Addington Highlands Council looks to invite AOO land claims representative to meeting

Craig Bakay | Nov 25, 2020

Addington Highlands Council instructed CAO Christine Reed to look into inviting a representative of the Algonquins of Ontario land claim process to a Council meeting after receiving the Nov. 17 update. Council met Nov. 17 online for its regular meeting.

“I found this whole thing hard to work through — but I tried,” said Reeve Henry Hogg.

“They seem to have added a fair number of parcels since the last update,” said Dep. Reeve Tony Fritsch. “It’s good information but there is really nothing we can do about it.”

“No, there’s no negotiation,” said Hogg. “They call it ‘consultation’ but it’s really them telling us what they’ve done.”

“I appreciate the updates but they’re saying ‘a few more years of negotiations,’” said Fritsch.

“Another generation will have retired working on this project,” said Hogg.

(The current negotiations began in 1991.)

Reed said there was an offer to make presentations to Councils before this latest update.

“I know it was discussed to do it at a County level but I haven’t heard any more about where that particular item stands but I can look into it if Council wishes,” she said.

“I doubt if anybody else in the County has any real interest because the Algonquin land claim is solely in Addington Highlands as far as Lennox & Addington is concerned,” said Hogg. “It looks like they’ve added a piece of the road into the Junior Ranger Camp but people on Effingham Lake will still need a way to get to their properties.”

“It looks like a whole section on Mackavoy Lake added,” said Coun. Kirby Thompson. “I’m not sure what mechanism there is for the public to learn about this.

“I’m not sure how this works.”

“I learned about it from the Federation of Anglers and Hunters,” said Hogg. “Because I used to be a member.”

Council instructed Reed to contact the County to see what their position is.

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Reeve Henry Hogg announced that all further Council meetings would be online “until the end of this second wave (of Covid-19).”

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Manager of Roads and Waste Brett Reavie reported that he’s contacted the Ministry of Ecology, Conservation and Parks for a Zoom meeting regarding the ongoing dilemma about the Denbigh waste site and they sent him some dates a representative could be available. Council suggested Dec. 1, which is its next scheduled meeting.

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Other than how to spend some available Covid funding (the libraries had some requests for permanent barriers and a number of suggested locations for generators), much of the meeting focused on Sunday’s wind and rain storm, and the resulting effects of downed trees.

Coun. Kirby Thompson reported that he’s still without power (on Tuesday), as is much of the Denbigh area.

“I’ll be running out of propane soon,” he said.

Fire Chief Casey Cuddy said that when the electricity went out, so did much of the internet and cell phone service, leaving him in a bind to communicate with firefighters.

“Because of our topography, radio communication isn’t the best and so many firefighters use their cell phones to receive fire calls,” Cuddy said. “But on Sunday, we couldn’t reach about 40 per cent of them.

“We’ll have to look at making that more secure.”

“It’s been pretty calm except for clearing trees from the roads,” said Manager of Roads and Waste Brett Reavie. “We had a few trucks out this morning because of the little bit of snowfall we had this morning.

“Last week we did some traffic control assists for the OPP.”