Are residents of Simcoe County too enamoured with growth and too easily persuaded that growth and development are necessary for economic prosperity?

AWARE Simcoe, a local environmental awareness action group, believes so, and it has released its own Vision for Simcoe County as a response to the province’s growth plan for the Simcoe County region.

The group held a public meeting Saturday at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Bradford to present some of its alternatives to growth and host a panel discussion of the challenges facing the area.

AWARE Simcoe’s motto is Elect to Protect, encouraging citizens to look at the environmental records of local politicians and speak with their votes.

Speaker Bernard Pope, of Ontario Farmland Preservation, called for greater public involvement in the planning process to offset the amendments “developed through lobbyists, speculators and developers” that have “weakened” the province’s Places to Grow policies.

“The loss of a farmer is the loss of character, experience and knowledge of the production of food. The loss of farmland is forever,” he said.

“Politicians and planners need to understand the impact of the decisions that cost farmland. Agriculture is the No. 1 value-added sector in the province,” he added. “Agriculture has a commanding financial footprint in the province.”

Pope called for long-term policies that would ensure the security of agriculture in Ontario’s future.

“The farmer always sells the farm, eventually,” he acknowledged, but development pressures mean that all too often, the death of the farmer leads to “the death of the soil” and prime agricultural land being lost to urban sprawl.

Pope called for more education for rural and urban Ontarians about the importance of a “symbiotic relationship with food production.”

Among the speakers was Carl Cosack, of the North Dufferin Agricultural and Community Task Force, established to fight the 2,300-acre mega-quarry proposal of The Highland Companies, in Melancthon Township.

The mega-quarry has been stopped — the proponents have abandoned their bid — but Cosack’s new focus is a provincewide awareness campaign, Food and Water First, that seeks to place protection of agricultural land and clean drinking water ahead of development interests.

All of the speakers said agriculture is the key to Ontario’s economic prosperity.

Bill French, a Collingwood resident, urged environmental groups to “win the hearts and minds of people” and put pressure on municipal politicians. Asked how residents can have an impact on decisions at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) when development issues come up, he suggested winning the support of the local municipal government is key.

But Cosack suggested by the time an issue ends up at the OMB, it may be too late.

“You end up in front of the OMB because there’s issues about planning,” Cosack said. “Get engaged with your official plan today,” he urged, to ensure it contains protection for agriculture and the environment.

The Highland Companies chose Melancthon Township for a mega-quarry because “it had the smallest population with the least amount of regulation and governance for resource extraction,” he said, adding the company did its research. Melancthon is now changing its official plan.

“Change is happening everywhere. It just has to be change in the right way.”

For more information, or to see AWARE Simcoe’s Vision for Simcoe County, visit aware-simcoe.ca

By Miriam King

Published in the Midland Free Press, Mar. 25, 2103