Winning back more than words? Power, discourse and quarrying on the Niagara Escarpment

Abstract

This paper explores the controversy and public hearing on the proposed extension of the largest limestone quarry in Canada, operated by Dufferin Aggregates at Milton, Ontario. The quarry constitutes an important source of construction material for the nearby Greater Toronto Area. However, the quarry is protected by the provincial Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act and located inside the UNESCO‐designated Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve. The proposal has therefore attracted considerable opposition from the public institution charged with its protection, the Niagara Escarpment Commission, as well as environmental groups and local residents. To make sense of the tensions, conflicts and outcome of the Dufferin case, we consult and apply several critical literatures. We see the conflict as part of a transformation of the countryside from a space of production to a space of consumption, where there is a shift in emphasis from resource extractive to scenic and ecological landscape values, and the displacement of productive classes, farmers and workers, in favour of a service class of professionals and retirees. Within this transformation, we identify a ‘power geometry’ of actor networks of different coalition groups that form allegiances and engage in struggles at different geographic scales. These actor networks operate within the set frames of a dominant development discourse and a popular environmentalist discourse that both include and exclude other ways of seeing and managing the escarpment.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Ontario’s 2005 Greenbelt Plan at Preserving the Protected Countryside from Urbanization and Non-Renewable Resource Mining

“…In 2003 before the Greenbelt Act was in place, the quarry was protected by the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act. Their research addresses the pressure placed on governmental planning authorities to approve aggregate site creation and expansion to help fill the demand created from urban expansion and development (Patano & Sandberg, 2005). The research also speaks to the difference citizen consultation and local resistance can make in the battle to slow the efforts of aggregate mining proponents.…”

The Politics of Sewerage: Contested Narratives on Growth, Science, and Nature

“…They also fail to imagine that the boundaries between productivist and post-productivist activities can be dissolved, where human and ecological processes complement rather than are at odds with each other (Patano and Sandberg 2005;Chambers and Sandberg 2007).…”

Between a rock and hard place: (re)viewing environmental conflicts over aggregate extraction in exurbia

“…This group tends to be geographically mobile, a factor affecting their shift towards housing located in peri-urban rural areas, housing which provides 'the best of both worlds' -relatively easy access to urban areas, with the benefits of a rural lifestyle. Patano and Sandberg (2005) argue that this conceptualization of rural space -as sites of contention between consumptive and productive forces -closely corresponds to the 56 situation in the Niagara Escarpment Area4, where "the promoters of the aggregate industry clearly represent a productivist landscape whereas their opponents represent a post-productivist (or consumptionist) landscape" (p. 29). Examining the way(s) these tensions are manifested at the discursive level in the Rockfort quarry dispute is critical to understanding the conflict in general, and the resistance strategies of the CCC in particular.…”

“…In some cases, residents have homes in both Caledon and Toronto, thus maintaining both 'rural' and 'urban' lifestyles. Patano and Sandberg (2005) write about the tensions inherent in the growth of exurban populations in rural areas and the associated "transformation o f the countryside from spaces of production to spaces of consumption" (p. 29) as the population of the productive class (e.g., farmers, resource workers) declines and that of a service class (professional and/or retirees) grows in these areas. This is certainly true of the Caledon area, where the 'production' of aggregate close to source is in direct competition with the 'consumption' of a bucolic rural life sought by many exurbanites.…”

“…Given the competing tensions over land use between productivist and postproductivist forces (Patano and Sandberg, 2005) the increase in community-based resistance to locally unwanted land uses in many peri-urban areas is not surprising. The time commitment required of regular members can be onerous, although members participate at differing levels according to the time and energy they have available.…”