Summary

• With the climate changing and energy demands increasing, many cities set out energy efficiency and other green requirements for new builds.
• Across Ontario, cities have also created grants and other programs to help home and business owners retrofit older buildings with things like heat pumps or insulation.
• The Ford government’s Bill 98 will prevent municipalities from requiring new builds to be green, meaning a whole new generation of buildings could be added to the retrofit backlog.

Over the past decade, Ontario municipalities — and the taxpayers who foot their bills — have spent tens of millions of dollars retrofitting buildings to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

Local governments across southern Ontario have given homeowners grants to transition houses away from natural gas, protect them from extreme temperatures and safeguard their basements from flooding. Businesses have used such funds to cut office energy consumption, reduce the risk of birds crashing into their windows and increase access to nature around their buildings. 

For cities, the idea was simple: fortify structures built before the climate emergency and create rules that ensure new development is prepared for it to worsen. 

At the local level, there’s been broad demand for the initiatives, and positive outcomes as a result. 

In Kingston, Ont., one homeowner lowered the annual emissions of their 1,500-square-foot semi-detached house by 91 per cent by replacing windows, installing a heat pump and insulating the attic, basement and exterior walls. And that translates directly to lower energy bills.

In Toronto, more than 4,000 development projects have met the city’s green standards, which have been in place since 2010. These rules mandate that each building has shared outdoor spaces that aren’t covered by concrete or asphalt, but permeable coverings that absorb stormwater to prevent flooding, among other eco-friendly features. 

Yet despite the climate imperative and public interest, the ability of cities to incentivize greener builds like these is about to get a lot more complicated — and costly in the long run.

Earlier this month, the Doug Ford government introduced new legislation that would block municipalities from taking action to ensure future development is sustainable. The government’s Bill 98, the Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act, prevents Ontario cities from requiring developers to include electric-vehicle parking spots or bird-friendly windows, among other things. If the majority Progressive Conservative government passes this bill, local governments won’t even be able to require trees on residential properties.

The Narwhal spoke to four officials who serve in the planning or environment departments of Ontario cities, all of whom asked for confidentiality as they weren’t authorized to speak on the issue. All four said their teams are still analyzing the impacts of Bill 98 to properly respond to the government’s proposal, but that ultimately, they expect local budgets to absorb the likely higher — and unavoidable — costs of deep retrofits. 

“Anything that we require as a standard to protect the environment or reduce emissions through the planning process, we could no longer do if this bill passes as is — including requiring developers to make sure there’s a tree in every yard,” one rural Ontario official said in an interview. “That essentially means that we can’t hold developers accountable, and we’ll have to spend money ourselves to fix what they don’t do. So brace for impact, I guess.” 

Municipal green standards developed in place of scant provincial requirements for building efficiency

For more than a decade, green standards were adopted in either mandatory or voluntary forms by Ontario cities including Toronto, Mississauga, Halton Hills, Markham, Vaughan and Richmond Hill. 

Cities across Durham Region, including Whitby, Ajax and Pickering, for example, have standards for private development that promote green roofs, urban forest protection, stormwater management, renewable energy systems and green spaces. These have been implemented as Durham as a whole develops a green development program for new builds, in an effort to have 100 per cent of new housing achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. 

These cities introduced their standards in part because the provincial building code hasn’t been updated since 2017 and makes no mention of eco-friendly features. It came under scrutiny from the provincial auditor general in 2020 for not being strong enough to substantively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Buildings are the source of 24 per cent of Ontario’s emissions, mainly from the use of fossil fuels like natural gas for heating. And these emissions are likely to increase as the province encourages faster construction to support a rapidly growing population, without requiring energy efficiency. 

If Bill 98 passes, developers would only be held to that now decade-old rulebook on building standards. Municipalities would be thwarted in their efforts to keep new building emissions down. The province recognized this in its own analysis of the changes, stating that ending green standards will result in not just “shifting burden from the development sector to municipalities for sustainability measures” but “unintended environmental impacts.”

“Unfortunately, right now, the only way that municipalities can really afford to build those kinds of infrastructure projects is by borrowing money, incurring debt and then paying it over time … or through development charges,” Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti said last week, explaining why he opposed the bill’s provisions on green standards. 

“We do not have to turn our back on environmental standards,” Scarpitti said. “The environmental standards can actually be set, and then those projects will meet them.” 

Cities have already been trying to soften the blow of energy efficiency costs on developers. Local green standards are often tied with financial incentives to urge developers to make the shift to greener construction. In 2021, the City of Kingston created a program that offers property tax rebates to builders and private developers who voluntarily construct buildings that strive for net-zero emissions. 

Toronto’s green standards offer a partial refund on development charges for buildings that meet their rules. The more rules a building meets, the higher the refund. Since its inception, this scheme has delivered almost $120 million in refunds to developers.

The success of these programs has inspired other Ontario municipalities to begin working on their own green standards. That includes Hamilton, Ottawa, Waterloo Region, Guelph, Clarington and Oshawa. But their efforts have been paused since Bill 98 was proposed, because it makes building green more complicated.

Ottawa officials, for example, have noted the bill would prevent municipalities from even asking developers to include electric-vehicle spaces in their buildings, even though a process for putting them in place has already been developed.

In an April 8 memorandum, Marcia Wallace, general manager of planning, development and building services for the City of Ottawa, said staff would explore “enabling approaches” like partnerships with the private sector and financial incentives. It did not note whether those incentives could come from taxpayers’ dollars.

Axing green standards means Ontario municipalities have to spend more taxpayer money on building retrofits 

It’s difficult to quantify the cost of building sustainably from the get-go, which depends on size, location and other factors. One study from The Atmospheric Fund in 2012 and another from City of Toronto staff in 2017 suggest the cost of construction would increase by two to four per cent, depending on the building type and community. 

What’s more certain is that retrofitting existing buildings to both lower emissions and withstand some of the symptoms of climate change is a lot more expensive than building green from the start. One Canadian green homebuilder says retrofits can be 50 per cent more expensive. A 2023 study by United Way Greater Toronto estimates a deep energy retrofit of an existing apartment building in Toronto would cost $200,000 per unit.

And all of that is cheaper than leaving homeowners to rebuild after severe flooding. Flood insurance premiums in Ontario have jumped up to 26 per cent in the last two years, according to a new report by a Canadian real estate firm and insurance-rate aggregator.

Many Ontario municipalities are already spending millions to retrofit public buildings and incentivize companies and homeowners to do the same. Now, rather than being able to shrink that budget over time as modern buildings are made more resilient, cities are looking at an exponential growth in cost. 

Guelph and Kingston, for example, have robust home retrofit programs that have been financed to the tune of millions of dollars with support from the federal government. Residents have been eager to take them up on it. 

In April 2022, Kingston’s local retrofit program had to be paused due to “overwhelming interest” resulting in a lengthy waitlist. As of October 2024, it had supported 250 projects. These programs, and several others aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions, fall under the city’s climate leadership division, which in 2025 had a budget of more than $800,000. That works out to $11 on the average tax bill, according to the budget. For a city of 130,000 people, with a limited tax base, that investment is paying off. 

In Guelph, 637 households have registered for this kind of funding and 448 have either completed their retrofits or are currently doing so.  

In Durham Region, more than 1,600 residents have signed up to lower energy consumption and reduce emissions. By 2023, almost 200 retrofits had been completed. In 2024, the region expanded the program to include commercial buildings. 

One Greater Toronto Area official said they expect demand for retrofits to increase if Bill 98 passes: “If there’s no way for us to ensure development is done according to the needs of the climate emergency, I imagine we’ll have more buildings to retrofit than we can handle in the very near future.”

The costs of doing so will ultimately be borne by taxpayers, especially as the province is still in the process of amending its own building code to acknowledge the realities of how climate change will affect buildings across Ontario.

“The building code will be updated. We’re going to go through it section by section,” Ontario Housing Minister Rob Flack told The Narwhal last week. “With respect to green standards, we’ve asked various stakeholders to be part of the process. … They’ll be involved in the process of redefining the building code.”

When pressed on the timeline of this process, Flack said, “ASAP.”

“We’ve started the process of getting people in place,” he said. “It’s going to take a while. It’s a big document.” 

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In a striped shirt and baseball cap, Mushkegowuk Council Grand Chief Leo Friday reminded a group of besuited government officials he had travelled almost 700 kilometres from northern Ontario to the provincial legislature in downtown Toronto. 

Slamming a hand on the table and gesturing at the door of the Queen’s Park committee room, Friday told the officials he knocked before coming in. 

“But you don’t even come and knock on my door to speak with me,” he said in Oji-Cree, as the officials listened through headphones to a translator. “You are just trying to access things inside my house.” 

So began one of the most intense weeks in recent Queen’s Park history. Since May 22, Grand Chief Friday and 24 other First Nation leaders have travelled long distances — including from Sandy Lake First Nation, nearly 1,500 kilometres away — to appear before a government that failed to visit before pushing through legislation that could have hugely detrimental impacts to their homelands. They came with a blunt warning: repeal Bill 5 or face lawsuits and land blockades. 

“By pushing forward Bill 5, the Ontario government is guaranteeing a long and very unnecessary fight with First Nations,” Grand Chief Friday told the 12 committee members reviewing the legislation; six from the governing Progressive Conservatives, six from the opposing parties. 

The sweeping 229-page legislation proposes to create “special economic zones” for mining and development where provincial and municipal regulations can be evaded, and eliminate protections for species at risk and cultural heritage.

The government touts the bill as a response to Donald Trump’s tariffs, pledging it would turn Ontario into an “economic powerhouse,” starting by turning the remote and environmentally sensitive Ring of Fire region in the James Bay Lowlands into its first special economic zone. But the bill was written without having a single conversation with many Indigenous communities that would be most impacted by an increase in unchecked mining activity — communities that have historically not reaped the financial or social rewards of such industry.  

Chiefs of Ontario Regional Chief Abram Benedict reminded the committee that every major court case between First Nations and the government was rooted in a failure to fulfill its duty to consult and protect the environment. “These [development] opportunities must be built upon respect. They are supposed to be a recognition of the inherent Treaty Rights, the jurisdiction and obligation our communities have to all creation, to the waters and to the lands,” he said. “These are sacred, sacred.” 

“This legislation is the wrong way,” he said. “It’s a path that we know we have seen time and time again … that will lead to potential confrontation on the ground.”

Long before Trump’s tariff threats, the government was warned internally about the likelihood of receiving this reaction to a similar proposal. In February 2024, the government introduced the Get It Done Act, which now allows it to expropriate land for major infrastructure projects. Internal documents obtained by The Narwhal at the time showed the government was considering creating “special building zones” to take over local decision-making on certain priority projects. The internal document said that while “developers and construction companies may react positively,” Indigenous communities and environmental stakeholders might take issue with the plan. 

“It may be perceived that the Ontario government is seeking ways to circumvent its duty to consult,” the document says.

The scene at Queen’s Park over the past few weeks suggests that’s what is being perceived today. 

‘We don’t trust you’: Ford government’s history of bypassing Indigenous consultation highlighted

Among the First Nations represented at Queen’s Park this past week are those that haven’t had access to clean drinking water for decades, let alone a hospital in their territory. Some have seen mines come and go, destroying the environment from which they harvest food and medicine. There were also those who say they have honestly tried to build a strong working relationship with the government, only to see their years-long efforts destroyed by this bill.

These 25 leaders represent Anishinaabe, Cree and other communities across the province, who live on the Great Lakes, in the Ring of Fire and on the Manitoba border, where wildfire season has already begun. They came to give the government both a history lesson and a glimpse at the future. Bill 5, they said both at committee and in press conferences, would be “detrimental” to their rights and their way of life, threatening to “destroy” their homelands. Their request was for “respect, recognition and reconciliation,” one chief said — three things that are absent from Bill 5. 

At least two leaders said they extended invitations to Premier Doug Ford to discuss the bill with their communities that weren’t accepted. Instead, on Monday, Ford labelled those opposing Bill 5 as “radical environmentalists.”

“For someone like Doug Ford, who is prepared to do away with all his obligations, to call us radical is just absurd,” Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler told reporters. “I would call them radical colonizers … .” 

The anger and frustration was impossible to ignore, echoing from the committee room to the legislature floor and media broadcasts. During two days of tense public hearings on the bill, most speakers addressed the committee in their native languages and at one point, Indigenous onlookers created a drumming circle inside Queen’s Park. 

Now, the government appears to be scrambling to soften its previously cutthroat approach. On Wednesday, the government announced it would amend the bill to include a stated commitment to consult with First Nations on regulations in the bill after it passes into law, as well as a clause on what the government has now dubbed “Indigenous-led special economic zones.”

But the change came too late; trust, the First Nations leaders said, had been broken. Many said it was an insult that they had to show up to be heard and to convince the government — over hours of testimonies — they are open to development done fairly, sustainably and with meaningful collaboration.

“Bill 5 is an attempt to consult after the fact,” Scott McLeod, Lake Huron Regional Chief for the Anishinabek Nation, told officials. “It’s based on promises and ‘trust me.’ ” 

“But we don’t trust you. I don’t know how much clearer I can be.” 

Over the past seven years, the Ford government’s repeated efforts to revamp land-use and environmental regulations without properly consulting First Nations have been met with fierce opposition. This was perhaps most notable in 2022 after the government decided to open swaths of protected lands, such as the Greenbelt, through its omnibus housing legislation, Bill 23 — a law also passed without consulting any First Nation. 

In 2023, members of the First Nations in the Ring of Fire region came to Queen’s Park to protest the government’s decisions to speed up mining in their lands. Ford refused to meet them then. Two years later, little has changed. 

“You come into our lands, where we survive on the waters and the land, without speaking to us. This is like what was done to our people before our lands were taken,” Grand Chief Friday said in his remarks. “You’re repeating that same history.” 

“If you keep excluding us, there will only be more resistance,” he continued. “We will not sacrifice lands and waters in the name of prosperity.”  

‘Goodbye nature’: Bill 5 violates treaties, the environment and worsens an already-broken mining system

The public hearings for Bill 5 began with NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa asking the committee to consider extending the review timeline by a few days so they could include a hearing in Thunder Bay, closer to many affected First Nations and the Ring of Fire. He made the motion before a crowd of chiefs, members of Indigenous communities and the general public, many wearing “Stop Bill 5” stickers, as they packed the committee and overflow rooms. 

Mamakwa and his colleagues in opposition cited the lack of Internet in remote areas as one reason communities needed more time to absorb the bill, along with the distance and cost of travel. The motion was lost with all Conservative committee members voting against it. 

“They have to come up, experience the north,” Adam Fiddler, legal advisor with Sandy Lake First Nation, told the committee. “That shows more sincerity and involvement than money.”

Mamakwa and his NDP colleagues have made the motion at least six times since, both in committee and in the legislature, with no success.

The government is “blowing smoke,” said Mamakwa, whose remote northwestern riding straddles the vast Ring of Fire mineral deposits. During the committee hearing, he asked Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce, who tabled the bill, and Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford to define the treaties that have long existed between First Nations and the Ontario government. Lecce deferred to Rickford, who said he respected the government’s duty to consult. “No government should be in the business of developing major resource projects without developing First Nations in proximity to it,” Rickford said.

“Do you understand that with this bill, you’re not honouring the treaties, but you’re actually violating them?” Mamakwa asked both ministers. 

“With greatest respect, I disagree with that. It honours it,” Rickford said, adding the government’s duty to consult begins after legislation has been tabled.

Lecce told reporters afterwards, “It’s important that we listen, we hear perspective but we don’t lose sight of what we’re trying to achieve, which is economic self-reliance.” Rickford reiterated that Bill 5 “enhances” the government’s duty to consult by creating “a common interest and a common focus,” including a $70-million fund to boost Indigenous participation in the legislative process. 

“It’s intended to buy silence,” Grand Chief Joel Abram of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians, told reporters of the fund. “Economic reconciliation without legal and moral accountability is just another form of coercion.” 

Throughout the hearings, there remained a stark contrast between the remarks from the government and the Indigenous leaders who spoke after them. While Lecce promised to “build out the north,” Indigenous leaders spoke of damages the north was still grappling with from historical mining activity and severe underfunding of social services, damages the government hadn’t yet addressed. And while Lecce promised a “one project, one process” system for mining, Indigenous leaders asserted the importance of “one planet, one species.” 

Each leader who came before the committee highlighted the key risks of Bill 5 over and over again. To start, the bill removes protections for heritage sites, allowing development to occur without archaeological studies to safeguard Indigenous burial and sacred sites. 

The bill also eliminates protections for endangered species, which diminishes Indigenous communities’ ability to be stewards of the land. “If you pass Bill 5, you can say goodbye nature. I really need you to understand that,” Anthony (Miptoon) Chegahno, the head councillor for Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, told the committee in a virtual appearance.“I’m an Elder who loves nature,” he said, adding that birds and plants are making a “comeback” in his homeland because of Ontario’s long-standing commitment to working with First Nations to protect and restore endangered species. 

“I was so proud of that,” Chegahno said, but Bill 5 threatens to repeal that law and that agreement. “Don’t change it, please. Don’t change the species protections because then we won’t have nature and we as humans will pass away.” 

And despite the amendment to include Indigenous consultation after the bill has passed, the legislation remains unclear about how First Nations will be consulted or involved in the mining process that begins and ends on their land.

Chief Shelly Moore-Frappier of Temagami First Nation told reporters there are 12,000 mining and staking claims in her territory alone. The nation only has one staff member to assess them; to review them all, this person would have to review 38 claims every day for a year without taking a day off. 

“This is untenable,” she said. “Rather than addressing the systemic imbalance, Bill 5 proposes to streamline an already broken system, making it even harder for nations like ours to engage.” 

Last year, First Nations called on the province to institute a one-year moratorium on mining so they could properly assess the impacts and claims in their territories. The moratorium never materialized, Moore-Frappier said. 

“Mining is about strangers with no attachment to our lands and waters, removing pieces of our territories for economic gain. Often, those profits rarely come back to the places from which they were derived,” she said. “This is pure colonialism.” 

“Now, the province says it’s going to protect the mining industry from China by empowering the minister to suspend the system and deny certain individuals from being able to hold mining authorizations in the province,” she continued. “Why are the mining sector’s interests being protected over First Nations?”

“Ontario is trying to legislate us out of the conversation,” she said. “That won’t work.” 

‘All attempts to fast-track to the Ring of Fire will fail’: Bill 5 threatens longstanding partnerships between Ontario government and First Nations 

Among those watching the hearings closely was Margaret Kenequanash. She’s the CEO of Watay Power, an 1,800-kilometre transmission project connecting 24 First Nations in northern Ontario to the power grid, and the largest Indigenous-led infrastructure project in Canada. Kenequanash has spent 18 years building positive relationships and trust in these communities for development to move forward. 

“And just like that, government through Bill 5 is throwing all that away,” she said, as she watched a group of First Nations people create a drumming circle inside Queen’s Park. “It baffles me that the government is taking a 25-year step backwards.”

“It is fine for government to clean up their internal controls and systems, but it cannot be done at the expense of our Aboriginal, Treaty Rights and inherent rights. Respect is still paramount,” she added. “And under Bill 5, Wataynikaneyap Power would have been impossible to build.” 

The trust, the duty to consult, the impetus to build meaningful relationships would not be there.

Other energy projects on First Nations land would also be impeded, leaders said. In April, Moose Cree and Taykwa Tagamou First Nations “stood shoulder-to-shoulder” with Lecce to begin a co-planning process to build hydroelectric stations in northern Ontario. 

“Only eight days later, Ontario introduced Bill 5, abandoning a productive partnership-based approach that has supported a number of successful, large-scale industrial projects in the Moose Cree Homeland,” Chief Peter Wesley said in a written statement. “Bill 5 is the exact opposite of that successful approach and shows that this government cannot be trusted.”

Sandy Lake First Nation band councillor Cynthia Fiddler said her community is still dealing with the aftermath of a shuttered gold and silver mine that opened in 1939. A smell remains in the air and the vegetation is destroyed. 

“Why can’t the clean-up be fast-tracked?” Fiddler asked. “This bill is fast-tracking what we don’t want. We will support Canada in your fight to unite but it can’t be at the expense of our lands and families.” 

The disconnect is not distance but “lack of will,” former chief of Neskantaga First Nation Wayne Moonias told the committee. “I’m willing to talk,” he said, “but they want to ram the legislation on us.” 

His community has had a boil-water advisory for 30 years, three months and 12 days, he told the committee. “If your premier says we’ll bulldoze your area, how can we have reconciliation?” he asked. 

“There will be no bulldozing across our river system without our consent,” he continued. “We will continue to be here long after these companies have finished looking for metals.” 

Efforts for a positive working relationship are also impeded by Bill 5 stipulating that the government cannot be sued. But as one Indigenous leader after another warned the committee, Canadian courts have historically found in favour of First Nations in cases where duty to consult has not been met. “And this Bill 5 will not meet its duty to consult,” Moonias said. 

Such cases are lengthy and expensive, and have previously resulted in projects being abandoned, “which will not create certainty for industry or government that wants to fast-track development in our homelands,” Moonias added. “The only way to avoid delays when it comes to extracting resources on our lands is to fully obtain our free, prior, informed consent.” 

Without it, “all attempts to fast-track to the Ring of Fire will fail,” he said. “Our people will meet you on the land. This is about our life. This bill, and the way this government is approaching this bill, it’s going to destroy our homelands. It’s going to take away our sturgeon. It’s going to destroy our medicines that that we use for healing.”

“We say no. Neskantaga says no.”

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This story is a collaboration between The Narwhal and The Waterloo Region Record.

Hundreds of acres of prime farmland in Wilmot Township are being assembled and converted to an industrial site for a future Toyota plant, The Narwhal and The Waterloo Region Record have learned.

The controversial project began more than a year ago when the Region of Waterloo and Wilmot Township first responded to calls by the Doug Ford government to assemble shovel-ready land for industry to attract jobs.

The call went out to municipalities across the province and required at least 500 acres of land in order to attract large-scale investment. Waterloo’s regional government identified 770 acres, or about 323 hectares, in the middle of Wilmot, including six farms and six residential properties contained by Bleams Road, Nafziger Road, Highway 7 and Wilmot Centre Road. 

Last March, farmers and property owners received offers from the region. Some said they were threatened with expropriation if they refused to sell. To date, the region has spent $18 million to buy one farm that covers 161 acres, and three residential properties, totalling about 20 per cent of the lands it wants to assemble. The region says it remains committed to negotiating fair deals with the land owners. 

The region has previously told property owners the land is being readied to attract a major employer to the area. Both the region and province say no end-user has been lined up for the site. 

In an email to The Narwhal and The Record, Philippe Crowe, a Toyota spokesperson, said, “We are not involved in any land assembly projects in Ontario.” 

Several sources connected to the public and private sectors have told The Narwhal and The Record the land assembly was started so Toyota could build a third plant in this part of the province, adding to those in nearby Cambridge and Woodstock. The Narwhal and The Record have granted these sources confidentiality because none are authorized to speak publicly. They say nothing has been signed and discussions are ongoing but none have said Toyota has a role in the assembly process.

One source said, “The site is ready for Toyota whenever it’s ready for it.” 

The Narwhal and The Record emailed the premier’s office, the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. None responded to the questions by the time of publication. The federal Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development referred questions to Toyota. 

Lynsey Slupeiks, spokesperson for the Region of Waterloo, did not address a question from The Narwhal and The Record about whether the region had engaged in any discussions about the land with Toyota. She wrote that the land assembly is “underway to create a large-scale, contiguous, shovel-ready site that is attractive to a major employer locating or expanding in Waterloo Region.”

“Waterloo Region has lost several investments from major employers as a result of not having shovel-ready land. This resulted in a loss of over $4.1-billion in investment and over 5,000 new jobs, over the past three years,” she wrote.

Two sources say the future plant could produce batteries, helping to boost Ontario’s anticipated electric vehicle supply chain. Another facility in that supply chain would give incentive for Toyota to stay and grow in Canada in the wake of tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump that target automakers. While those threats have supposedly sparked the 2025 Ontario election, in Wilmot, voters are heading to the polls with the controversy, secrecy and future of this site top of mind. 

Toyota’s long history in southwestern Ontario

The parcels of land being assembled in Wilmot are located between the Toyota assembly plant in Cambridge, which opened in 1988, and the newer one in Woodstock, which opened in 2008. The two plants have a combined workforce of 8,700, and produce more vehicles than any other part of Ontario’s auto sector for the past five years in a row, according to Toyota. The two assembly plants are also supported by a network of parts factories that employ more than 35,000 people in the region, says the Waterloo Region Economic Development Corporation.

At 770 acres, the proposed industrial site in Wilmot is larger than the Cambridge and Woodstock plants combined, with hundreds of acres of land left over. 

Sources said the site is ideal for a Toyota electric-vehicle battery plant.

The Japanese automaker is already making this shift: a new Toyota plant in Randolph County, N.C., that cost US$13.9 billion is set to begin production in April on electric-vehicle batteries. 

In recent years, Ottawa and Queen’s Park have collectively provided billions of dollars in subsidies to help build such electric vehicle and battery plants across southwestern Ontario, including in Windsor, St. Thomas, Alliston, Port Colborne and Loyalist County. So far, Toyota has not been in the mix, which doesn’t make sense, according to a source in Waterloo Region, given Toyota’s importance to automaking in Ontario.

According to public federal records, Toyota representatives have lobbied federal officials across several ministries and on various topics including manufacturing and electric vehicles. Toyota also has a heavy presence in the Ontario lobbying registry, with company officials from its manufacturing subsidiary registered since last summer. 

Vic Fedeli, the outgoing minister of economic development, previously said the province would help the region pay for the land assembly. 

Some in the auto industry say the province should be doing everything it can to keep companies like Toyota in Ontario in light of the tariff threats. Trump has also said Americans “don’t need” vehicles made in Ontario and laid out a strategy to force automakers to move their operations to the United States.

The source in Waterloo Region said the land assembly in Wilmot Township is critical because if Toyota builds another electric vehicle plant in the U.S., the future of Ontario’s Toyota operations will be in question.

In the past, Toyota has changed plans in response to political pressures. In April 2015, Toyota announced it was moving production of the Corolla from Cambridge to Mexico. After Trump first took office in January 2016, he threatened to impose tariffs on Toyota if it moved the plant to Mexico, and Toyota responded by moving the plant to the U.S.

“Toyota is a major investor in Ontario and the biggest employer in the region,” Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, said in an interview. “We’d better be pitching them a super site like this.”

Land assembly a concern at the ballot for the 2025 Ontario election 

Rural Ontario is the base of support for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party but the land assembly is threatening to wane it, in this area, at least. The Conservative incumbent, Mike Harris Jr. — son of former premier Mike Harris – won the riding by more than 4,100 votes in 2022. On Monday night, he was booed and called a liar at an all-candidates meeting in the New Hamburg Community Centre, near the assembly site.

During the discussion, Harris said voters in the riding are most concerned about having well-paid jobs close to home. At an earlier debate, Harris said 30,000 jobs are at stake if the land assembly in Wilmot Township is not completed. 

“How do you know how many jobs are at stake if you do not know what is going in there?” Jodi Szimanski, the Ontario NDP candidate in Kitchener-Conestoga, said in an interview Monday night. “It is another case where they are hiding secrets and not being transparent with people.”

The Ontario Liberal candidate, Joe Gowing, acknowledged the candidates are seeking office with little information about the most controversial issue in the riding. Gowing called the land assembly secretive, deceitful and undemocratic. He does not believe the Region of Waterloo and the Conservatives when they say no end-user is lined up for the land.

“The reason I don’t, is where are they getting the figure of 30,000 new jobs this is going to create? Where do they know that number from unless there is somebody waiting in the wings?” Gowing said in an interview Monday night.

In addition to the secrecy, voters are also concerned about the loss of farmland that could result from this industrial development. The 2021 Census of Agriculture shows Ontario is home to a quarter of Canada’s farms, and almost eight per cent of the country’s farmland. The Ontario Farmland Trust reports the province is losing 319 acres of farmland every day to other uses. At that rate, Ontario will lose all of its farmland in 100 years. And once farmland is paved over, it can no longer be used to sequester carbon, mitigate floods, provide habitat for wildlife or grow food. 

As a result, the National Farmers Union, among other advocacy organizations, has come out strongly against the land assembly, especially after some Wilmot farmers said they were threatened with expropriation if they do not agree to sell.

That includes Stewart Snyder, a third-generation dairy farmer on Nafziger Road. The region first made an offer to buy his property about a year ago for $35,000 an acre. After he refused, Snyder said the region has more than doubled the offer but it contains a strange clause — if the region does not need it, the land will be returned to the farmer.

“The terms and conditions totally suck,” Snyder said. “If you were selling your house would you let someone use it for a year while they decide if they want it or not, without paying anything? No.”

“When you go buy a car, can you take the car and drive it for a year and then decide whether they want it or not? Without paying anything? No.”

The secrecy, bizarre conditions and threats of expropriation have caused Snyder to re-think his lifelong support for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. He texted Conservative leader Doug Ford about it in response to a campaign message asking for his support. 

“My text said, ‘As a true blue supporter for the last 40 years, I am totally appalled by what’s going on and the process in Wilmot Township,’ ” Snyder said in an interview in his barn. 

Snyder was pleasantly surprised when Ford personally called his family farm and told his wife to direct their questions to the Region of Waterloo. But the outreach was not enough for him to vote for the Conservatives.

“I have to think twice about how I will vote,” he said.

Updated on Feb. 26, 2024, at 11:24 a.m. ET: Phrasing in the display copy — the secondary headline in particular — of this story has been changed to clarify that no farmland has been expropriated to date, however some farmers say they were warned their property could be expropriated.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

In Wilmot Township, Ont., family histories and futures are closely intertwined with the land and what governments decide to do with it. 

Adam van Bergeijk moved to the southern Ontario farming region 28 years ago with his wife and two sons after development encroached on the lands surrounding his dairy farm in the Netherlands.  

He figured that would never happen in Ontario, where farmland was fertile and protected. 

But in March, van Bergeijk was approached by Canacre, a private-sector land consultant, with an offer to buy his family’s land for industrial use on behalf of the Region of Waterloo and the Township of Wilmot. 

The township is on the traditional territories of the Neutral, Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee and Mississauga peoples. It is made up of a dozen towns and villages that rely heavily on farming, lies southwest of Kitchener and the city of Waterloo. The land the region is looking to expropriate is just south of New Hamburg, one of the township’s larger centres.

Van Bergeijk has been making cheese for 43 years, most of them here on a farm adjacent to the land the region is eyeing. Over the past few years, his family bought additional land right in the middle of that site to expand their operations. His two sons and their children planned for a future on Mountainoak Farm. Selling the new land was not in the plans, so they turned down Canacre’s offer and started asking questions.

All they — and Wilmot residents at large — have learned is this: according to flyers sent out by local officials many times since March, the region is responding to a provincial call to assemble shovel-ready land for industry. Having identified just under 800 acres, or about 323 hectares, in the middle of Wilmot that includes six farms and six residential properties, the region told the landowners their options are to sell or have their land expropriated — and soon. 

“As you may be aware, there is currently a shortage of industrial lands in the Region of Waterloo,” one of the flyers says. “To address this situation, the region is considering the acquisition of strategic land parcels to ensure its ability to accommodate the full range of new job growth and business investment to 2051. The intention is to assemble a new industrial business park.” It doesn’t say what kind of industry or business. 

In a different flyer, the region says the land is being assembled “for future investment from a major employer,” without mentioning who that employer is. This flyer promises the land shift “will result in thousands of well-paying local jobs and further economic prosperity in Waterloo Region.” 

More than four months later, it is still unclear what company or even industry the Wilmot land is being prepared for. Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli told Waterloo Region Record in May the land wasn’t going to become an electric-vehicle battery plant. The township, the region’s planning department and the province did not respond to emails from The Narwhal.

“Biggest problem is not knowing what is coming,” van Bergeijk says. “Could be a warehouse. Could be a chemical plant. Could be a garbage dump. We don’t know. That’s the strangest thing.” In the second flyer, the region notes while confidentiality can be “frustrating,” it’s a “common practice in real estate negotiations, with the intention to protect the integrity of conversations and negotiations with the buyer and seller.” 

Most farmers in Wilmot have banded together to oppose the expropriation. The grassroots group dubbed “Fight for Farmland” has signage everywhere across the township: peeking between crops of corn and cabbage, set up in front of the fields and barns where cows eat and sleep, stuck into the dirt on the side of roads, placed in the windows of shops and restaurants and planted on the front yards of nearly every house within driving distance of the lands.

The group’s efforts to glean more information on who wants the land, and why, have not been fruitful. The Region of Waterloo has refused to release any information in response to the 21 requests the group filed under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. 

Seven farmers told The Narwhal they are worried about the impacts of the loss of fertile land on their livelihoods and Ontario’s future food security. They are also concerned about the possible environmental impacts of converting farmland to industrial land. 

According to the 2021 Census of Agriculture, Ontario is home to a quarter of Canada’s farms, and almost eight per cent of the country’s farmland. According to Ontario Farmland Trust, the province is losing 319 acres of farmland every day to other uses. At that rate, Ontario will lose all of its farmland in 100 years. 

Once farmland is paved over, it can no longer be used to sequester carbon, mitigate floods, filter water, provide habitat for species at risk or grow food. 

“I don’t think people are giving food production the priority that it should have,” says Richard Good, a retired farmer who still lives on the land he grew up on in Wilmot. Called St. Jacobs Foods, his family’s property is right across the road from the farmlands facing expropriation. 

“There were food shortages during COVID, and people sort of woke up and took notice of how maybe we don’t have the security in our food industry that we think. And yet now, you don’t hear anything about that anymore. It’s all about how we need the industry.” 

Good’s father — a dairy farmer — bought the 100-acre farm in 1958. When Good took over St. Jacobs Foods, he started growing vegetables, including cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage. He retired nearly three years ago. 

“I think what the public needs to realize is that over time the area that we can produce food from is diminishing,” Good says. “And, you know, when do you say ‘stop’ and hold on to what you’ve got instead of just parcelling it away?”

Eva Wagler agrees. She came to Canada from the Czech Republic 14 years ago on a year-long study abroad program and spent time working on Good’s farm. She decided she wanted to stay permanently, and bought part of St. Jacobs Foods from Good. “He taught me everything about farming,” she said. “I fell in love with it right here.” 

Though St. Jacobs Foods is not part of the land assembly, Wagler says she is worried about the environmental impacts to her farm. 

“Water contamination is a huge concern,” Wagler says, noting a creek that leads to a pond on her site travels through several farms set to be expropriated. “What if the industrial site contaminates the water? We don’t know what kind of impact it’ll have.” 

The farmers opposing the expropriation say they don’t object to growth or new economic opportunities in the region. But they say a greater population will require both more jobs and more food. In that balance, they believe the government is prioritizing the wrong thing and in the wrong way. 

“I think there is an opportunity for development to happen but we need to talk about it and be creative,” Good says. “I don’t think we can just grab 800 acres in secret.”

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This is the second instalment of a three-part series on Dr. John O’Connor, the family physician to first identify higher-than-average cancer rates and rare forms of cancer in communities downstream of the Alberta oilsands. Read Part 1 and Part 3.

When Dr. John O’Connor arrived in Fort Chipewyan in 2000, it took him a little while to get familiar with the population.

The town was a bit larger than his previous post of Fort MacKay, with a population of around 1,000 at that time. Locals had few options when it came to medical care. Their town was 300 kilometres north of Fort McMurray and accessible only by plane in the summer or by ice road for a few of the colder months.

O’Connor recognized it was a close-knit community and yet hard to get a foothold in.

“You had to be trusted to gain their respect, I guess,” he said.

Most doctors hadn’t established a continuous practice up there, O’Connor said, so the community hadn’t received continuous care by the same medical expert for many years.

“What they were looking for was one pair of eyes, one pair of hands. Consistency,” he recounts.

“That was one of the reasons why I was approached to provide service. So that made it easier to get to know people and for them to get to know me.”

O’Connor immediately began poring over patient files, piecing together what a series of seasonal doctors had left behind. Patients there felt there was no continuity between what rotating doctors would say about their symptoms.

Yet, to O’Connor, the files coupled with his continuous care of individuals began to paint one alarming picture.

“What had been documented before from the patients was quite concerning. I got to know people then and people come in for various symptoms, from the day-to-day bread and butter type of practice to more serious stuff. I began to see that there are issues in Fort Chip that I shouldn’t be seeing at a practice even in Fort McMurray, with 4,000 to 5,000 patients. I wasn’t seeing anything like the pathology I was seeing in Fort Chip.”

What O’Connor discovered was a strikingly high concentration of cancer in the small community. The files were actually well organized, O’Connor said, and he began to add to them, ordering new tests and gaining new patients.

“The numbers just started to mount up,” he said. “It just didn’t make sense.”

O’Connor began reaching out to other doctors and specialists, asking them if they also thought the pathologies in Fort Chip were notable. Even at that early time, O’Connor said, “there was a general agreement” that the cancer rates and rates of other illnesses were unusually high. O’Connor cautioned, though, that those were the early days: “of course, at that point, that was very early – early times of trying to figure out why.”

“And I guess, in many respects we’re still trying to figure that out, because no studies have ever been done,” he said.

“The thing that was really striking was that Fort Chip is way off the beaten track,” O’Connor said. “It’s right on the edge of the Canadian shield, in a gorgeous location. The population — less so now — but back then, probably 80 per cent of the community in one way or another subsisted off the land.”

Located in the muskeg of Canada’s expansive boreal forest, Fort Chip is located on the shores of Lake Athabasca and is surrounded by prime hunting lands. Throughout history, traditional peoples have fed themselves on a steady diet of moose, caribou, fish and other local fauna.

A river meanders through the muskeg of the Boreal Forest. Photo: Kris Krug

The frozen shore of Lake Athabasca. The Athabasca River flows north through the oilsands region and drains directly into Lake Athabasca. Photo: Kris Krug

But by the early 2000s the locals began noticing disturbing changes in the local environment.

As O’Connor documented case after case of cancer and other illnesses, he also began hearing more stories of a changing local landscape.

“I had a lot of concerns expressed by especially the elders,” O’Connor recounted, “about the changes that they’ve seen in their environment around Fort Chip in the, probably, 10 plus years, prior to me coming in.”

The thing he heard elders talking the most about, he said, was water.

“They talked about the fishing and going out on Lake Athabasca to fish, and then stopping at one of the many islands in the lake and … camping for a day or two, being able to drink the water directly from the lake and how fresh it tasted. It was really good water, and they’d use it to make tea and make soup and stuff like that. And they could no longer do it.”

O’Connor says elders described a “constant sheen of oil” atop the water, the colours of the rainbow and attributed the water’s foul taste to that. It wasn’t long before locals began asking if the sheen was connected to what was going on upstream, O’Connor said.

What sounded the alarm were the strange fish.

“They talked about the fish that they were catching with increasing regularity,” O’Connor said. “These fish had deformities and missing parts and extra parts. Fish with red blotches all over them. Fish didn’t taste the same. Many of the elders, traditional food consumers, threw the fish back into the lake.”

Robert Grandjambe Jr., a trapper and fisher in Fort Chipewyan, shows sick fish from Lake Athabasca. He explains he feeds strange-looking fish to his dogs. Photo: Kris Krug

After that the local muskrat population died off. Muskrat were consumed by locals and their pelts used or traded. Eventually they became harder to find. And when they were found, they were often dead or the meat would smell like oil and taste bad.

Plants used in traditional medicine began to disappear too. The rat root from the shore of Lake Athabasca became increasingly scarce.

O’Connor remembers one elder, Mary Rose Waquan who only recently passed away, who told him of the ducks her sons used to hunt.

“Mary Rose was a very traditional … She would eat lots. There’s very little that she would not eat. But she said the meat was bad, and she had to throw the ducks out.”

Mary Rose’s son, Archie Waquan, went on to become chief of the Mikisew Cree Nation in Fort Chip. Archie, who now owns a bed and breakfast that O’Connor frequents, has said the same thing over many late-night conversations or morning cups of coffee.

O’Connor said the community of Fort Chip, although it was suffering, hesitated to “point fingers.”

A derelict fishing boat near the shore of Lake Athabasca. Photo: Kris Krug

“They largely didn’t suggest that there was a connection with industry, but they wondered,” O’Connor said. “Most of their concern was trying to get to the bottom of what’s going on.”

O’Connor said that the community’s multiple attempts to have fish tested by Fish and Wildlife for analysis were bungled, with samples forgotten, decayed and unfit for testing.

What was once a thriving fishery eventually disappeared.

The fishing wharf in Fort Chipewyan on the shores of Lake Athabasca. Photo: Kris Krug

Sounding the alarm

In 2003, another physician with experience in Fort Chip, Dr. Michael Sauvé, spoke up at a hearing about unusually high disease rates in First Nation communities. Afterwards the provincial Energy and Utilities Board recommended a study, funded by industry, be conducted in communities of concern, but the recommendation was never followed.

By 2004 O’Connor was leaving messages with Health Canada about what he was seeing in Fort Chip.

Things changed after an elderly patient, a school bus driver, who had lived a relatively healthy life came in to see O’Connor one day at lunchtime. All the other medical staff were out to lunch so it was just the two of them.

“I was still behind the front desk in the waiting room doing paperwork and he walked in. The lights were turned off…I saw him walking in and I came to the door and I said, ‘How are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’m not feeling well, so we just need to make an appointment to see you.’ And in the dim light — there was one light on behind the front desk — he looked odd. I knew him. I’d seen him probably a few weeks before for something minor. And I turned on the light and realized he was jaundiced. I asked him, ‘What’s going on?’ He told me he just didn’t feel well. He lost a bit of weight. His appetite was off, felt a bit nauseous. So I said, ‘No, let’s get you into the examining room now.’

The patient was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare form of bile duct cancer, and died soon after.

O’Connor was intimately familiar with the rare disease — his own father, a book salesman, succumbed to it in 1993.

“I’d never thought I’d see it again,” O’Connor said, referencing the bile duct cancer. “And then turning up in Fort Chip, realizing how rare it was, it was a shock.”

Artificial flowers decorate graves in the Fort Chipewyan cemetery. Photo: Kris Krug

In retrospect, O’Connor said he feels being there to recognize that uncommon cancer is significant. “If I had to think of why, why did I come to Canada? This might sound corny or something [but] I truly believe that this was the reason.”

It was this experience with such a rare disease that led O’Connor to reach out to Health Canada. He said he wanted assurances that he shouldn’t be worried. “But there was never a response,” he said.

In 2006 a CBC reporter named Erik Denison was told to investigate the health of people from Fort Chip by a local businesswoman Frances Jean, according to O’Connor.

When that reporter contacted O’Connor, it was the first time he stated publicly that he felt what was happening in Fort Chip was a public health issue.

“He reported it and it went everywhere. It was the most astounding thing … life for me has never been the same since.”

Read Part 1 of this series: John O’Connor and the Dawn of a New Oilsands Era. Read Part 3: The Spotlight Turns on Fort Chip Doctor.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.