The struggle to prevent the Adams Mine, 11 kilometres south of Kirkland Lake, from being used as a dump for Toronto’s garbage was one of the longest and most contentious environmental battles ever waged in Ontario. It began in 1990shortly after Dofasco shutdown the open pit iron ore mine, and finally ended in victory in April 2004.
Pierre Belanger, a businessman in nearby Earlton, was recruited by the Adams Mine Coalition to serve as a volunteer spokesman for the group in 1997. By then, Mike Harris’s pro-dump Conservative government was in power, an environmental assessment was about to begin and it was increasingly apparent that the community had a real fight on its hands.
In this video, Pierre talks about the role he played bringing the disparate communities of the Temiskaming area together to oppose the dump, which was seen as threat to the region’s groundwater and the livelihood of the community. Pierre reached out to the Temiskaming First Nation and other communities across the border in Quebec to join the fight.
He tells us about the role he played as a spokesman for the Coalition and the strategies employed to battle the well-connected, moneyed consortium backed by full-time legal staff, consultants and public relations firms.The Coalition mobilized the community,raised funds,recruited experts to refute the claims of the hydrogeologists in the employ of the proponents and resorted to highway and rail line blockages to underline their determination.
Pierre reminisces about the Coalition’s trip to Lausanne, Switzerland to oppose the City of Toronto’s bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics,and the decisive October 10, 2000 meeting of Toronto City Council that doomed the project despite a vote in favour of sending the city’s garbage to Northern Ontario.
The struggle to oppose the Adams Mine dump was a textbook case of an alleged economic development project that was, in fact, the antithesis of sustainability. Any Northern Ontario community facing a similar threat can learn from the experience of those who fought and won the battle against the Adams Mine dump