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WINCHESTER – At their regularly scheduled meeting on Jan. 15, 2025, North Dundas Council considered a motion that would see them form a strategic partnership with Lactalis Canada to pursue several upcoming infrastructure development projects.

The motion, moved by Deputy Mayor Theresa Bergeron and seconded by Councillor Gary Annable, read as follows:

“Whereas the Township of North Dundas has several large capital projects in 2025 and onward that promote positive growth that would greatly benefit North Dundas, but North Dundas cannot afford the financial burden of these large projects and Whereas Lactalis Canada is an integral part of our community that supports our community with jobs, who also benefit from positive growth;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff examine options for Lactalis and North Dundas to partner together in 2025 to tackle these upcoming projects by advocating on behalf of each other to upper levels of government for support and collaboration with regards to long-term planning to ensure continued sustainable and positive growth for both partners.

As Deputy Mayor Bergeron explained discussing her motion in detail, it all comes down to water and how limits on its availability now, and increasingly in the future are a contributing factor in rising tax rates and restrictions on development.

“Last month when discussing the 2025 (SDG) budget Lachlan McDonald (South Glengarry Mayor) mentioned insurance as the elephant in the room, which it is, but the other elephant in the room is lack of water,” said Bergeron. “We’ve seen large tax increases in the last two years; nine per cent, nine per cent, and this year it’s looking at a minimum of 12 per cent. We still have that under discussion and the reason for this is that usually growth absorbs tax increases, but we’ve had little growth. This year,  last year, sorry, it was 1.47 per cent and it’s mainly because we have lack of communal water.”

Bergeron went on to explain that some growth had occurred in places like Hallville and Morewood where homes were built with individual wells, which she said upset some in the agriculture community who feared it would lead to a water shortage for their purposes.

A greater cause for concern, according to Bergeron, was the amount of land that in the past 50 years had been clear cut and tile drained, which she stated, led to much of the water that would have replenished the aquifers ending up through drains, ending up in the St. Lawrence River.

According to figures that were given to Bergeron by the Building Department, there are approximately 1,715 housing units that have been waiting for up to two years for water allotments, which would have, if built, added substantial revenue to the tax base.

Add to this Lactalis using enough water to supply 3,500 homes, and by Bergeron’s calculations, that would have brought in $4.45 million in tax revenue to North Dundas.

Meanwhile, North Dundas is spending $9 million for a new communal well that will supply  between 800 and 900 new homes, but she feels that this is not sustainable in the long term, as  “… new wells just mean extra straws in the same glass of water we already have eight straws in.”

Why not, she suggested work with the world’s largest dairy product producer, because to grow, they too need access to additional water?

“They have clout,” said Bergeron, “They need water to expand, we need water to grow, and Lactalis has a whole government-industry relations department that together with us could Lobby the Province to access water. I mean, we’ve tried on our own three times now and we’re just not getting anywhere. To me the solution is not drilling more wells, in my opinion we need a pipeline to the St Lawrence which is why I’m bringing forward this motion.”

Councillor John Lennox asked if Lactalis knows that they (the Township) want to be partners and was advised that Bergeron had spoken to Mayor Tony Fraser, who is a Lactalis employee, as well as notifying them by letter of her intention to present this motion.

Councillor Matthew Uhrig stated that he supported the motion. “I think it’s a creative solution to a problem we equally share because anybody who’s anybody in this municipality or neighbouring municipalities understands that there’s significant draw of water that goes to that plant but there’s also a significant return in terms of spin-off to the community.

“This is a creative solution to, you know, partner and to say hey, going down this road is in both of our best interests. I’m not suggesting we become Kemptville light or Barrhaven 2.0 or something like that, but it is the reality of situation that we can’t build a simple set of homes because we don’t have water, let alone anything on a grand scale until we can find some level of leverage.

Mayor Fraser wrapped up the discussion in reporting the timeliness of the motion.

“It just happens the deputy mayor’s motion coincides quite well with what’s taking place,” said Fraser. “I was on the phone today with Communications at Lactalis corporate in Toronto, and we have a delegation, two delegations coming up Monday the 20th and Tuesday the 21st in Toronto at our ROMA conference.

We’ve been granted an opportunity to be a delegation on Monday the 20th with Minister Rob Flack,  the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Agri-business which is very key, as we all know, to survival in North Dundas considering we’re an agricultural community.

“Attending the meeting we have Director of Environmental Services attending the meeting,  we have the Warden of SDG attending the meeting, we have the CAO of SDG attending the meeting, and we have the Director of plant operations from Lactalis attending the meeting.

Mayor Fraser indicated that the representative is from Lactalis easily agreed to attending to support the contention that improvements in certain areas are desperately needed.

The meeting on Monday will focus on infrastructure “We’ll be talking about water, wastewater, the need to expand and talking about different options as the deputy mayor suggested,” added Mayor Fraser. “We have investigated that internally over the years how much it would cost for surface water, but we’ll be talking about that at the delegation.

Mayor Fraser will be the only representative from North Dundas, but said that having Lactalis represented is very important because not only are they the largest dairy product producer in the world, they are the largest cheese manufacturer in Canada.

“They are an important entity to all of us, to anyone that’s ever had a dairy farm, anyone that’s ever had benefits from being involved in the community, of being in agriculture and the involvement with Ault or Parmalat or Lactalis.

“This is a long longstanding issue,” added Mayor Fraser, “But they are on the verge of big growth at the plant here in Winchester and they know they need to be partnering with us to ensure the viability and the hope for success whenever we talk to these ministers.”

With no further discussion the motion was voted on with all in favour.