.

As the Ottawa Citizen reports:

The fight over the Terry Fox Drive extension could come with a $50,000 legal bill, city solicitor Rick O’Connor said Tuesday.

And the group of people who want to stop the $47.7-million roadway should be ordered to put up the cash before their case goes ahead, O’Connor told members of city council’s corporate services committee.

“We would be asking the court for this particular group to put money into the court to be set aside in the case that we win and that we’re entitled to our legal costs at the end of the day,” he explained. “If we are successful on a motion for security for costs, we’d be looking for this corporation to set aside approximately $40,000 or $50,000.”

The corporation, South March Highlands Carp River Conservation Inc., is taking the city to court next Tuesday in a bid to stop the Terry Fox Drive extension, a four-kilometre road being built through the ecologically sensitive South March Highlands in northern Kanata.

The group will ask the judge for an injunction, which would put an immediate stop to construction, pending a judicial review of whether the city broke the law in going ahead with the roadway without an updated environmental assessment.

The City of Ottawa has a policy not to ask for court costs from community groups that undertake litigation in the public interest. However, O’Connor said that South March Highlands Carp River Conservation Inc. does not meet the definition of a community group, having incorporated just three weeks before the lawsuit was filed.

“Clearly they initiated the incorporation solely to protect themselves … and they should know that they can’t hide behind the incorporation if, at the end of the day, we are entitled to have our costs,” he said.

Eric Gillespie, the lawyer for South March Highlands Carp River Conservation Inc., said it is the legal arm of a coalition that represents several community groups, some of which have long fought for conservation in the area.

“The City of Ottawa has a clear policy to not seek costs from community organizations. As a result, a request of that nature is very surprising and would seem very inappropriate,” he said.

This is clearly an attempt by the City to use the SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) tactic against a citizens group concerned about the environment and the ecological integrity of the South March Highlands to prevent them from acting in the public interest. This is a tactic that Environmental Defence and more than 60 Ontario groups are calling on the province to pass legislation protecting public interest groups from, and it is a tactic that we certainly do not expect representatives of the public to employ.

Considering the city policy to play fast and loose with federal and provincial environmental laws, as well as ignoring it's own demographic data, all in pursuit of free federal money, when it comes to this project, perhaps we should not be surprised by this latest proposed tactic.

Paul Renaud of the Coalition to Protect the South March Highlands has responded with the following statement:

This is absolutely outrageous and none of us should accept this abuse of municipal power against its own citizens.

1. How is it not in the public interest to conserve and protect the South March Highlands? Of course it is.

2. How can a public interest group stop being a public interest group by acting in the public interest? Does this mean that Friends of the Greenspace Alliance and other public interest groups are no longer acting in the public interest to defend green space just because they incorporate? Of course not.

3. Public interest groups already have to pay twice – i.e. for both sides in this legal case: our lawyer and the City’s lawyer who is paid by our tax dollars. Why should we pay 3 times? Perhaps we should offer to withhold our tax dollars to level the playing field.

4. The Coalition to Protect South March incorporated precisely to avoid this type of scare tactic being used against its members. Clearly we were wise to do so.

5. Is the City so unsure of its case that it is trying to keep it from getting to court? If so, why is City Council condoning both potentially illegal activity and the abdication of its policy not to pursue costs?

The Sierra Club Canada has issued the following statement:

Sierra Club Canada is shocked to hear the City of Ottawa is pressing a
community group for up-front court costs in the South March Highlands
case. Despite City policy not to demand court costs from public
interest community groups, a city solicitor is pressing for the group
to pay as much as $50,000.

“Moves like this impede the democratic process in the City of Ottawa,”
said Sierra Club Canada Executive Director John Bennett. “Citizens
should have a right to voice their concerns without fear of
heavy-handed reprisal.”

“There wouldn’t be a need for this if the City had obeyed the
environmental assessment laws in the first place,” said Mr. Bennett.
“The City is acting as a bully selectively applying its own rules.”

The Fifth Column calls upon all Ottawa citizens to let your city councillor know that you do not approve of your municipal government using intimidation tactics against citizens groups that oppose the actions of the city or developers.

Municipal Elections Suck

So why do municipal elections suck.

Because the way the system works now all too often the least preferred candidate wins rather than the most preferred candidate.

This results from the fact that there are often a large number of candidates, many of whom may share a similar philosophy and similar policies and who appeal to the same group of voters. For simplicity sake lets divide the candidates (and voters) into alphas and betas, for want of better terms.

Various scenarios can come into play here but for demonstration purposes lets look at a simple one. Let us say there are three alpha candidates that share 60% of the vote roughly and one beta candidate with 40% of the vote. Let us assume, reasonably, that the beta candidate is the last choice of almost all of the alpha voters. And let us assume, also reasonably, that while all the alpha voters may have individual preferences all the alpha candidates are acceptable to almost all of the alpha voters.

Under our present electoral system the beta candidate, the last choice of the majority of voters and the one acceptable to only a minority of voters would get elected. Similar situations can happen with different numbers of candidates and different breakdowns with either beta or alpha candidates benefiting from the flaw in the system.

Another effect of this of course is that people realize this is happening and "strategic voting" comes into play and voters attempt to avoid this by voting for their second or third choices instead of their first, depending on who the media says has the best chance of winning. Such a situation deprives voters of the ability to vote for their first choice and gives the media an inordinate (and undemocratic) amount of power in choosing who gets elected.

There is an alternative - system that allows voters to vote for their first choice amongst acceptable candidates and not vote for unacceptable candidates. Instead of voting for one candidate you would rank the candidates in order of preference, ranking as many candidates as you wish and avoiding ranking unacceptable candidates if you do not wish to. The votes would be tabulated electronically dropping the bottom candidates from the list and redistributing their votes to the voters next choice until a candidate receives over 50% of the vote.

Under this system the least preferred candidate would never be elected and the elected candidate would always be acceptable to the majority of voters.

This would allow voters to vote for their first choice knowing that if their first choice was not amongst the top vote recipients their vote would be transferred to their second choice and not become a de facto vote for the candidate they least liked. Strategic voting would be eliminated and all candidates would know how much real first ballot support they had and candidates would not be penalized because the media tells everyone they do not have a chance.

This type of system, of course, would not just work in municipal elections. Indeed, this is the type of system that the United Kingdom is going to hold a referendum on.

Using such a system in Ontario municipal elections would be an excellent place for us to start. While it is likely too late to introduce in this years election it may very well not be too late to add a question to the ballot in the November election to find out what voters think of the system.

Every Canadian Should Read This

It is long. It is shocking. It will make you sad. It will make you cry, It will make you puke. It will make you angry. It will make you fucking scream. But you should read it.

How I Got Arrested and Abused at the G20 in Toronto, Canada: backofthebook.ca

Mountain Biking the South March Highlands Trails - The Video

Why Is Bill Blair Still Toronto Police Chief

If there is one thing I thought all Canadians agreed on, in it was the rule of law and that the role of the police was to enforce the laws made by our elected governments not make up their own.

I find it hard to understand how a chief of police could admit to making up his own law and instructing the police to enforce it, while lying to the public about it, without adding "therefore I resign immediately". It does not even matter whether the law was enforced fairly or appropriately, which in this case the evidence indicates it was not - the police do not make up their own laws. It seems to me there can be no greater crime that a police chief could commit than to do that and upon admitting that there is no choice but immediate resignation.

Am I missing something. Why is there not total and complete public outrage over this. Are there really that many people that think a police state is acceptable, even for a weekend.

The G20, Peaceful Protests, Black Bloc Vandalism and Police Violence

The rationalizations are coming out now for why the police were conspicuously absent when acts of vandalism were taking place (away following peaceful protesters around Toronto streets), why they abandoned police cars for the Black bloc to torch (was it inadvertent, incompetence or intentional), and why they decided the best way to counteract a small group of criminals was to attack peaceful protesters, media and bystanders by detaining, arresting and even assaulting them for simply exercising their Charter right of peaceful assembly.

The rationalizations being - it worked, there were no incidents of vandalism on Sunday so whatever the police did was justifiable - they did arrest some criminals so that justifies the arrests of hundreds of innocent people along with them - and the ever used, people were asking for it by being where the police did not want them to be and refusing to do what the police ordered, whether lawful or not.

Indeed the overkill of police intimidation no doubt played into what changed the protests from protests against the actions of the G20 into demonstrations in support of the Charter right of freedom of peaceful assembly.

While we all deplore the vandalism of the Black bloc tactics, interestingly enough there were no reports of physical harm to people resulting from them, while there are many reports of physical harm from attacks on innocent people by the police, as well as massive attacks on the civil liberties and Charter rights of Canadian citizens.

The Story in Videos







For more reports from citizen journalists see Progressive Bloggers.

Over 900 people were arrested and the police claim about 400 will be charged with criminal offences, a tacit admission that over 500 innocent people were arrested. My prediction is that after the Crown Attorneys look at the actual evidence and eliminate those charged simply because they were talking to the wrong people or were wearing black in the wrong neighbourhood (sounds familiar, except for the "wearing" part) less than 100 will actually be charged with anything.

On the upside I suppose it was educational - for a weekend Torontonians and all Canadians got to see what it is like to live in a police state.

Amazing

Be sure to watch from beginning to end (and from end to beginning).



From AARP U@50 Challenge

South March Highlands - The Video

The story of the South March Highlands and why it must be saved, in under five minutes. A must watch video.

Best viewed full screen in 720HD

the5thColumnist Is a Twit

Yes, I've decided to become a twit, or a twitterer or whatever you call one who tweets. I've been watching Twitter for awhile and decided to try it. Like most forms of Internet technology I think it is misused more than it is well used, particularly as another way for celebrities to say "I'm more popular than everyone else - I have more friends without lives of their own following me than you do."

One of the things I think Twitter is really useful for for is live blogging - allowing 'citizen journalists to cover events live just like the mainstream media as well as for disseminating in formation on political/social/environmental campaigns and events.

I will probably be using it primarily to let followers know when I have updated either of my blogs - The Fifth Column or Richard' GPS Trail Maps and occasionally to draw followers attention to other blog posts that I am really impressed with.

So why now. Well I just broke my arm a week ago in a mountain biking accident and will be unable to bike for 6 to 8 weeks and somewhat limited in what I can do with just one useful arm and hand so I'm probably going to be spending more time at the computer for awhile.

You can find me on Twitter at Richard W. Woodley (the5thColumnist) on Twitter. You do not have to have a Twitter account to access this page and read my twits.

Saving the South March Highlands - Pursuing the Possible

(click map to enlarge)

As the above map indicates only approximately one third of the South March Highlands are protected within the city owned South March Highlands Conservation Forest, although originally all the lands were zoned with environmental protection.

The way zoning works, as far as environmentally protected land is concerned, is that developers can apply for rezoning through the municipal process or by appealing to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) as many times as they want. If they lose they can keep coming back with new proposals using the outspend, outwait and outfrustrate strategy to combat environmentalists and communities that want to protect environmentally important lands. However once land is zoned for development it is virtually impossible to undo it - because that would be taking away landowners rights. The environment, apparently, has no such rights.

Indeed developers make a large portion of their profits from "political development" - buying protected land cheap and using their influence to get it rezoned for development and massively increased in value.

If you look at the zoning map below (with the protected land approximately indicated in orange) you will see that about half of the non-protected lands in the South March Highlands are developed or zoned for development, and about half are zoned as Environmental Protection Zone (EP) or Parks and Open Space Zone (O1). We know that the zoning does not provide protection as all the lands were originally zoned protected.

(click map to enlarge)

Zoning Codes Used on Map
RESIDENTIAL ZONES
Residential Third Density Zone R3
Residential Fifth Density Zone R5
OPEN SPACE AND LEISURE ZONES
Parks and Open Space Zone O1
ENVIRONMENTAL ZONE
Environmental Protection Zone EP
RURAL ZONES
Agricultural Zone AG
Rural Residential RR
Rural Countryside Zone RU
OTHER ZONES
Development Reserve Zone DR

So how do we set priorities in terms of protecting the undeveloped land from development.

One strategy, and one hard to argue with, is to focus on the most urgent threats to the land, which at the moment is the construction underway on the Terry Fox Drive Extension and the imminent start of work on the KNL housing development. This brave battle has been taken on by the Coalition to Save the South March Highlands (website in progress) and the I want to save the land North of Beaver Pond Park in Kanata Ontario Facebook Group. Unfortunately these are both very difficult battles to win.

The City seems determined to ignore its own demographic information indicating no urgent need for the road and to completely undermine the environmental assessment process in order to get free federal money for this environmentally devastating project. Everyday that construction continues we get closer to the point of no return. Perhaps the old saying needs to be rewritten to "free money is the root of all evil".

The battle over the KNL lands has been fought between the developers, the community and environmentalists for literally decades until the community just ran out of the ability to keep fighting. A brave last stand is underway but unless KNL can be convinced to sell the land and someone can be convinced to buy it and protect it, it's loss is inevitable.

But there is another strategy. One that can be undertaken alongside these brave attempts to stop the highway and save the KNL lands. It is a strategy that looks to the future - to save SMH lands before it becomes almost impossible to do so.

On November 10, 2000 the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton announced the purchase of 556 acres of the South March Highlands for $1.6 million at the urging of Kanata Regional Councillor Alex Munter who has stated his biggest achievement would be putting South March Highland into public ownership to keep it protected. These are the lands that along with Trillium Woods form the bulk of the currently protected lands in the South March Highlands Conservation Forest.

If one examines the zoning map you can see that an additional area of almost the same size within the South March Highlands is zoned either as Environmental Protection Zone (EP) or Parks and Open Space Zone (O1).

No matter what happens in the battles over the Terry Fox Drive Extension and the KNL development the City of Ottawa must move immediately to acquire this land, using it's expropriation powers if necessary, before it undergoes the "political development" process and it's value is increased. As it stands, there is very little the landowners can do with it other than pay taxes on it. The City would be doing them a favour by purchasing the land (their hopes of using their political influence to increase it's value being irrelevant).

It is clearly in the public interest to purchase these environmentally sensitive and important lands and it is becoming increasingly apparent that is also what the public wants.

This strategy is clearly very possible.

As to those pursuing the strategy of trying to achieve the near impossible - Keep up the battle you might yet succeed and if you do not you will have raised public awareness and moved public opinion in a way that hopefully provides City Council with the political will to do the possible and save two-thirds of the South March Highlands rather than one-third.