Tag: ontario government

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Cottage Life

Ontario government proposes fines for overtaking snowplows on highways

Photo by Shutterstock/Benoit Daoust

Passing a slow-moving snowplow may cost you, if the Ontario government passes its newest bill.

On April 3, the provincial government introduced its Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act 2023. The bill includes 42 initiatives that, if passed, are intended to improve public services, grow businesses, and save people time.

One of the proposed initiatives is an amendment to the Highway Traffic Act. The amendment would make it an offence to overtake working snowplows in a diagonal formation on a multi-lane highway with a posted speed limit of 80 km/h or higher. The fine for passing would be between $150 and $1,000.

“The proposed amendments are intended to reduce unsafe passing maneuvers and collisions occurring by motorists overtaking snowplows performing winter maintenance activities on these roadways. Fewer collisions with snowplows will result in improved safety for snowplow operators and the travelling public, fewer snowplows being placed out of service, and less impact on snow clearing activities on these highways,” the province said in a statement.

Drivers would only be allowed to pass the snowplow if a full lane was available to complete the maneuver. This means that if plows are working in each lane of the highway, you can’t maneuver into an oncoming lane to get around them. In fact, the government says that passing a working snowplow even if a lane is available can be dangerous.

Visibility around the snowplow is often reduced due to blowing snow and the snow ridge created by the plow. And while most plows discharge snow to the right, there are some vehicles that discharge to the left, blocking passing lanes. Plus, it’s likely the road ahead hasn’t been cleared.

Instead, it’s recommended that you wait until plows have cleared your route before hitting the road. But if you do get stuck behind one, stay approximately 10 car lengths back and be patient.  The plow may pull over and let you pass.

The provincial government is asking the public to weigh in on the snow plow amendment before the new act is voted on. You can leave a comment here until May 18.

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Cottage Life

Toronto Zoo, Parks Canada voice concerns over planned development of the Greenbelt

Photo by Shutterstock/Colin Temple

The public consultation period for a controversial proposal from the Ontario government has come to an end. In early November, the province announced plans to open 15 sections of protected land within Ontario’s Greenbelt, totaling 7,400 acres, for housing.

In an attempt to tackle Ontario’s housing crisis, the proposal would expand the amount of land available for development in the Greater Golden Horseshoe Region. Premier Doug Ford has committed to building 1.5 million new homes in the next 10 years, and the government says 50,000 new homes would be built on the Greenbelt land.

The government has also stated that it would replace the developed land with 9,400 acres, consisting of 13 urban river valley areas and a section of the Paris Galt Moraine, approximately an hour’s drive east of Toronto.

The proposal, however, has been met with opposition. Protests have erupted around the province as stakeholders voice concerns about the environmental impacts of developing the Greenbelt and point out that Ford promised he wouldn’t touch the Greenbelt during his re-election campaign.

It’s also been revealed that developing the Greenbelt could thrust the provincial government into a series of legal complications.

Parks Canada issues letter in response to removal of Greenbelt lands

As part of its Greenbelt proposal, the Ford government plans to open a section of the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve, an area of protected land in Pickering, for development. This section of land is adjacent to the Rouge National Urban Park, which falls under Parks Canada’s jurisdiction.

During the public consultation period for the Greenbelt amendment, Parks Canada submitted a letter to the Ontario government, pointing out that if the province developed this land without consulting Parks Canada, it would be breaking a Memorandum of Agreement between the provincial and federal governments.

The letter went on to say that a Parks Canada analysis found that developing the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve could cause irreversible harm to the wildlife, natural ecosystems, and agricultural landscapes within the Rouge National Urban Park.

“Parks Canada looks forward to productive discussions on the issue with the province,” said a spokesperson for the agency in an email.

Toronto Zoo concerned about how developing the Greenbelt lands will affect endangered species

Developing so close to the Rouge National Urban Park could also endanger Blanding’s turtles, which are protected under the federal government’s Species at Risk Act. To help the species recover, the Toronto Zoo, in collaboration with Parks Canada, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), has been raising Blanding’s turtles and then releasing them into the Rouge National Urban Park.

“Since 2012, 603 Blanding’s turtles have been released into the Rouge watershed,” said Dolf DeJong, CEO of the Toronto Zoo. “It’s a really challenging narrative for us because we usually don’t share the locations where these animals are put back publicly. We do that to reduce the threat of poaching and unintentional habitat damage from people trying to see them. But there are 149 of these animals that have been released adjacent to where they’re talking about developing with the proposed amendments to the Greenbelt Act.”

DeJong pointed out that the Rouge National Urban Park acts as a corridor for these at-risk species, connecting Lake Ontario to land north of Highway 407.

“Our research is suggesting home range lengths can be between just under a kilometer to over three kilometers, with maximums over seven,” he said. “Having linked spaces that connect wetlands and wild spaces, as well as underpasses and natural corridors that ravines, valleys, and rivers provide is so important for [the Blanding’s turtles] to connect and mix.”

The Rouge National Urban Park is also home to other at-risk species, including three types of bats: the northern myotis, the little brown bat, and the tricoloured bat.

According to the Species at Risk Act, a corporation that damages an at-risk species’ habitat could be fined up to $300,000.

Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation say they were not consulted

On December 5, Pickering held a city council meeting to discuss endorsing staff recommendations to support the province’s decision to remove the lands in Pickering from the Greenbelt under Bill 23. In 2019, Pickering’s former mayor, Dave Ryan, wrote a letter to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, asking them to repeal the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act so that the city could develop on the land.

On November 16, 2022, newly elected Pickering mayor Kevin Ashe, communicated the same sentiment, writing a letter to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing indicating support for the removal of the Duffins-Rouge Agricultural Preserve from the Greenbelt and the repeal of the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act.

The December 5 city council meeting allowed Pickering residents to voice their opinions on whether the city should support the province’s removal of the Duffins-Rouge Agricultural Preserve from the Greenbelt. The meeting lasted approximately six hours, dragging into the early morning of December 6. A succession of 30 speakers stepped forward, the majority opposing the proposal.

One of the meeting’s biggest revelations came around the fifth hour when Chief Kelly LaRocca of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation (MSIFN), whose reserve is in Port Perry, northeast of Pickering, addressed council.

“Just for a bit of background,” she said. “It’s the province’s constitutional duty to provide informed and meaningful consultation to First Nations when its rights and land would be impacted by Crown decision-making. It must be noted that MSIFN were not consulted by the province in advance of its decision to pass Bill 23 or amend the Greenbelt and Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act. These legislative and regulatory changes are, therefore, in our view, unconstitutional.”

LaRocca went on to accuse both Pickering and the provincial government of pursuing symbolic gestures during “this time of reconciliation,” rather than engaging in meaningful action and consultation.

“We submit the city should not pursue any significant planning reforms until such time that the province addresses its consultation failures and the municipality engages in informed consultation,” she said.

In the end, Pickering’s council voted against supporting the removal of the Greenbelt lands and also repealing the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. However, the Province has since passed Bill 39, repealing the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act and effectively leaving the lands without legislative protection.

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Cottage Life

‘It won’t be immediate, but it is coming’: Municipalities say property taxes to increase as a result of Bill 23

Photo by Alexander Gold/Shutterstock

On Monday, the Ontario government passed the controversial Bill 23. The bill is intended to spur development and address the province’s need for affordable housing. But critics are concerned that it will instead raise property taxes and threaten protected conservation areas.

The bill limits input from citizens and conservation authorities in the approval process for new housing and removes certain environmental protections, opening areas such as Ontario’s Greenbelt to development.

Bill 23 is tied to Premier Doug Ford’s commitment to building 1.5 million new homes by 2031. Although, high inflation and interest rates are already curbing that number, with experts predicting that fewer than 80,000 homes a year will be built over the next several years. While the bill is aimed at Ontario’s urban centres, particularly the Golden Horseshoe, many cottage country communities are concerned about its far-reaching effects.

“I think it is short sighted because the philosophy for decades has been that growth should pay for itself,” says John Boyko, a Selwyn Township councillor in Peterborough County.

Previously, when a company was building a development, it would have to pay additional fees to the municipality. Those fees would be used to build infrastructure that supported the new development, such as roads and sewer systems. But under Bill 23, the costs of that infrastructure now fall on the municipality rather than the developer.

The Association of Municipalities Ontario found that by transferring costs from developers to municipalities, the bill would reduce the municipal resources available to service new developments by more than $5.1 billion over the next 9 years.

“Once these areas are developed, there will not be enough money in the municipal coffers to pay for the enhancement and development of those services and the maintenance of the infrastructure,” Boyko says. “Therefore, taxes across the rest of the municipality will have to go up. I don’t know whether premier Ford realizes it or not, but what he’s done with Bill 23 is cause an enormous tax increase on the taxpayers of the province of Ontario. It won’t be immediate, but it is coming.”

Murray Fearrey, the mayor of Dysart et al in Haliburton County, says that this is not the time to dump a property-tax increase on citizens. “We need some stability here.”

Fearrey points out that property taxes have already seen a significant spike over the last several years as municipalities implemented necessary infrastructure and funding to combat COVID.

“It seems to me that the federal government is trying to run the province and the province is trying to run the counties and municipalities,” he says. “Everyone’s stepping down, and we’re at the bottom rung in the ladder.”

While both Fearrey and Boyko agree that further development is necessary, they’re clear that lack of public input, increased taxes, and expansion into environmentally sensitive areas, especially in cottage country where the natural landscape is intrinsically tied to the area’s appeal, is problematic.

“One of the existential questions of our generation is how we are going to deal with the mitigation of climate change,” Boyko says. “What Bill 23 has done is decrease the ability of municipalities and conservation authorities to determine what is safest and best for the environment with respect to development.”

The Municipality of Kawartha Lakes voiced similar environmental concerns in a recent council meeting. The area is home to Oak Ridges Moraine, an environmentally sensitive landform that, as part of Ontario’s Greenbelt, is being opened to development under Bill 23.

“We will not be allowed to reach out to Kawartha Conservation or other conservation authorities to comment on certain policies. We will have to have other reporting agencies do that for us. Bill 23 will be awful for conservation authorities across Ontario as they have power taken away from them for the second time in the last two years,” councillor Pat Warren said during the meeting.

“The bill asks conservation authorities to open up some of their land for development. It will aid the development community and not boost housing for those who really need it,” she continued. The Kawartha Lakes council resolved to oppose Bill 23 and support the Association of Municipalities Ontario in lobbying the government to rethink the bill.

However, Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, says its unlikely the bill will be reigned in. “The Ford government feels confident they can forge ahead with the bill. It’s got a solid majority government, it recently won an election, and there isn’t another election on the horizon for years. So, they don’t feel threatened politically.”

Wiseman adds that the bill is partially a deflection. The Ontario government needs to build more houses, but as a conservative government, it doesn’t want to be seen raising taxes, so it downloads that responsibility on municipalities.

“Mike Harris did this one sterling example here in Toronto when all of a sudden, he yanked whatever provincial support there was for the TTC. Meaning that the TTC was the only subway service in North America that didn’t get any support from beyond the municipal level,” Wiseman says, equating it to the way the Ford government is transferring development fees to the municipalities.

Wiseman also points out the contradiction of Bill 23. During Ford’s bid for re-election, he promised not to touch the Greenbelt. “And now, he’s expanding into it. He’s saying, well, we’re just expanding a little and we’re going to add more Greenbelt,” Wiseman says.

“The problem isn’t a shortage of land. From what I can make out, the problem is how you use the land.”

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Cottage Life

How the Ontario gov.’s sweeping planning and development changes will play out in cottage country

Photo illustration by Taylor Kristan

For the past several years, Deborah Martin-Downs, who served as the chief administrative officer of the Credit Valley Conservation Authority, has been working closely with the Township of Muskoka Lakes to update the environmental protections in its land use policies. “The township has official plans that put the environment first,” says Martin-Downs, who also served for two years as the president of the Muskoka Lakes Association. The township’s latest official plan explicitly cites goals such as maintaining a “high level of protection” for lakes and natural heritage features. “Other cottage municipalities, such as Haliburton and Kawartha Lakes, have done similar things, because without the environment, they will have nothing to offer people.”

So, in late October, when the Ontario government tabled a far-reaching omnibus bill that not only scrambled much of the province’s land-use planning rules, but also struck at the heart of environmental protections—for natural features such as wetlands, as well as the clout of conservation authorities by removing their ability to weigh in on the impact of development proposals within watersheds—Martin-Downs’ radar began to ping. “What I read in this act is a total disregard for the environment,” she said about a week after it was tabled in the Ontario legislature. (Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities, many of which were established in the aftermath of Hurricane Hazel in 1954, are mandated to protect floodplains and block development on hazardous or ecologically sensitive areas within a watershed.)

The legislation, formally known as Bill 23, or the “More Homes Built Faster Act,” ostensibly aims to remove bureaucratic roadblocks that have, according to the government, allowed a housing shortage in the more built-up parts of Ontario to reach crisis proportions. House and condo prices have gone through the roof. New home starts aren’t keeping up with demographics. Rents have also skyrocketed. In order to close the gap and bring down the costs of ownership, Premier Doug Ford has said he wants to build 1.5 million new homes in a decade—an unprecedented pace of development. To accomplish this, his government has introduced legislation that effectively strip-mines the planning approvals system, removing conditions that have long rankled developers, such as consultation processes, high development charges and other fees, and regulatory requirements viewed as obstacles to growth. The problem? The new rules, mainly aimed at Ontario’s urbanized southern region, could also have far-reaching ecological consequences. The changes could affect the agricultural band surrounding the Greater Golden Horseshoe, as well as more rural regions, including the lake and recreational districts whose health depends on a range of environmental protections, from watershed conservation to rules governing phosphate loads in lakes.

In particular, the new bill removes barriers to sprawl, significantly curtails the ability of conservation authorities to protect watersheds, and eliminates third-party appeals of development applications, such as those from cottager groups. Municipalities across the province will find their planning departments facing increased pressure from the building industry to process development applications. And, as Martin-Down points out, the municipalities in rural areas are simply not equipped to handle the volumes; many don’t even have a professional planner on staff.

Planners and conservation authority officials have been studying the proposed laws since they dropped, and many say that it will be months before they have a firm understanding of what’s been put forward and how it fits into other reforms that have been set in motion, such as allowing more development in the Greenbelt around the GTA. But most agree that the act’s main impact will be a downloading of services onto ill-equipped municipalities, the neutering of the conservation authorities, the removal of opportunities for individuals to raise concerns about developments, and an erosion of standards that protect source water and limit flooding.

“I think it puts more of a burden on the municipality,” says Anthony Usher, a planning consultant who has advised many cottage associations, owners, and developers. He adds that the Bill 23 changes, as well as other planning policy reforms coming out of Queen’s Park, place a far greater onus on landowners and community associations to monitor what’s happening with their municipal councils. “Every one of those changes underlines the importance of local political action.”

Under the proposed new rules, the conservation authorities will no longer be allowed to provide municipalities with feedback on development applications, as has been common practice for almost two decades. Instead, it will fall to municipal planning departments to monitor any environmental risks.

Some conservation authorities have provided that kind of analysis to municipalities on a fee-for-service basis, often paid by the developer, so the fiscal burden for carrying out these kinds of studies now shifts to local councils—and by extension, taxpayers—which often don’t have the staff or in-house expertise to do environmental impact assessments. Furthermore, the government is proposing changes to wetland classification, and some may no longer qualify as provincially significant ecological zones. Nonetheless, they remain important environmental areas that could now face development pressure, says Tim Lanthier, the chief administrative officer of the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority. “They’ve put things into the act that expand the powers of a minister to override any regulations through a zoning order, so the stage has been set,” he says, adding that he knows of several wetlands and habitat zones within Grey Sauble’s catchment area that could be endangered. “Certainly there are some wetlands that are in contentious development areas that could be at risk.”

Usher points out that for wetlands, which help prevent or mitigate flooding and erosion, that are not designated as provincially significant, “the conservation authorities currently have some leverage to try to protect or influence their protection.” He says that if the changes pass, it will be solely on the municipalities to decide whether or not a wetland should be protected. “The conservation authorities will have little input on the planning process—they’ll be told they have to basically stick to protecting floodplains and pointing out hazard lands, and that’s it.”

The proposed changes will also significantly diminish the role of conservation authorities in protecting communities from flooding, agrees Terry Rees, the executive director of the Federation of Ontario Cottage Associations (FOCA), which has been working in recent years with Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry officials on an improved flood strategy. “We know from the insurance industry and the financial sector that we need to be much more diligent about where we allow people to build, and that includes keeping people away from natural hazards and watercourses,” he says. “Having less oversight and having more permissive building may lead us to having buildings and communities and infrastructure that are going to be at risk.”

Mark Majchrowski, the chief administrative officer for Kawartha Conservation, agrees. He points out that all this is happening at a time when cottage and rural districts, as well as conservation authorities themselves, have seen increased tourism. That dynamic will only increase with urban intensification.

“Green spaces are pretty important for development, and a lot of people flock to conservation area property,” he observes. “So conservation areas are an important element of our infrastructure as a whole.” Martin-Downs agrees: “If the pandemic told us anything, it is that people need a place to go for a walk.”

Another element of Bill 23 involves the suspension of third-party appeals and the elimination of the requirement to hold a public meeting—a move that seems aimed at restricting the ability of homeowner groups to slow development applications with appeals to the Ontario Land Tribunal. Under the proposed law, the OLT will no longer hear third-party appeals; if residents have concerns about a development, they’ll have to persuade the municipality to make an appeal on its own (which may not happen).

In lake areas, says Usher, very few applications make it to the appeal stage, and fewer make it to the OLT; most are approved by municipalities or resolved through negotiations between the parties. But by removing the right of appeal, he predicts that developers—both large and small—will have far less incentive to try to work out some kind of compromise with their neighbours.

Usher adds that there will be an indirect impact with the removal of the right to appeal, which raises the stakes for the municipal planners. “What does that mean for cottagers and for cottage associations that have lake plans and so on? Now, the municipal council is really the only decision-making point and the only check in the system.”

From her vantage point, Deborah Martin-Downs says that the new rules— which come hot on the heels of previous waves of planning reform laws promulgated by the Ford government—will merely make planning less predictable for residents, more costly for the municipalities, and riskier for the environment. “Confusion,” she says, “will reign for quite a while.”

John Lorinc writes about cities, climate, and clean technology. Follow cottagelife.com for updates on this story as it develops.

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Cottage Life

Ont. government extends private club’s deer hunting season to longest in Ontario

Photo by Shutterstock/William T Smith

Buried amongst a series of hunting regulation changes proposed last November by Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) was an amendment pertaining to two private islands off the coast of Georgian Bay, near Owen Sound. The amendment read: “Start the existing rifles, shotguns, muzzle-loading guns, and bows seasons in WMUs 83B and 83C on October 1.”

WMU stands for wildlife management unit. Ontario is divided into 95 of them. It’s how the MNRF monitors wildlife populations while doling out hunting licenses. A WMU’s hunting regulations can change based on the size of its wildlife population.

The designations 83B and 83C correspond with two private islands: Griffith Island and Hay Island, respectively. The amendment, pushed through by the provincial government, extended both islands’ rifle deer hunting seasons from 11 weeks to 13 weeks, the longest in the province. Far longer than the average two weeks designated to most WMUs in Ontario. In fact, on the mainland, only a quick boat ride away, the rifle deer hunting season lasts all of seven days.

So, why do two private islands need such a long rifle deer hunting season?

An astute reader of the Narwhal brought this fact to the attention of Emma McIntosh, the publication’s Ontario reporter. “[He] found out about it through his own networks and researched it for a couple of months before reaching out to me,” she says.

As McIntosh dug into the story, she discovered that Griffith Island is owned and operated by a private hunt club, one that has long-standing ties with elite North American clientele, including CEOs, sport executives, and politicians.

Former Ontario premier and Conservative Party member John Robarts served as the Griffith Island Club’s first president after its founding in 1973. In 2004, the Globe and Mail reported on a lavish hunting trip taken by Conservative Party members on Griffith Island, including a former minister of municipal affairs and a close advisor to the Ontario Premier at the time. The trip was paid for by Hydro One.

Today, the club has around 70 members, offering 22 rooms for overnight stays, a private chef, a sauna, a ferry service, and its own landing strip for small, chartered planes.

Ron McCulloch, a hunter who lives in the Georgian Bay area, worked as a guide on Griffith Island in 1996 and 1997. He remembers members travelling from all over Canada and the U.S. to hunt on the island. At that time, McCulloch says membership cost $50,000 to join, plus annual dues.

As a guide, McCulloch was responsible for leading two hunts a day. Staff at the club are responsible for managing the island’s wildlife population through breeding. Pheasant is the most popular hunting game on the island. The birds are kept in pens until it’s time to hunt, and then released into fields.

With no predators, few vehicles, and lots of space to graze, the island is also an ideal ecosystem for white-tailed deer. Some have been known to swim between the mainland and the island. Staff are responsible for tracking and managing the deer population, with strict rules around how many bucks can be harvested, requiring them for breeding.

“There’s a hell of a population of deer on that island,” McCulloch says. “There are a couple hundred deer.”

Considering the island measures a total of 2,300 acres, that is a dense deer population. According to the provincial government’s harvesting records, approximately 70 deer were killed on Griffith Island last year. A former club guide, who asked not to be named, says the island has so many deer that the club has difficulty meeting its WMU harvesting quota.

Hay Island, on the other hand, also privately owned, only harvested one deer last year.

In an email from the MNRF, a government spokesperson explained that this dense deer population is the reason for the longer hunting season. “The longer timeframe reflects the lower risk of an unsustainable harvest—these islands lack predators, and the longer rifle season supports a sustainable hunt and enables deer population management on the islands.”

The MNRF also pointed out that sections of northern Ontario have similar rifle deer hunting seasons due to their higher-than-average deer populations and lower human populations.

The Griffith Island Club echoed the MNRF in its own email response to the extension. “Griffith Island is a unique ecosystem by virtue of being an island with limited access. It was designated a separate wildlife management unit by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry many decades ago. As a result of this designation the ministry sets season lengths and harvest limits, as it does for all other WMUs in Ontario.

Experienced game and habitat managers monitor the health and viability of the deer population and provide the MNRF with relevant data so that the ministry can set the appropriate length of season to maintain a healthy population.

The island membership is comparatively small, there is little natural predation on the island, and left unchecked, the deer population would quickly grow to unsustainable levels, risking malnutrition, disease, and death,” the club said.

Mark Ryckman, the manager of policy for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH), says this explanation checks out. The government’s goal is to balance wildlife populations with available habitat, he explains.

“Increasing harvest is open to debate, whether or not that’s the best option,” Ryckman says. “But it is the option that [the government] chose to go forward with. It’s also the cheapest, from the government’s perspective. All they do is allow every firearm type for the entire length of the season. That really doesn’t cost them anything. They just allow the hunters that do have that exclusive opportunity to harvest more deer.”

This doesn’t make the extended hunting season any less contentious, though. Ryckman says the OFAH has had concerns about both Griffith Island and Hay Island for the past 10 years. When the government opened the islands’ hunting extensions to public consultation, the OFAH made sure to comment.

“We don’t want to see hunting become a pastime or a recreational activity that is only available to the wealthy,” Ryckman says. “These are public resources managed by public servants using public tax dollars on behalf of all Ontarians, not just landowners, not just the rich. These are resources that should be available to all Ontarians.”

Optically, Ryckman acknowledges that an elite hunting club with ties to Canadian politicians getting an extended rifle hunting season doesn’t look good. But from a conservation standpoint, the OFAH has no concerns about the number of deer being harvested.

Hunters in the area don’t seem bothered by the club’s extended rifle season, either. “It makes no difference to me whatsoever,” says Craig Lalonde, a Georgian Bay hunter. “Ultimately, if it’s a private club, it’s kind of a closed environment. Nothing that happens there impacts me, or, in my opinion, what’s going on throughout Ontario.”

Greg Edwards, the president of the Georgian Bay Hunters and Anglers Association, says that from a conservation perspective, Griffith Island’s extended rifle season makes sense. “I don’t think it’s good to have that many deer all in one area, because they’re going to get interbred, and then you’re going to create some more problems,” he says. “So, it’s better to thin them out now, and then you’re going to have a better population of deer in the future.”

Whether one agrees with the club’s extended rifle season or not, it appears to be driven by a legitimate reason. What was troubling for McIntosh, though, who broke the story, was the lack of transparency from the government. The islands’ hunting extension was buried among a long list of amendments, and when McIntosh reached out to the government to ask about the extension, she was stonewalled.

“Private clubs are allowed to ask for things that they want or are allowed to enjoy things that are given to them by law,” McIntosh says. “But it really is a question of trust in people who manage our natural resources. And I think it is troubling when the people making those decisions are unable to explain what they’re doing, and even more so when they refuse to explain why they’re doing it.”

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Cottage Life

Non-Resident Speculation Tax increase deters Americans looking to cottage in Ontario

Photo by Shutterstock/Diego Grandi

The cost of purchasing property in Ontario has become steeper for non-residents. On October 25, the provincial government increased the Non-Resident Speculation Tax (NRST) from 20 per cent to 25 per cent. This is the second tax bump to the NRST in the last year.

The NRST applies to foreign nationals, meaning someone who isn’t a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident in the country and is purchasing or acquiring residential property in Ontario. It’s a one-time tax applied at the time of sale. The government estimates that the tax will generate $175 million this year.

The government introduced the tax in April 2017 to deter foreign buyers from purchasing rental properties and driving up housing prices. At the time, the government set the tax at 15 per cent, limiting it to the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area, which stretches throughout southern Ontario, covering Niagara Falls, Toronto, Barrie, and Peterborough.

In March 2022, the tax increased to 20 per cent and expanded provincewide. The government claimed the increase was part of its pledge to fight Ontario’s housing crises, prioritizing Canadian families and homebuyers.

The October NRST bump to 25 per cent shows that the government feels foreign buyers are still a contributing factor to the province’s housing crises.

“We are working to end Ontario’s housing supply crisis—both by building 1.5 million new homes over the next 10 years, and by ensuring Ontarians are able to access our existing housing supply,” said Steve Clark, the province’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, in a statement.

The NRST increase accompanies a series of federal government initiatives aimed at improving housing affordability, including a two-year ban on foreign investment in Canadian housing, starting January 1, 2023.

The prime target of these initiatives is foreign buyers snapping up investment properties in urban centres, but Americans looking to buy a cottage are also being caught in the crosshairs.

Sara West, a realtor in Pointe au Baril, north of Parry Sound, says that the area has a strong American cottager contingent, but real estate interest from the south has been waning in recent years. “There was a fair amount of interest until there was the pandemic, so [Americans] couldn’t come,” West says. “And then there’s the tax. I’ve heard from a few American people saying, ‘I can’t buy’.”

Attracting Americans to the area stimulates the local economy, West says. American cottagers stay for long periods of time, they use local contractors and make purchases in the town’s stores. Introducing barriers will impact that.

The two-year ban on foreign investment is also confusing the issue. West was recently working with an American couple, one of whom is a Canadian citizen, to find a cottage in the area. When she started looking into the two-year ban and how it would affect the cottage purchase, she couldn’t find any information. “We called lawyers and they couldn’t tell us,” she says.

The details of the ban have yet to be published, so it’s unclear whether it will apply to cottage properties. The Finance Department did not respond to Cottage Life’s questions about what the ban will cover.

This doesn’t mean Pointe au Baril is immune to Ontario’s affordability crisis, though. West says property prices skyrocketed during the pandemic. But that wasn’t driven by American buyers, and she doesn’t think deterring them will bring prices down. It’ll just hurt local businesses, she says.

Terry Rees, executive director of the Federation of Ontario Cottagers’ Associations (FOCA), points out that it’s not just potential American buyers being targeted, it’s also Americans who’ve owned cottages in Canada for generations.

Starting January 1, 2022, the federal government introduced the Underused Housing Tax. This is an annual, one-per-cent tax on residential properties owned by non-Canadians that are occupied for less than six months a year. Three-season cottages that aren’t winterized are exempt, but Rees says that if an American owns a four-season cottage, it’s likely they’ll have to pay the tax.

“These are our friends and neighbours,” Rees says. “It’s been [FOCA’s] contention with the feds that taxation on these people has unintended consequences because it’s a penalty that really doesn’t address housing shortages or affordability.”

Americans buying cottages in Canada represent such a small segment of the real estate market that increasing their taxes likely won’t free up housing for Canadians or cause prices to ease in urban centres, Rees says. It’ll just hurt the cottage communities that Americans are a part of or want to become a part of.

“In the north, people count on [cottagers],” he says. “There’s a lot of Americans all over the province owning waterfront property, and most people are part of the community. I don’t think that the intent should be to dissuade people from investing in our rural communities.”

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Cottage Life

The Ontario government to introduce Swedish-style 2+1 highway to cottage country

Photo Courtesy of the Ministry of Transportation

The Ministry of Transportation issued a request for proposals for a 2+1 highway pilot on Highway 11. But what exactly does that mean?

In May of 2018, Mark Wilson travelled to Sweden to examine the country’s highways. Not the most touristy attraction. But as it turns out, Sweden has developed a highway system, known as the 2+1 road design, that could benefit Northern Ontario.

“The purpose of the trip was to gain information to determine the feasibility of implementing 2+1 road profiles in Northeastern Ontario, particularly on the Trans-Canada, Highway 11,” Wilson, a member of Going the Extra Mile for Safety (GEMS), a road safety advocacy group in Northern Ontario, wrote in a report.

He spent five days driving 1,200 kilometres along 2+1 roads, capturing dashcam footage and photographic material. His conclusion: It’s a road design worth implementing in Ontario.

A 2+1 road is a three-lane highway with a centre passing lane that changes direction approximately every two to five kilometres. The oncoming lanes are separated from one another by a steel median. The design is intended for smaller highways that see fewer than 20,000 vehicles on the road each day.


Sweden introduced the design in the early 1990s as the country was experiencing high rates of traffic fatalities and serious injuries, particularly on its two-lane highways where head-on collisions were being caused by people trying to pass. The design was part of Sweden’s Vision Zero road safety program, which operated under the assumption that humans will make mistakes while driving, so the road systems need to be designed to mitigate human error.

At the time of Wilson’s visit, Sweden had built 3,000 kilometres of 2+1 roads and seen a 75 to 80 per cent drop in its road fatality rate.

GEMS, which was created in 2016, in cooperation with the Temiskaming Shores and Area Chamber of Commerce, has been lobbying the Ministry of Transportation for the last six years to introduce the 2+1 design on Highway 11, which begins in Toronto as Yonge Street, extending north through Muskoka, North Bay, and other sections of Ontario’s cottage country. The majority of Highway 11 between North Bay and Temiskaming Shores is an undivided, two-lane highway.

According to GEMS, there are eight road fatalities per 100,000 people each year in Northern Ontario. Whereas in Southern Ontario, that number sits at 3.6. By introducing 2+1 roads, GEMS aims to reduce the number of road fatalities along Highway 11.

The Ontario government has taken note of GEMS advocacy.

“This first-of-its-kind highway pilot in North America will keep people and goods moving safely across Northern Ontario,” said Caroline Mulroney, Minister of Transportation, in a statement. “This is a key next step to get shovels in the ground on critical infrastructure projects that will support a strong transportation network.”

The government has selected two sections of Highway 11 to pilot the 2+1 design, both between North Bay and Temiskaming Shores. The first is a 14-kilometre stretch from Sand Dam Road to Ellesmere Road, and the second is 16 kilometres from Highway 64 to Jumping Caribou Lake Road.

Ministry of Transportation
Photo Courtesy of the Ministry of Transportation

“The highway model is used in other jurisdictions around the world and is more cost-efficient than twinning a highway,” the government said. According to GEMS, a 2+1 highway is approximately 70 to 75 per cent cheaper to build than a divided, four-lane highway.

North Bay Mayor Al McDonald voiced his support for the project, saying that the 2+1 design will make it safer for North Bay residents who drivein the winter.

The government’s call for proposals is open until December 2022. It will then announce the successful bidder in 2023. On the government’s bid submission site, the project completion date is set for May 16, 2025.

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Mobile Syrup

Government of Ontario pledges to bring high-speed internet to 266,000 homes and businesses

The Government of Ontario has signed contracts with eight service providers to bring high-speed internet access to hundreds of communities across the province.

The service providers include Bell, Bragg Communications, Cogeco Connexion, Community Network Partners, Eh!tel Networks Inc., North Frontenac Telephone Company, Xplornet Communications Inc., and Rogers.

The agreements will bring access to 266,000 homes and businesses in 339 municipalities.

“Our government is ensuring every community in Ontario has access to reliable high-speed internet,” Kinga Surma, Ontario’s Minister of Infrastructure, said.

In a press release, Bell said the partnership will allow the company to bring its fibre network, with download speeds up to 3Gbps, to communities. In a separate press release, Cogeco acknowledged it has begun to work on its projects.

Image credit: Shutterstock 

Source: Government of Ontario

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Cottage Life

What Midland’s proposed accommodation tax may mean for your next visit

Photo by Midland Tourism/Facebook

Planning on booking a cottage rental in Midland? The price of your stay may be going up. On June 15, the Midland town council passed a motion to work on the municipal accommodation tax (MAT) but did not yet enact it. 

The provincial government introduced the tax in 2017, allowing municipalities to levy a hotel tax and share revenue with not-for-profit tourist organizations. Each community decides the rate, design, administration, and collection system. Orillia, Barrie, Toronto, and Thunder Bay have implemented the MAT and their own bylaw.

If Midland enacts the MAT, short-term renters, such as those who use Airbnb, may have to pay an additional four per cent of their total costs. The decision will be up to the working group and town council.

Midland town staff estimate that the tax could bring in $118,844 in revenue if enacted. This calculation is based on an annual 40 per cent occupancy and a minimum daily hotel rate of $100. 

In the first staff report, “based on the average summer nightly rate of $276, with rates ranging from $187 to $401 a night, implementing this tax should have little to no impact on the ability for local accommodations to book rooms.”

Tax discussion with the councillors 

Councillors Jim Downer, Beth Prost, Bill Gordon, and deputy mayor Mike Ross voted against the motion. “We are still coming out of this pandemic and flopping like a dead fish trying to revive the economy,” said Gordan. The opposing councillors don’t believe that the hotel and motel community will favour the higher costs, noting that the tax could waste town staff’s time and affect tourism recovery efforts. “If it deters one person from visiting Midland, then we harm our industry,” Ross said. 

Councillors Jonathan Main, Carole McGinn, Cher Cunningham, mayor Stewart Strathearn, and chief administrative officer David Denault are in favour of the motion. They want to speak with stakeholders and consider the potential benefits, implications, associated costs, and successes of other municipalities. “This could be an opportunity for our local businesses to make money,” Campbell said. 

The next steps include Midland town staff preparing a second report outlining their bylaw recommendations and presenting it to the future MAT working group. 

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Cottage Life

The province is making these highways toll-free in April

Photo by Google Maps

Cottage commuters rejoice, as of April 5, the Ontario government will remove toll fees from Highways 418 and 412.

“We have heard the people of Durham loud and clear and we agree that the tolls imposed on Highways 412 and 418 by the previous government are wrong and unfair,” said Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario. “That’s why we are removing the tolls on these highways so that people and businesses have more travel options and hard-earned money in their pockets.” Introduced in 2017 by Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government, they were met with resistance from Durham region residents.

The two highways run north to south and both connect Hwy. 401 to the eastern sections of Hwy. 407. During the pandemic, the Ontario government temporarily froze the tolls rates until May 31, 2021, as a COVID relief measure.