Geranium has the right to defend themselves

Last week, Rick Smith of Environmental Defence took issue with The Scope's recent editorial about Geranium's motion for costs following the Ontario Municipal Board decision on the Big Bay Point Resort.

I'm not going to argue our motion in the media. When our materials are filed, they will tell the whole and true story of the appalling conduct of the opponents. However, in defence of The Scope's editor, it takes a pair of rose-coloured glasses to read the board's decision the way Smith does.

This was not an ordinary hearing, or an ordinary decision, as Smith contends. Then again, how would he know? Environmental Defence wasn't at the hearing.

The board has the power to award costs, and rules that tell you when it will do so. Neither we, nor Environmental Defence, are challenging the power, or the rules. If the board couldn't punish improper conduct with costs, its hearings would be anarchy; that's not in the public interest.

The board has been making costs awards for decades, including awards in the hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars. There's no evidence at all that this has deterred citizens' groups or chilled public participation. It sure didn't deter the for-profit private golf course companies and local ratepayers who opposed us.

I believe there has been an abuse of the democratic process in Geranium's efforts to develop the resort, an abuse committed by Environmental Defence Canada and Smith.

The proposal has been going through the public, democratic process of approvals since 2002, when the original application was filed. As the OMB said in its ruling on the resort proposal in December 2007, "The development is consistent with, and has regard to, the Provincial Policy Statement, is supported by all levels of government and agencies required to review the project, including the province, the County (of Simcoe), the Town (of Innisfil) and the local (Lake Simcoe Region) Conservation Authority. A significant number of local residents ... are in favour of the development."

The board concluded that, "The Big Bay Point development proposal and the planning instruments filed in support of the project . . . represent good planning."

But none of this democratic process that has unfolded over five years is good enough for the selfstyled overseers at Environmental Defence, who, it turns out, have been funding the opponents of the resort proposal with charitable dollars provided by Ontario taxpayers.

In a recent examination of Smith before the Ontario Municipal Board, he acknowledged that Environmental Defence is a "partner" with the key opponents of the resort, the Innisfil District Association, whose membership includes at least one representative of two profit-driven companies that want to expand an exclusive private golf course on Big Bay Point.

It's important to note that pollutants from the golf course have apparently been leaching into the lake for years.

If it wasn't so tragic, it would be ironic that its owners and members are being aided and abetted by a charity sworn to defend the environment.

Given this bizarre circumstance, I believe that the time has come to ask whether the Canada Revenue Agency should investigate to determine if public funds and other charitable donations to Environmental Defence have been abused.

Until such an investigation is satisfactorily concluded, the government of Ontario, which last year gave Environmental Defence $500,000, should refuse to give any more tax dollars to this organization.

Nor should the tax dollarfunded Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation, (one of whose board members is Rick Smith of Environmental Defence) be permitted to give any more public money to Environmental Defence until it is given a clean bill of health.

The government of Ontario should also insist that the foundation, which was granted $25 million in public funds, toughen its conflict of interest rules to prevent grants to organizations represented on its board. In one year alone, the foundation allotted more than 20 per cent of its total grants to organizations with members on its board. Among those were members of Environmental Defence.

Questions also need to be asked, and answered, about why it took five years for Environmental Defence to show an interest in the resort project, and whether the purchase by Environmental Defence and other groups of thousands of dollars worth of newspaper ads to denigrate a resort proposal and the public approvals process is an appropriate use of charitable dollars.

Ontario taxpayers who contributed to Environmental Defence probably had no idea that their money would be used to fund an ad campaign and an intense media relations effort opposing a resort that has won the democratic support of councils in Innisfil, the county, the province and the OMB.

Environmental Defence and Smith should be ashamed and embarrassed for aligning themselves with resort opponents who have forced three levels of government to waste time and precious public dollars to defend themselves in a cynical war against the democratic process that led to approval of the resort.

We are as entitled as any citizen or company to defend ourselves, and we will let the courts speak; that's how things work in a democracy governed by the rule of law.
Earl Rumm,
President of the
Geranium Corporation