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https://correspondence.premier.gov.on.ca/EN/feedback/default.aspx
________________________________
To:
Hon. Doug Ford
Premier of Ontario
Legislative Building, Queen’s Park Toronto, ON M7A 1A1
Hon. David Piccini
Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, 5th Floor, 777 Bay St., Toronto, ON M7A 2J3
117 Peter Street
Port Hope ON L1A 1C5
905-372-4000
david.piccinico@pc.ola.org
Hon. Rick Nicholls
MLA, Chatham-Kent-Leamington
Room 440, Main Legislative Building, Queen's Park, Toronto, ON M7A 1A8
Open Letter
Keep Rondeau Provincial Park Public!
Dear Honorable Premiere Minister and MLA;
Were we to take a vote today, as to whether a portion of Rondeau Provincial Park or any Crown Land should be sold for the purpose of conversion to private property, I think we can all guess how the people of Ontario would respond.
Recently our Chatham-Kent Municipal Council was presented with a proposal by CAO Don Shropshire to do just that, convert Provincial Park Land into private property for the benefit of a few leaseholders. Leaseholders who have been granted two generous extensions on their leases, yet refuse to honor the terms of those leases.
The scheme involves land held in public trust being sold to the municipality, then being resold by the municipality into the hands of leaseholders. Chatham Kent being used as a middleman.
In 2013 the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources released "Value of current cottage leases in Algonquin and Rondeau provincial parks" that included an environmental impact assessment that outlined the historical and ongoing damage of cottage encroachment on the Rondeau Provincial Park ecology.
See Table 10: Relationship between ecological pressure and opportunity costs in Rondeau
In the 1890s Commissioner of Crown Lands, Arthur Sturgis Hardy under Premier Sir Oliver Mowat recognized the folly of privatizing parts of the Rondeau sandspit. Then in 1896 the newly elected Ontario Premier Hardy created Algonquin and Rondeau Provincial Parks, using leases as opposed to outright sale to compromise the sprawl of privatization of Ontario's forests with the electorate's desire for public wild spaces.
That is exactly why the land was leased rather than sold outright.
The government of Arthur Sturgis Hardy, created lease agreements in good faith that each of the leaseholders signed in good faith.
We the people of Ontario expect an elected government to act in continuance of that good faith.
We want our Rondeau Provincial Park to remain a Public Park, kept for the sole purpose of Conservation of Natural Heritage for all the people of Ontario!
DO NOT SELL OUT OUR TRUST!