Assiginack council  endorses movement opposing tax relief on protected lands

Passes motion in response to citizens' delegation

by Alicia McCutcheon

ASSIGINACK-Assiginack council passed a motion last week objecting to the tax-exempt status of Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy (EBC) properties "and its implications to our tax base."

The motion further appeals to the Ministry of Natural Resources and the provincial government to "reconsider the designation and its implications."

The motion came after Andy Bowerman, a resident of Assiginack, made a presentation to council on his concerns.

"If the biosphere (conservancy) is exempt from paying taxes, then who's going to pick up the lost revenue?" he asked. "Not the government-they'd rather download."

There are two properties owned by the EBC in Assiginack-Fossil Hill (where New England Side Road meets Highway 6) and 100 acres just south and east of Sucker Lake.

"Who does pick up the shortfall?" asked councillor Brenda Reid.

"In this case, the ratepayers pick up the shortfall," Clerk-Treasurer Alton Hobbs explained.

Councillor Reid made the motion in support of Mr. Bowerman's request while Councillor Vern Johnson seconded the motion. The resolution will also be forwarded on to the Island municipalities, MPP Mike Brown, Natural Resources Minster Donna Cansfield, the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation and Premier Dalton McGuinty.

"I'm tired of freeloaders coming on the Manitoulin," Mr. Bowerman told The Expositor. "I'm worried they'll buy property next to me and then put in a buffer zone where you can't timber or hunt and our government is paying for this-they're giving people money to buy these properties."

"Leave the rest of our properties alone and don't be trespassing on ours," he warns the EBC. "I don't begrudge a flower, it's just the way it's been done. Does the government pay our taxes? No."

"When all of this property is going to be exempt, who's going to pay the taxes?" Mr. Bowermen asked. "A million dollars worth of assessment (throughout Manitoulin) is going to mean a lot of taxes. I think we should be really fighting this."

Bob Barnett, executive director of the EBC, explained that there are certain categories of land where all landowners are subject to exemption including wetland areas, areas of natural and scientific interest, habitat of rare or endangered species, or land designated as escarpment natural. If landowners apply, they may too be tax exempt.

"Manitoulin is the only part of Ontario that has not had mapping done on land deemed 'provincially significant,'" Mr. Barnett said. "The province is encouraging charities such as ours to preserve lands like this."

Manitoulin fits into the Ontario Lands for Life category, which means the province has found the Island to be of utmost ecological importance.

"Manitoulin holds one third of the plant species in all of Canada," he said. "It's neither north nor south-it's totally unique."

Mr. Barnett acknowledges that the municipal taxpayers have to make up for the shortfall but explains that the taxes are relatively modest.

"When we own land like this, it's not really something that uses a lot of municipal services-Ontario Works, libraries, schools," he explained. "We don't require any of those things."

"The province is interested in having a sample of Ontario land protected," he said. "The province sets this up so that landowners can protect the land."

"I can understand Assiginack being concerned but the tax concern is relatively modest for what the benefits are going to be," Mr. Barnett said, noting that the Cup and Saucer trail-which traverses a parcel owned by the EBC-injected $380,000 into the local economy last year.

"We hope to provide economic benefits by providing a place for people to go," he said. "We plan to open a trail at Fossil Hill and hope to slow the traffic down on Highway 6 instead of people racing for Espanola."

He noted that, unlike most of Ontario, Manitoulin has neither a county forest nor a municipally run conservation authority.

"There are places like Low Island or Sandy Beach (on Lake Manitou) which are owned municipally-we're just doing the same thing, trying to create a public asset."

Assiginack will likely patch Cardwell Street

Using tar-and-chip process

by Alicia McCutcheon

ASSIGINACK-The municipality of Assiginack is poised to move ahead with some stop-gap repairs to Cardwell Street if news regarding a more thorough solution for the infamous road is not heard soon from MPP Mike Brown.

During the April 7 meeting of the public works committee meeting, reeve, council and public works superintendent Ron Cooper made the decision that immediate attention was needed for Cardwell Street, despite the township having been shut out of the Municipal Infrastructure Investment Initiative (MIII) program. The municipality had applied for $3 million to fix the road but, as the program is 'all or nothing,' they received zero funds.

Assiginack did, however, receive just over $300,000 from the provincial government to be used specifically for roads and bridges. The funding will not be received until June-beyond the time that Assiginack expects to have its budget set-with strict expectations on how it is to be spent.

The winter's constant freeze-and-thaw cycle has taken its toll on Cardwell Street and Mr. Cooper advised the committee that the cost of adding gravel and surface treating the road from the intersection of Meredith and Arthur Street to the Wikwemikong boundary would cost upwards of $200,000. This treatment might provide three to five years of safer travel on the road but the committee agreed that it was still important to continue to lobby the federal government "to accept its responsibility and provide a proper access to the First Nation," according to the minutes.

It was moved that Mr. Cooper be authorized to coordinate the necessary contractors, for a cost not exceeding $200,000, to 'tar and chip' the road.

Two days later, The Expositor reported on Assiginack's failure to receive the MIII funding and quoted MPP Mike Brown saying that perhaps the reason Assiginack was turned down was due to the fact that other funding agencies may have been looking seriously at the Cardwell Street project.

"Why weren't we informed about this instead of making that kind of statement to the public?" asked Councillor Bud Rohn.

Reeve Leslie Fields explained that she had talked with Tom Farquhar in Mr. Brown's office who said that the MPP, who acts as parliamentary assistant to Transport Minister Jim Bradley, would have not made that statement to the newspaper unless something was, indeed, in the works. An email was sent to the MPP's office asking for further clarification on the subject-and inquiring whether the municipality should go ahead with their plans to hard surface the road-but by the time of the council meeting last Tuesday, council had not heard a response.

"It's not a great position to be in, but we're not going to go ahead and spend the money if we're going to have good news coming," Reeve Fields said. "We can't ask Ron (Cooper) to investigate something that's going to be redundant."

Councillor Rohn suggested Assiginack give Mr. Brown's office a deadline by which to respond so tenders can be issued for the surfacing of Cardwell Street.

"Something has to happen," the reeve said.

The Expositor spoke on Monday with Mr. Brown, who said he "understands Assiginack's quandary," but they should not feel dismayed.

"This (MIII) is not the only infrastructure program that has ever been, including with the Government of Canada," he said. "There will be more provincial programs as we move forward."

Mr. Brown noted that Assiginack received over $300,000 in funding last year for Cardwell Street and another $305,000 this year from the provincial budget.

"If this was joint one-third, one-third, one-third, it would bring them to nearly the amount they had asked for-the original estimate they had for Cardwell Street."

"Assiginack will have to use its own judgment as to whether they should go ahead or not," Mr. Brown said.

'Jane Doe' headlines VCARS_event Balcony Rapist's target advocates more

sensitive treatment of victims by courts

by Michael Erskine

M'CHIGEENG-The City of Toronto defence lawyers characterized her as a woman with questionable morals, a histrionic man-hater, a woman who lacked imagination and a woman whose sole agenda was to torpedo the government of the day and to bring down western civilization as we know it-well, okay, maybe on that last one they were a little bit right. If so, despite all of her hard work and effort, Jane Doe maintains she has a lot of work cut out for her yet.

The woman whose determined civil suit forced the Toronto Police to accountability over how they handled her sexual assault by the infamous 'Balcony Rapist' told everyone attending the Manitoulin Northshore Victim Crisis Assistance and Referral Services (VCARS) conference in M'Chigeeeng her name-but a media publication ban on her name or picture ensures she will be known throughout this story simply as 'Jane Doe.'

It is very hard to classify Jane Doe as a victim. A vivacious, articulate and assertive woman, Ms. Doe may have been raped in the supposed safety of her own bed in 1986 by masked man who had slipped into her locked apartment in the dead of night through the second-storey balcony of her building, but she steadfastly refuses to adopt the role she says society still expects of women who have been raped. Her mode of dress while addressing the conference was not provocative, but neither was it demure-it was simply normal.

Ms. Doe began her 12-year legal battle shortly after she was assaulted and learned that the police had known a serial rapist was at work before she was attacked. In 1998 a civil court judge ruled that the police had violated Ms. Doe's equality rights, as well as her constitutional right to security of the person and awarded her over $200,000 in damages.

As a direct result of the court case, Toronto city council apologized to Ms. Doe and the women of Toronto for the way in which her case had been handled and ordered a social audit-an inquiry-to examine police investigations of sexual assault and how women who report those crimes are treated.

Ms. Doe sat on a steering committee with other community women to implement the 57 recommendations that audit produced. Most of those recommendations deal with police training, the over-reliance on technology as a crime-fighting tool and the "nature, context and language of sexual assault or rape warnings." To date, she said, none of those recommendations have been fully implemented.

Her story has, however, set a legal precedent now taught in law schools across the country, and been made into a book: 'The Story of Jane Doe,' which in turn has been nominated for a raft of literary awards and is part of college and university course curriculums across North America. A movie of the week based on her story won five Juno Awards and her work has garnered her accolades and awards in her own right from numerous sources in the ensuing years.

Ms. Doe credits some of the legal success of her challenge to the fact that hers was a "good rape," because she was a white middle-class woman, who was alone in her own 'good' apartment, who held down a good job, was apparently heterosexual, was asleep in her own bed and who did not know her rapist.

"Imagine how the system treats the poor woman, the black woman, the prostitute, the lesbian, the woman who dares to walk alone down the street at night or the woman who knows her rapist," she said.

No matter who the victim is, some facts remain as common denominators, said Ms. Doe. "A chain of events is set in motion in which the woman has absolutely no control," she said. From the moment she reports the rape, "she will be assessed as a helpless victim. She will be told how to act, what to say, how to dress-they will determine the course for her."

That woman stood at strong odds to Ms. Doe. "I have never been good at a passive role," she said.

Ms. Doe learned that her attacker was a serial rapist, that the attacks took place within a six-block radius of each other, in the area of Toronto centred on Church and Wellesley Streets, that the rapist's MO was to gain entry through the second and third floor balconies, that the victims were single and lived alone, and that the attacks were cyclical.

"They were expecting another attack," she said. "I was raped the day before they were expecting the next one to happen."

"I asked, 'If you had this information, why did you not issue a warning?'" she said. "Their answer was that: 1) women would become hysterical, and 2) the rapist would flee. Those answers highlight another myth: women are frightened all the time."

Women, said Ms. Doe, are socialized from a very early age to adopt a culture of fear.

"We socialize our girls. We tell them to make good choices. We tell them that violence can come into their lives, to watch your drinks. We teach them that evil lurks in the bushes and that it can teleport into our lives at will," she said.

But those social lessons, the lessons of the danger-stranger which are ingrained into young girls from the very start, are wrong.

"The men who rape are the men we know," she said. "The man who raped me had a wife and child. He lived in the neighbourhood."

When Ms. Doe, who was a feminist-activist before she was raped and continues to identify herself as a feminist, threatened to take her own warning to the streets, she was told that the police would then have to charge her.

Undaunted, she and 20 other women plastered some 2,000 posters around her neighbourhood.

"There was an arrest within 24 hours," she said. "Someone picked up the phone and said, 'This is the man you are looking for.'"

Police warnings follow the same template, said Ms. Doe. "They focus on the woman. They say don't, don't, don't-we get that! We have gotten that since the age of five. Those warnings say: 'There is a rapist in the neighbourhood. We don't know who it is-so stay inside.' Stop telling us 'don't. We get it. We do get it."

The defence in a rape case is allowed to attack the victim's credibility, to highlight the factors in the case that suggest that the victim was "asking for it." The defence's role is to try to trick the victim, and "to show that we enjoyed it, that we caused it or that it wasn't so bad, all to get their client off or to get a reduced sentence-and that, along with policy and procedures that dehumanize and belittle the victim, are why only a tiny fraction of rape cases are ever actually reported to the police," Ms. Doe said.

As a victim, Ms. Doe said she was supposed to show up to court, to testify with her rapist in the room, and then to leave the room-but to stick around in case they needed her again.

That did not sit very well with her at all.

So, after a long and lengthy search for a lawyer who would take her case, Ms. Doe fought for the right to sit in the courtroom. "In the end, the judge said that justice must not only be done, and seen to be done, but seen by me to be done," she said.

The lawyer who represented her became a pariah within the legal community herself, but in the end became a judge-so perhaps sometimes courage is rewarded or at least recognized in the system.

What Ms. Doe endured through the rape trial paled in comparison to the civil case. In the civil case the defence was allowed to bring up her relationships with her male relatives, her earlier drug use, her troubled relationship with her mother-"Who I adore," she said-to show her as an "unhappy" teenager.

She was forced to list all of the books she had read prior to 1986. "I read a lot," Ms. Doe said.

Among the 1960s-plus feminist-oriented books were such radical tracts as Nancy Drew and Trixie Belton-"It's true, I was a Trixie Belton girl!" Ms. Doe said.

She was also subjected to an interview by the defence's psychologist, whose wife/assistant stayed in the room with them to ensure there were no accusations of improper sexual advances.

"All these tests were ancient," Ms. Doe said. "A whole battery of tests used by medical professionals to classify a person into their own particular madness-many of the tests were found to be of dubious value by current standards."

At one point Ms. Doe was shown the famous inkblot test. "All I could think of, the only word that kept popping into my head, was vagina! But I wasn't going to say vagina in front of this guy, so I started making things up-flower, bee in flower, tree-at the trial this expert said that I lacked imagination!"

The system itself needs to change, Ms. Doe asserted, and further, it is largely men who need to change it. This is where we get into the bringing down western civilization bit.

It is almost always men who commit rape. But although one in four men may commit an act of sexual assault, noted Ms. Doe, it is vitally important to remember that three out of four men do not. It is the 75 percent of 'good men' who have to take it upon themselves to make the change in our society-a society in which power is still completely dominated by men.

Society supports rape, it glorifies violence in the media and the legal system, and the 'prison industrial complex'-a term coined to describe the practice of jailing offenders to solve social, political and economic problems-which has control of the justice system, thrives on it, Ms. Doe said.

The man who raped Ms. Doe had done it before in Vancouver. He has now-20 years after pleading guilty to raping Jane Doe and having served his full sentence-been released into the community with the label of being "of high risk to re-offend."

The cycle may continue, but its end is in no way being helped by the current system.

The man who raped Ms. Doe is now hounded from community to community by people who believe they are doing a good thing, she said. Prisoners are released with "$80 and a ticket to anywhere they want to go," pointed out Ms. Doe. But they are barred from re-entering society. They cannot get a decent job. They cannot get an education. "They are denied any opportunity to change," she noted.

What is promised by politicians and what the prisoner industry complex lobby for are bigger prisons and longer sentences, she said, noting that "we do not understand the nature of the problem."

Society must begin to seek solutions to the problem, rather than simply locking up the symptoms in larger and larger cages, with bigger and bigger populations of men who are given no real opportunity to even begin to help them to find another path in life.

"If he had an opportunity to get an education, to get a job, if he had all that, all those things...then I could feel safer," she said.

Ms. Doe's book contains her story, of which only a small part was contained within her presentation last week (and which is even more abbreviated within this story). The Story of Jane Doe can be ordered online at Amazon or Chapters, or found in larger bookstores.

Carter Bay developer lodges $1.5-million lawsuit against

Central Manitoulin Township and two municipal employees

by Jim Moodie

CENTRAL MANITOULIN-Carter Bay developer Arend Van Vierzen is suing the township of Central Manitoulin for $1.5 million in damages over actions taken by municipal officials that he deems to have been defamatory and malicious.

The action against the township was launched in late November through the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, with Earth Clean 2000, Mr. Van Vierzen's company, cited as the plaintiff, and Central Manitoulin clerk Ruth Frawley, building official Andrew O'Reilly, and the municipality itself identified as defendants.

According to the statement of claim, Mr. Van Vierzen is seeking "damages in the amount of $1,000,000 for misfeasance in public office, abuse of public office, unlawful interference with economic relations...conspiracy to defame (and) conspiracy to injure/conspiracy by unlawful means." As well, punitive damages of $500,000 are claimed.

Additional damages are sought for the developer's cost of investigating the alleged wrongdoings of the municipality and the business costs incurred from "dealing with the impact of the defendants' unlawful conduct," according to the lawsuit.

Central Manitoulin Reeve Richard Stephens declined to discuss the specifics of the suit, noting that "it's a legal process, and I'm hesitant to comment until such time as it is resolved or we know where we're going with it."

The reeve noted that the matter has only been discussed by council during in-camera sessions so far, as is the municipality's prerogative when dealing with legal issues. "We felt it was prudent to deal with this behind the scenes, not in public," he said.

In general, though, "these are allegations we don't agree with," said the reeve, who added, "nothing's happened since this came across our desk." And until such time as "a discovery meeting is pulled together to get both sides in the room," the matter will remain up in the air, he noted.

Peter J. Archambault of the Weaver Simmons law firm in Sudbury is representing the township in the legal proceeding, but when contacted by the Expositor, the solicitor was unable to shed more light on the situation. "Because it's ongoing litigation, I can't comment," he said. Mr. Van Vierzen, for his part, was away from the Island last week and unavailable to speak to the situation.

The developer's concerns, however, are amply spelled out in the 11-page statement of claim, filed by Toronto lawyer Marvin J. Huberman on December 20.

The Carter Bay proprietor accuses both Ms. Frawley and Mr. O'Reilly of interfering with his ability to sell lots at the south-shore property by making "false, misleading and/or inaccurate statements about Earth Clean and its director," and of engaging in a "misinformation campaign to dissuade prospective purchasers from buying property from Earth Clean."

The two, according to the suit, further hindered progress at the site by "aggressively and unreasonably purporting and pretending to enforce bylaws pertaining to...the removal of trailers, camping on lots, and cutting down trees" at Carter Bay parcels.

Mr. Van Vierzen alleges that the municipal officials were "motivated by personal animosity" towards himself in this regard, and "were recklessly indifferent as they wrongfully breached or ignored their duties and responsibilities."

The clerk and building official "used unlawful means to interfere with Earth Clean's economic interests," according to Mr. Van Vierzen's suit, and acted "outside the scope of their duties and responsibilities." In doing so, they "caused loss and damage" to the company, he contends.

The developer additionally charges the municipal representatives with engaging in a "conspiracy" against Earth Clean, with the intention to "destroy or interfere with" the company's goal of selling and developing lots at Carter Bay.

Mr. Van Vierzen, through his lawyer, cites a number of damages that have been incurred as a result of this purported sabotage, including a "diminution of the value of the business of Earth Clean," the "loss of actual and potential purchasers of lots" at Carter Bay, and "loss of potential investors" as well as "profits and market share."

This is not the first time that the Carter Bay developer has tangled with the municipality over perceived slights and roadblocks. In the late 1990s, Mr. Van Vierzen objected to the township's demand that a plan of subdivision be completed for the site, and later he was charged with-but never convicted of-uttering death threats towards municipal representatives.

EDITORIAL

Cormorant poaching has become political issue

Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) is living up to its long-held (back to the days when it was known as the Department of Lands and Forests) reputation as being the province's most political ministry.

Just now, the MNR is publicly expressing shock and dismay at the vigilante efforts by persons unknown who have taken it upon themselves to wreck nests and kill adult cormorants in the islands colonies of the North Channel.

That this practice was going on has been well-known for some time and an MNR study, released to this newspaper this winter following a freedom of information request, examined the practice in some detail.

Granted, the birds are a protected species, although Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Mike Brown has taken over responsibility for a private member's bill in the Ontario legislature that would allow individuals to legally shoot the birds if they felt particular cormorants were interfering with their ability to earn a living or with the ordinary enjoyment of their property. This bill, if passed, would give cormorants the same status, for example, as ordinary crows.

In the meantime, however, the MNR is saying the vigilante practice is intolerable and they'll be searching out and prosecuting perpetrators.

Coincidentally, a southern Ontario group, the Peaceful Parks Coalition, is also making much of the unofficial cormorant cull and is demanding the MNR stop it and bring anyone involved to justice.

It seems that, before the Peaceful Parks people became involved, MNR officials (who will have known for years about the efforts in the North Channel to bring the birds' numbers under control) were, at least unofficially, content to turn a blind eye to this vigilante practice.

And now they say it's got to stop and those who are dealing with these birds and nests in their own way will be in serious trouble.

Well, at least cormorant poachers have been given notice.

But what is really telling is the results from another MNR report (details of which this newspaper also published earlier this past winter, following another freedom of information request) that basically says that the numbers of a variety of game fish are down in this region and that anglers and cormorants are to blame in

equal measure.

Pardon?

Using this logic, and if there weren't any cormorants (which there were not, to all intents and purposes, as recently as 15 years ago) then the anglers' efforts alone would not seriously jeopardize game fish stocks.

And we must further remember that anglers do not fish (at least not intentionally) for species like rock bass, stickleback and (apart from a token rite-of-spring effort) smelt, among other small fish on which game fish feed.

But cormorants do feed on these species, as well as on smaller game fish.

So by our reasoning, and supported by the MNR's own research, the cormorants have interfered mightily with the eco-balance that we have known and understood in the North Channel region for as long as anyone can remember, together with the related economic balance.

There are simply too many cormorants and it is to be hoped that the MNR doesn't try overly hard to deal with those frustrated sports people who are doing what, in their own view, is right now the only way to restore balance in this particular situation.

None of us wants to be a lawbreaker, or to condone lawlessness.

But more than anything else, just as with the cancellation of the spring bear hunt (and the ensuing nuisance bear problem throughout Northern Ontario) the problem is political and groups like the Peaceful Parks Coalition, located in southern Ontario, can easily get their messages across to a lot of southern voters with the result that government placates the mass of voters who half understand the issue at the expense of a relative handful of northern voters who fully understand exactly what the problem is, and what is at stake.

If the government wants to help (and we still believe that is, at root, the mandate of any elected government) then it should support and encourage and in every possible way make it easy to pass the private member's bill that would change the protected status of the cormorant.

That would solve the MNR's enforcement problem and would eventually help bring the numbers of the voracious birds to a manageable level.

Rita Poirer

Green Acres Tent & Trailer Park

Sheguiandah

I'm your neighbour

When it's time for Rita Poirer to report to work at the Green Acres campground and restaurant, the resident of the nearby Sheguiandah First Nation simply fires up her quad.

"I usually take my four-wheeler," says the employee with a laugh. "It beats walking."

Apart from the short commute, Ms. Poirer enjoys the family atmosphere that prevails at the work setting. "It's very friendly here, and we get lots of regulars."

It's a far cry from what Ms. Poirer experienced in Hamilton, where she lived prior to moving to Manitoulin. "I worked in telemarketing, and people yelled at you all the time," she notes.

She prefers the peace and quiet of the Island to the congestion and pollution of the city. "It's a perfect place to raise a family," she says. "My kids can roam around and go swimming at the beach, and I can see them from my home."

Originally from Alberta, Ms. Poirer first came east to stay with a sister in Niagara Falls, and has been in Ontario ever since. She moved to Manitoulin four years ago with husband Derek Assinewe.

The couple has three children-two boys aged eight and 10, and a girl who just turned two-and when Ms. Poirer isn't at work, she spends most of her time with her family. "I like to go for walks with the kids," she says.

That, and play the occasional game of bingo. "Well, what else are you going to do here?" she laughs.

Her role at work is a varied one. "I usually waitress, but also help with dishes, work the front till, clean up at night," she explains. She does pretty much everything, in other words, except make the food. "Nobody would come here if I was cooking," she jokes.

That's the specialty of owner Barb Kearns, with help from longtime employee Karen McGaughey. One of the perks of the job, Ms. Poirer notes, is being treated to the cuisine. "We get good food here every night," she says.

During slow moments, the workers can also watch a bit of TV on the screen in the restaurant-hockey would be the main obsession right now, with Ms. Poirer rooting for the Habs ("Hey, I'm French," she explains)-but lulls are few as the tourist season gets under way.

"In summer it's crazy," says Ms. Poirer. "But I like it because it keeps me busy. There's always something to do."