South March Highlands - An Open Letter

As well as being posted on my blog, The Fifth Column ( http://the5thc.blogspot.com/ ), this is being sent to:

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson ( Jim.Watson@ottawa.ca )
Ottawa City Councillor Allan Hubley ( Allan.Hubley@ottawa.ca )
Ottawa City Councillor Marianne Wilkinson ( Marianne.Wilkinson@ottawa.ca )
Ottawa City Councillor David Chernushenko ( David.Chernushenko@ottawa.ca )
National Capital Commission CEO Marie Lemay ( Marie.Lemay@ncc-ccn.ca )
National Capital Commission Review of the 1996 Greenbelt Master Plan ( info@ncc-ccn.ca )
Norm Sterling, MPP, Carleton--Mississippi Mills ( norm.sterling@pc.ola.org )
Dalton McGuinty, MPP, Ottawa South, Ontario Premier ( dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org )
Gordon O'Connor, MP, Carleton—Mississippi Mills ( OConnor.G@parl.gc.ca )
Paul Dewar, MP, Ottawa Centre ( Dewar.P@parl.gc.ca )

Note all images in this post may be clicked on to be viewed larger

I am writing to you because we have a short window of opportunity to save much of what is arguably the most important area of environmental importance and cultural heritage within the City of Ottawa. While the South March Highlands is well known for its environmental significance, as home to a great number of species of animal and plant life, many of them endangered, recent research has also discovered that it may be just as important a site of archaeological significance, particularly in relation to our country's first peoples.


The preceding map, from the 2008 Brunton report, shows the boundary of the South March Highlands. The Google Earth view shows the lands that have already been developed and the blocked in green sections indicate the lands that are owned by the City of Ottawa and protected. The rest of the lands are privately owned, and though some are zoned Environment Protection history has taught us that all the privately owned land is at risk of being developed and at risk of environmental and archaeological destruction.

It is not the purpose of this letter to document why the South March Highlands should be saved or to reiterate the broad public support within the Ottawa area and all over Canada for saving these precious lands. That has already been well done and you have likely already seen or received such documentation. I do not wish to repeat all of that here but I will be attaching a document that provides a quick and easy overview of the significance of the South March Highlands. I will also provide links at the end of this submission to further resources on the South March Highlands.

I am writing to all of you together because saving what has not yet been developed in the South March Highlands is going to take political will at all levels of government. The City of Ottawa and the National Capital Commission will be key players, but the province and federal government will also have important roles, especially in regards to funding. This land is important and precious to all residents of Ontario and all citizens of Canada.


Time is of the essence as development plans are already underway for an important section of these lands, known as the Beaver Pond Forest, and the developer is waiting for the first opportunity to clear cut the lands, even as many questions regarding the developers fulfilment of development conditions are unanswered and the legitimacy of the environmental assessment processes followed are uncertain.

The only long term solution to save these lands for posterity is to bring them under public ownership. Fortunately, I understand that the National Capital Commission, during it's Greenbelt Master Plan Review, is considering adding the South March Highlands to the Greenbelt. There is where the federal government needs to step in to assure the NCC that the funds will be available to purchase or expropriate the remaining undeveloped privately held lands in the South March Highlands. This is an imperative part of the solution.

The NCC must also expedite this part of the Greenbelt review process so that as much land as possible can be acquired. The longer the wait the more opportunity there is to "develop the lands", that is to clear-cut the forest, blast the geology and otherwise destroy the land.

Ideally, in the meantime there would be a moratorium on all development in the South March Highlands, supported and legislated by the municipal, provincial and federal governments.

Until such a moratorium can be put in place the City of Ottawa, which controls the development process, must do all that it can to prevent further development from proceeding.

The most important thing that the City of Ottawa can do, is to do what it should be doing anyway, which is to ensure that all environmental measures, including wetland and watershed provisions, and cultural heritage/archeological processes are fully and properly undertaken and that all approvals are properly in place before any development is allowed to take place.

The City must also ensure that all developers have complied with all requirements of subdivision agreements and other approvals before allowing a single tree to be cut, rock to be blasted or land to be bulldozed.

The City can also act to assure the public of their good faith by offering to purchase or expropriate the lands under imminent threat of development. There is where the provincial government needs to step in to assure the City of Ottawa that the funds will be available to purchase or expropriate these threatened lands. This is also an imperative part of the solution.

Of course the first thing the City of Ottawa needs to do is to provide an opportunity for City Councillors to get a firm understanding of all the issues surrounding the South March Highlands, particularly new City Councillors. The best way to do that would be to have the matter referred to committee where public input can be provided, before allowing any further development measures to take place on any South March Highlands lands.

If all levels of government work together and show leadership and political will we can save the South March Highlands. The people that you represent expect no less.

Sincerely,

Richard W. Woodley, Bridlewood, Kanata, Ontario ( richardw.woodley@gmail.com )


Further resources on the South March Highlands
South March Highlands Overview (attached)

Save Ottawa's South March Highlands

Ottawa's Great Forest

I want to save the land North of Beaver Pond Park in Kanata Ontario Facebook Group

The Fifth Column SMH posts

The Fifth Column SMH Management Plan posts

Virtual Nonsense (Paul Renaud) SMH posts

South March Highlands Advocacy

South March Highlands Stewardship Plan


Appendix: South March Highlands Overview

Generation Inspired - Let Capitalism Fail

No comment required.

However, I cannot help but comment as I watch this and think about how we are supposed to react to the international response to the economic crisis and the measures being taken to save capitalism from collapse. What is happening is exactly what Karl Marx predicted except that he did nor foresee the use of a form of socialism for the rich to save capitalism. As governments world wide use austerity measures against workers to bail out the banks and corporations that have exploited them for years we are supposed to sit back and take it because there is no alternative.

But, there is an alternative. Let history happen. Let capitalism fail and build a new society from the ashes of the old.

Has Wikileaks Gone Off Track

If I recall correctly, it seems to me, that the original idea of Wikileaks was to provide an outlet for whistle-blowers who wanted to draw attention to government wrongdoing by releasing the documents that prove it.

Now it seems that the idea is that no information, whether government or corporate, should be confidential and that they will publish anything and everything leaked to them regardless of the motives or consequences.

And many seem to believe that they deserve the unquestioning support of all progressives. I'm not so sure about that.

Blue Wall of Pork Circles The Wagons

As Ottawa Police come under attack for repeated acts of brutality, rather than condemning the perpetrators, the Ottawa Police Association goes after the judges who have condemned the atrocities.

As the Ottawa Citizen reports:

The association is now looking at the possibility of filing a complaint into the comments made by Justice Richard Lajoie, who brought attention to officers’ mistreatment of suspects and prisoners when he dismissed criminal charges against Stacy Bonds, who had been charged with assaulting police.

Lajoie considered video recordings of Bonds being manhandled and strip-searched in the cellblocks at Ottawa’s downtown police station, and said he didn’t want to play any part in the “travesty” of the case against her. He called her treatment “an indignity towards a human being.”

Boucher wrote in the e-mail to his members that Lajoie’s comments drove a wedge between the police and the community. He wrote that the union leadership is consulting with its lawyers; it’s not clear to whom a complaint would be filed.

It is actions like these, the brutality by police officers themselves and their association attacking the judges who speak up against police brutality, that drives "a wedge between the police and the community", not the judges standing up for innocent members of the public. This "circle the wagons" Blue Wall of Silence is what that alienates the public from the police that should be protecting them, not brutalizing them.

What is Really Scary is ...

Some people will support the police whatever they do. When I saw the recent CBC poll I was disturbed, but then when I saw the CFRA poll I was disgusted.

CBC Poll - Did the Ottawa police officers go too far in their dealings with Stacy Bonds?

Yes 88.99%

No 8.93%

Undecided 2.08%

CFRA Poll - Should Ontario’s Attorney General resign after the province said it supports the decision made by crown prosecutors to proceed with a case against Stacey Bonds?

Yes, it’s an injustice and a travesty that the case went ahead in spite of how she was treated by police 60.3%

No, just because Bonds was not convicted doesn’t mean the decision to proceed was wrong 36.3%

Other 3.27%

Ottawa Citizen story


What I realized is that, indeed, some people will support the police no matter what they do. These are people who think the courts are too soft and that the police never arrest anyone that isn't guilty. These people think that if someone is beat up by the police they probably have it coming to them.

These are the same type of people who supported the right wing law and order blame the scapegoats German equivalent of the Tea Party in the 1930s.

These people are very scary and they are growing in numbers, egged on by people like Glenn Beck and Lowell Green. We must speak up against them.

The Fifth Columnist is Getting a New Camera for Christmas

My first serious camera was a Konica Autoreflex T3 35 MM SLR that I purchased in the early 1970s and used for over 25 years. It cost around $300, but I spent well over $1000 on it including lenses, the most expensive being a $500 80-200 MM zoom lens. I have always been a big lens guy shooting mainly landscape and wildlife. I also had a 2X converter that gave me a maximum focal length of 400 MM. Of course, with the large aperture required at that zoom and the lack of any form of stabilization, I could really only use the combination with a tripod on a sunny day. My daughter still has the Konica and it was her main camera till she got a digital SLR a year ago, but she still likes to shoot film occasionally. I got my first digital camera in 1999, and again I went for the big zoom. The $1,500 Sony Mavica FD-91 was one impressive looking camera for it's time. The 14X zoom on the Mavica was huge, a 35 MM equivalent of 37-518 MM and with Sony's Steady Shot image stabilization system it could be hand held at the full zoom. The camera was unique in that it used 3.5 inch floppy disks for image storage and though it was under a megapixel it produced decent 8X10 prints, even though the experts claimed that was not possible. It was a large camera but I was used to the size and feel of an SLR and preferred it over smaller digital cameras. The Mavica became my daughter's first digital camera when I upgraded. By 2005 a sub megapixel camera was pretty well considered obsolete and after 5 years I decided it was time to upgrade again. By now digital cameras were becoming serious and digital SLRs were available. However one of the main reasons I went to a digital camera with a long zoom was to avoid the hassle of changing multiple lenses and the weight and bulk of carrying them hiking. So I decided on the Panasonic Lumix FZ20 with a 12X 36-432 MM stabilized zoom lens. The FZ20, at a cost of about $1000 (with a bit more for an extra battery and memory cards), was a big improvement over the Mavica and takes great photos and I am sure it would do me well for many years to come. However with all things electronic and digital the time comes when you have to decide whether it is worthwhile to upgrade to a newer improved model with more features. After 6 years it looks like it is about time to upgrade again. This time I am looking at the Panasonic Lumix FZ100. The Lumix FZ100 is a 14 megapixel camera with a 25-600 MM 24X stabilized zoom with full HD video capability, rather than the crappy tiny Quicktime video of the FZ20. Shooting at 3 megapixels, the top of the zoom range is an effective 1200 MM lens - WOW. The awesome zoom and full HD video capability are the main features that made me decide that now is the time to upgrade, but the camera also has impressive burst shooting capabilities and a whole slew of improvements over the FZ20. The cost has gone down as well to about $550, but an extra battery and SD cards might add an extra $200 or so. So it looks like that will be under the tree for me this Christmas.

Fewer Politicians - Less Democracy

Everybody loves democracy and hates politicians. It doesn't make sense but it's a fact and it's what drives ideas like Mike Harris's "Fewer Politicians Act" which created megacities and recent proposals to reduce the size of Ottawa City Council.

But what does it really mean. Well it means less representation and more work for the people's representatives. Properly performed, a politician's job is already a 24 hour a day job. The more people a politician has to represent the less time he can spend representing each voter/taxpayer.

In municipal politics what that means is that elected representatives have to depend more on city staff for information and advice, and in Ottawa that means more power to the development industry because Ottawa's city administration is developer driven.

Hopefully our new City council will see the flaws in this proposal from the new mayor's election campaign and maintain the peoples representation on council and not give even more power to developers in running our city.

The Fifth Column Is Not Dead

I have just been a bit preoccupied with things lately. I've actually been thinking about things to blog about so once the spirit moves me I should be off and running. More to write about SMH, of course, and cycling stuff and political commentary on all sorts of things. And I've been looking at getting a new camera that I want to talk about. In the meantime I am posting short tweets and links on my twitter feed that you can follow on the right hand column of The Fifth Column.

Beautiful Calendars For Christmas Gifts

Are you looking for a unique Christmas gift for your friends and family. Is your company looking for a unique way to recognize your employees this holiday season. For only $20 each you can purchase beautiful calendars with high quality photos of Ottawa's beautiful South March Highlands taken by local photographers.

I cannot say enough about how beautiful and unique these calendars are. We have purchased many for gifts for our friends. This is a great opportunity to give your friends unique gifts and help save Ottawa's beautiful South March Highlands. Proceeds from calendar sales go to the Coalition to Protect the South March Highlands (South March Highlands - Carp River Conservation Inc.).

Click Here To Order A Beautiful Calendar

No shipping charge for orders in the Ottawa area.

Another "Brings Tears To Your Eyes" Video - The South March Highlands