by SUSAN MANN
Dairy farmer Ben Berendsen wasn’t surprised when he heard last week that the Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear their pollution lawsuit against the Ontario government.
Government can not be free of liability for environmental issues committed 30 or 40 years ago, he says, noting the case should have been settled 25 years ago.
No date has been set yet.
The Berendsens sought the Supreme Court hearing after an Ontario Appeal Court last year reversed an earlier court judgment awarding them more than $1.7 million in compensation. In 2008, Ontario Superior Court Justice Silja S. Seppi ruled for the Berendsens, citing business losses and property value depreciation. The farming couple and their two children launched the lawsuit against the government in 1994.
The Superior Court judge found the province was liable because chemical contamination from waste asphalt and other highway reconstruction debris buried on the Berendsens farm near Teviotdale by the Ontario transportation ministry in the mid-1960s caused serious health problems in their cattle and led them to produce an unusually low quantity of milk.
The Ontario Appeal Court ruled the province couldn’t reasonably foresee the risk of harm when it buried the highway reconstruction waste and wasn’t negligent. Furthermore, the duty to eliminate the waste and remediate the Berendsens well water didn’t exist then under Ontario’s environmental protection laws.
The Berendsens gave up farming the Teviotdale farm in late 1994 and moved their dairy operation to Chepstow in Bruce County. Berendsen says the Teviotdale farm has been for sale for the past 15 years but “never, ever got an offer.” BF
Abuse
Definition of abuse “...single or repeated acts, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within a relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person.” http://www.cnpea.ca/what_is_senior_abuse.pdf
We are encouraged to trust municipal, provincial, and federal governments but over the last 20+ yrs this attrosity of abuse has gone on unaddressed. This is one of the worst cases in Ont. but there are others (stray voltage,conservation, species protection, greenbelt)all without compensation, against rural people that would not be tolerated under any measure of Canadian law, protected under religion, race, or sexual orientation except when it is associated with property rights.
Shame on "trusted" rural MP's, MPP's and municipal councils for allowing this type of rural abuse to injure and steal from honest people of rural Ont.
Trust... Public Trust
I thought most of these public office people swear an oath of office to uphold the law and to represent the people who elected them to serve.
It seems the "trust" part of public office and public oath to serve is in grave danger of terminal distress. Upholding the laws these same public people swear to uphold, and enforce, on the masses while breaking the spirit and the letter of the law at will, is the breakdown of the moral fiber of society and the first step towards civil unrest.
When laws have double standards and multiple interpretations for government or a select few to be above the law, the oath is in question and democracy is no longer reality for Canadians who advocate for this high standard.
I am sorry this family's Canadian justice experience has been so poor for so many years.