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For Rachel Brooks and her family, life was good on their 40-hectare farm, about 130 kilometres north of Toronto, until an expected letter arrived from the Department of National Defence (DND).
“It immediately impacted my sense of security in my home — having a place to live — and my security in the sense of something that I own could possibly be taken from me,” Brooks told CBC News. “[That] something that we worked on so hard for the last 45 years could be stripped from us.”
DND sent letters to Brooks and dozens of other farmers in the area during the summer asking if they would consider selling their properties to make way for a large-scale radar project. CBC has reviewed a number of these letters.
Brooks says she has no intention of selling her property and uprooting her family.
“I remember opening the letter and thinking, is this a joke? What’s going on here?” said Brooks, who has helped spearhead local opposition to the project.
Clearview Township, near Stayner, Ont., is home to acres of lush farmland. It is here, the government wants to build a vast radar site that would span more than 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres).
Two sites have been identified in southern Ontario — one in Clearview and another in the Kawartha Lakes region — to house two massive transmit and receive stations, with rows of antennas surrounded by a six-metre-high barbed wire fence.
The Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar (A-OTHR) is part of a $38-billion investment to upgrade Canada’s contribution to NORAD.
The proposed project has created a wave of anxiety and fear in the community. There has been an initial meeting between affected community members and DND but few answers, according to Brooks. Residents want assurances that the government won’t expropriate their land if they decide not to sell. DND would be within its right to provide “due compensation” for the farmland if they decided to move forward with the project and deals can’t be reached.
Farmers want out of limbo
A few kilometres down the road from the Brooks’ property is the sprawling Hutchinson family farm.
“My family has been here since 1879 on this property, and I’m the fifth generation to take over, and my son is hopefully gonna be the sixth generation,” said Matt Hutchison. “It’s hard to deal with knowing that we might lose it all.”
Hutchison and his wife say the uncertainty about the future has paralyzed their ability to plan ahead, a key component of running a successful farm.
“We’re at a standstill. We don’t know what to do. Do we move forward with our future plans that we’ve had?” said Jennifer Hutchinson. “We’re just kind of sitting here in limbo and farmers don’t limbo. Do we plan to move forward and keep working hard? You just wonder why.”
The looming question, of course, is what happens if the Hutchinsons and others refuse to sell? DND has already purchased a roughly 280-hectare parcel in the area but needs to acquire hundreds of additional hectares to make the project viable.
“DND is committed to acquiring any property in a manner that is mutually beneficial, including fair compensation and a smooth transaction process,” DND said in a statement to CBC News.
“While DND is exploring land acquisition strategies to support A-OTHR needs, DND is not currently working on expropriation of land plans.”
Questions for the government
Residents say they aren’t convinced. Neither is the area’s MP, Terry Dowdell, who has represented the riding since 2019 and was long-time mayor in the region before that.
Beyond an initial community meeting, information about what direction this project might take has been scarce. Dowdell says he has pressed the government and officials in Ottawa about the project and specifically how it will proceed if people decide they don’t want to sell. (As of now, only one person has agreed to sell, according to Dowdell.)
“It’s a lot of money that the government’s putting into this property without getting that commitment. And would they still go forward? And I still don’t have an answer 100 per cent,” Dowdell said. “And that’s part of the concern with the residents up there. Will they or will they not expropriate?”
Dowdell and many others also wonder why this area was chosen in the first place. DND says the choice was driven by a “set of complex and inflexible requirements” including latitude, flat dry land and suitable distance from radio noise sources.
Dowdell says the rapidly growing area doesn’t fit many of the listed criteria. The bigger issue, many in the area point out, is that it will wipe out valuable farmland and change a long-standing way of life in the area.
“We don’t really know who the decision-makers are when it comes to why they targeted our community,” said Clearview Township Mayor Doug Measures. “Right now [we] will do our best to demonstrate that it’s better for us to keep agricultural lands producing for Canadians rather than to take these lands out of production.”
“Taking 4,000 acres out of production will most definitely have a ripple effect across our whole community,” said Measures. “A farmer will purchase goods from local suppliers, stores. But all of those jobs will eventually be impacted as you cut back on fewer and fewer farmers.”
Everyone in the community says they will continue to press for answers and try, amid great uncertainty, to envision a future in an area many have farmed for generations.
“We have no idea, because they’re not giving us answers,” said Jennifer Hutchison, through tears. “We’re waiting for another envelope to show up in the mailbox.”
