Petition to: The Municipality of Highlands East and the County of Haliburton

Our Road. Our Community. Our Rights.

Chimo Drive, located on Salerno Lake near Irondale in Haliburton County, is more than a stretch of gravel through the bush. It is a lifeline.

It is the road that ambulances travel when someone has a medical emergency. It is the route that fire trucks take when a cottage is burning. It is how hydro crews reach the line when the power is out. It is the path that families travel to reach their homes, their seasonal properties, and their livelihoods — year after year, generation after generation.

And right now, that lifeline is at risk.

What Is Happening

Chimo Drive is a private access road serving multiple property owners and residents in the Salerno Lake area. Despite decades of shared use, accepted community practice, and the clear intent of Ontario law to protect exactly this kind of road, the access has been threatened by unilateral obstruction — including the placement of physical barriers by a single individual acting without legal authority, court order, or the consent of affected landowners.

This is not a private dispute. This is a community access crisis.

Under Ontario’s Road Access Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. R.34, the law is clear: no person shall construct, place, or maintain a barrier or other obstacle over an access road that prevents all road access to one or more parcels of land — unless a judge has granted a closure order after 90 days’ notice to affected parties, the closure is agreed to in writing by affected landowners, the closure is temporary for repair or maintenance, or it is a single 24-hour closure to prevent prescriptive rights.

None of those conditions have been met on Chimo Drive. Yet the obstruction has happened anyway.

What We Are Asking For

We, the undersigned residents, property owners, seasonal visitors, service providers, and supporters of the Chimo Drive community, call on the Municipality of Highlands East and the County of Haliburton to take the following actions:

1. Formally recognize Chimo Drive as an Access Road under Ontario’s Road Access Act.
The road meets every legal criterion. Formalizing this designation sends a clear signal: this road is protected, and its closure without lawful authority will not be tolerated.

2. Take active steps to ensure Chimo Drive remains open.
Municipal governments have both the moral authority and the practical responsibility to act when a community road is unlawfully blocked. We ask the municipality to put on record that it supports enforcement of the Road Access Act and will engage with the OPP and Ontario Superior Court processes as needed to protect community access.

3. Communicate publicly that any future closure must comply with the Act.
Anyone who wishes to close Chimo Drive must follow the law — including providing 90 days’ written notice to all affected parties and obtaining a court order from a Superior Court judge. Anything less is illegal obstruction.

Who Is Affected

This is not a small or abstract issue. The people directly harmed by an unlawful road closure include:

 • Permanent and seasonal property owners who depend on Chimo Drive as their only motor vehicle access route to their homes
 • Renters and guests who have every right to reach lawfully occupied properties
 • Emergency services — including EMS, OPP, and fire — for whom every minute of access delay is a matter of life and death
 • Trades and contractors — electricians, plumbers, roofers, septic services — whose ability to work and earn a living depends on road access
 • Hydro and utility crews who maintain essential infrastructure along the corridor
 • Delivery and postal services providing basic commerce to rural residents
 • Outdoor enthusiasts — hikers, snowmobilers, anglers, hunters, and paddlers — who rely on access to Crown land and waterways in the area

When one person decides to play gatekeeper with a pile of armour stone and a Facebook Messenger ultimatum, all of these people lose.

Why This Matters Beyond Chimo Drive

Rural Ontario depends on access roads. Hundreds of thousands of Ontarians live on or near private access roads that are not publicly maintained but are essential to daily life. The Road Access Act exists precisely because the Legislature understood that access to land is a fundamental right — and that the remedy for a road dispute is a court, not a boulder.

When municipal governments stand silent while roads are unlawfully blocked, they send a message that the law only applies if someone is willing to fight it alone. Most people — especially seniors, people with disabilities, families, and those without deep pockets — cannot do that.

Haliburton County is a place that prides itself on community, on looking out for neighbours, and on the kind of rural character that draws people here for a lifetime. Protecting road access is part of that character.

This petition asks the Municipality of Highlands East and the County of Haliburton to stand up for the people who live here — not just when it’s easy, but when it counts.

Sign This Petition

If you believe that:

✅ Every property owner deserves lawful access to their land
✅ Emergency vehicles must be able to reach people in need
✅ Ontario’s Road Access Act should be respected and enforced
✅ No single individual should be able to hold a community’s access hostage

— then add your name below.

Together, we are asking our local government to do what the law already supports: protect Chimo Drive, protect our community, and make clear that unlawful road closures in Haliburton County will not stand.