Landfill Topic Discussed at Ingersoll Chamber AGM

Friday, 25 January 2019 14:53

Ingersoll Mayor Ted Comiskey asked local MPP Ernie Hardeman today point blank if the Ontario Government will block the landfill from proceeding.

BEACHVILLE - The proposed Landfill or mega dump for Oxford County was brought up at the Ingersoll Chamber of Commerce AGM today.

Ingersoll Mayor Ted Comiskey asked local MPP Ernie Hardeman, who was the quest speaker point blank if the Ontario Government will block the landfill from proceeding. Hardeman explained to the audience that at this point in time, there is no official proposal for a landfill in Oxford County, only a Terms of Reference.

"The process that is there now is that they are gathering information to see if they can make an application for a landfill site. If it was just a straight, we are going to say no to Walker at this point, we would have to the information that they are gathering to decide that, if you are not going to relate it to the application itself, then you would just have to say to, we are going to say not to landfills across the Province."

Hardeman says the Government did already take a positive first step.

"I was happy to see, that when the Minister of Environment came out with their Environment plan, it says municipalities shall have a say in where a landfill goes. Part of the application says they must get municipal approval, as the environmental plan goes forward and implemented by legislation that would be one of the things that needs to be addressed and hopefully we can do that. As much as I would like to say today that it is not going to happen, I know that there is a process that they have to follow and that the Government has to be accountable for to."

Hardeman did reiterate that he is just as opposed to a Landfill in Oxford County today as he has ever been.

"I have seen nothing that would convince me that putting a landfill in Beachville is a good idea, I'm opposed to it now as I was then and that is why I was pleased to see the Government take the step to put it in the environmental plan."

Mayor Ted Comiskey started to ask the question by reading an email he received from Premier Doug Ford who said that municipalities should have say on where landfills are located and it should not be up to bureaucrats to decide where they are located.