re: NDACT meeting, Jan. 16, 2010, Honeywood - ie. the Melancthon/Mulmur quarry issue

“Ask Not...?”

I attended the January 16th event in Honeywood organized by NDACT regarding the Melancthon/Mulmur quarry proposal, and I have the following observations to offer. As the microphone was passed around, many speakers indicated where the battle lines should be drawn, but few dared speak the name of the hideous elephant in the room that spawned this demon child.

In short, it is unquestionably ourselves, and our unrelenting appetite for growth. We believe unflinchingly that economic growth is not only desirable, it is essential. So essential in fact, that politicians, economists and the media start frothing at the mouth when growth merely slows down. Stopping growth is unthinkable, heresy, apocalyptic. We never question this dogma.

Instead, at the meeting many questioned the motives of our politicians. But nobody gets elected by promising a static world. Show me a politician who does not promise more growth. Show me an economist who defies that mantra. We voted for growth, and now we not only have it, but we will burn the furniture to keep it spiraling ever upwards.

As a species, we are insatiable. Despite standing in piles of incredible wealth compared with the rest of the world, we simply must have more of everything. More suburbs, more 6-lane highways, more shopping malls... a booming economy is the only thing that matters, and any- body who suggests otherwise is a certified nutbar. Growth is the God we worship, but that God demands a terrible sacrifice.

We are all in a serious conflict of interest on this issue. We, the Province of Ontario, are by far the major consumer of gravel, primarily for the roads that we all want more of. So why would We the Province put roadblocks in the way of all that essential growth - for example by banning aggregate mining in sensitive areas? Of course we do nothing of the sort, because growth must continue, and virtually nothing can be allowed to stop the gravel extraction that underpaves that growth. Not farmland, not watersheds, not wetlands, nothing.

By Provincial policy decree - gravel trumps everything - and despite sentimental appeals to common sense, saving good farmland, or not destroying a community - that policy is the law - and we ourselves chose it to be that way. Local councils are virtually powerless in this struggle. In later stages, the OMB will be unmoved by impassioned pleas for mercy.

Their task is to oversee the application of municipal planning rules and Provincial policy, which ensures cheap gravel for all, no matter what gets destroyed in the process.

So most gravel operations are in fact, a done deal, and money in the bank for the proponents no matter who they may be.

Several meeting attendees asked for truth. The Melancthon/Mulmur quarry is a perfect example of why the insanity of infinite growth on a finite planet will ultimately destroy all of us. I wish it wasn’t this way.

But sadly, we have created the God of Growth, and now we must bow down before it. The quarry proponent is simply the agent of Provincial policy, which dictates that some communities shall be devoured, so that others may flourish.

Until we recognize this truth, we will continue to fight the wrong battles, and we will continue to lose them.

Ask not for whom the quarry will be dug, it will be dug for thee.

Richard Proctor

via e-mail