Massey's Solar Project Controversy: Is Northern Ontario Farmland at Risk?

is expensive no matter where you are and sometimes it can(...) go up just like most other things.(...) We have Chloe from Massey. Chloe, glad to see you in the studio. Here's with us today. Glad to be here. Thank you very much. And so Chloe, you want to just introduce yourself a little bit about yourself and what life is like out in Massey which is(...) just west of Sudbury about an hour. About an hour. Depending on how fast you drive. Yeah, depending on the wind.

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That's for sure. Yeah. My name's Chloe Bachete. I'm a real estate broker, small business owner in Massey or the greater township of Sables, Spanish Rivers. So we have three communities, Webwood, Massey and Walford where I come from.

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We're historically known as an agricultural community,(...) a bedroom community of sorts as well. We do have a lot of people who live out our way that commute to work in Sudbury further out of town. That sort of thing.

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Okay. And how long have you been in Massey for?

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Massey proper for about eight years. I lived in the township for, oh my gosh,(...) 15 years-ish. Okay. Yeah. Right about that I left in Espinola. Okay. So all out that way west of Sudbury.

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Energy. I know that there's a solar project that's(...) getting underway or getting close to going or almost going.

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Can you expand on what's happening out there? I know we were talking about solar energy, especially in the north, but what's happening with this solar project? So about a year ago, a little over a year ago, our council was(...) presented an industrial scale solar project. What's an industrial scale? It sounds big, but what is it? It's big. So it's over a thousand acres. Okay.

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A company called Potentia Renewables came in and they went around, knocked on doors and got a lot of residents excited about leasing their properties, which they're all farms

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and mostly working farms, being actively farmed(...) to this day in fact.

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And(...) they came to our council for what's called a municipal support confirmation.(...) So I don't know how familiar you are with the process of these larger energy projects, but(...) there's a call for proposals through the Independent Energy Systems Operator in Ontario

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and companies can bid on a power purchase contract.

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So they had to get the municipal support confirmation in order to put their application in to get a power purchase contract.

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So I'm a founding member of a group called the Massey Wildlife Conservation Committee and we formed in opposition to mostly how this project was handled at the municipal level and also(...) because they want to put it on farmland, which there's a lot of class three soil there, which the province deems as prime agricultural land. Prime agricultural land? Yeah. Okay. So classes one through three soil are considered prime agricultural land,(...) but unfortunately the township hasn't really kept up with the reality of the land uses in our township. They should have looked at the provincial policy statement that came out in late 2024

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and started governing under that mandate, which they didn't do.(...) And I don't want to lose you with all the details. So interject with questions if you have any, but.

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Well, the first thing is if you kill a thousand acres of farmland that's already being used, then what happens? So to be fair, not all of the property is being farmed. Okay. But a good percentage of it is. What's on there right now? Right now it's mostly hay and silage because the area where this project is supposed is proposed to be located is, it's a big cattle farming area. So what's silage? I know what hay is. Hay is for horses. It's feed for cattle. I don't know what it's comprised of. I've heard the term from the farmers that I know in the area. I'm not a farmer myself. I'm a real estate broker.(...) But yeah, it's feed for cattle. So that's what's mostly grown on these properties. And we have a local abattoir who the demand for the local beef is just incredible and it's grown probably about 200% over the last five years. So hang on, what's an abattoir? An abattoir is a butcher. So you can get your beef there? You can get locally grown beef there. Okay. Yeah, which is amazing. Very, very high quality beef. It's owned by a Mennonite family. Yeah. They came to the area in the mid 2000s and it's just been such a blessing to the community, especially on an agricultural agribusiness(...) and feeding into the local and regional food supply.

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Personally,(...) I shop, that's the only place that I shop for my beef. And there are a lot of people in our township that say the same thing. We have people that come from Sudbury, west of Massey. All over the place. All over the place. Is there a chicken there as well? Yeah. And sheep or goat?(...) No, sheep or goat. He does beef, chicken and pork. Okay, that's covering the major three. And turkeys for the holidays.

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Okay.(...) So the solar project, what's that really going to do to the land if it's given the green to go and(...) consume about a thousand acres?(...) Well, Ontario loses over 300 acres of farmland a day.

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Where does it... According to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

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So most of that has been taken away in southern Ontario, development, housing,(...) other things.

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That's why we have such a strong Mennonite community where we are because they're being pushed further and further north and they have been for quite some time. So our township in around 2007, and I always remember that year because it's the year I got my real estate license. And that's when we started welcoming these Mennonite families to our community.(...) Arms wide open. Come up, regenerate our farmland because a lot of the farmers had retired and the land wasn't being worked like it had been before.

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So(...) we have a very strong Mennonite community that keeps growing and the demand for farmland is incredible.

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I get phone calls all the time. Any farms coming out for sale.

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Even if it's just 20, 30 acres. Yeah, we'll take that and then we'll expand as we go.(...) So the families that came up in the mid 2000s that were kind of the pioneers in the area, well now they have children who are in their 20s. They're getting married. They want farms as well.(...) We have people from down south who still want to come this way. Their friends.(...) As they expand their operations, they need workers. So(...) they want to hire other people in the community who want to be farmers, not just within the Mennonite community, but other people as well.

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Because(...) it's just a great business opportunity and it's our strongest economic driver for our township.

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So the solar project, if(...) there's high demand for the actual land itself, is there enough of it?

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There is. There's quite a bit that hasn't been worked. So I mean there is a lot of room for expansion still,(...) but because of the way that the Mennonites work, they like to be close to(...) where they're(...) working. And they help each other on their farms. It's a very collective process.(...) So(...) the solar project, was it kind of like fast-tracked or something?

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Very much so. So the IESO has a process(...) that they have to follow.(...) The township has to be notified of the intention(...) of the developer(...) with regards to any project. And that has to be done a couple of months or even earlier in advance of coming to council for the municipal support confirmation. The municipal support confirmation is like the go ahead. Yes, we support what you want to do. You can put your application in to get the power purchase contract. And then as the IESO evaluates all of the proposals that come before it, they announce who is going to get the power purchase contract in the spring.

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So(...) in our particular situation, the developer came in to the township and spoke with our township clerk(...) a few months in advance.(...) But our council didn't get notification of the project until five days before they had to make the vote on the municipal support confirmation. Well, it's probably not, well, not probably. It doesn't seem reasonable to shoehorn it within five days. It's a lot to absorb in that amount of time for sure. And that agenda package for that particular meeting was over 200 pages.

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And the only information that was included for council was the developer's presentation that they were going to be seeing. The agenda came out on the Friday. The vote was on a Wednesday. So(...) it's not even five business days. Yeah.(...) Yeah.

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So they didn't have any information about the IESO process, which mandates public consultation,

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mandates(...) the notification to the township, which they sort of satisfied by getting the clerk in the loop on it.

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But it was a very big decision and the council felt they made the right decision by allowing it because it conforms to our official plan and our zoning bylaw.(...) So what's the official plan?(...) So the official plan came out in 2020. That's when they did the last update to it.(...) It should have been updated in the spring of 2025 because there's a mandatory review period at five years. What happened?(...) What happened that it didn't get updated again?

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It just didn't. It wasn't on anybody's radar to do that. How many councilors are in Massey in area? We have six councilors and the mayor. So seven total. What's the population?(...) 3200.

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3200 and six councilors. Yeah.

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That's amazing. Yeah. It's a lot.

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So just, you know, in Greater Sudbury, we have 12 councilors and one mayor. So there's 13 bodies.

But six in Massey for a population of 3200, 3500? Between 32 and 3500. Yeah.

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And Sudbury's at 170? Yeah, 170 to 190 depends on who you ask and what source you're going to.

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How many buses leave town? How many buses come into town? That sort of thing. But so getting back to the councilors had only five days to go through this.(...) That seems, well, it seems really short, especially for a 200 page document. It's not even five business days. It's,(...) shouldn't it be longer?

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In our opinion, yes. It should have been a lot longer. I'll give you an example because we wanted to, we wanted to be fair. We wanted to do some research. What are the other communities in the province doing when they're presented with an energy project this big? That seems reasonable. So we looked at Hamilton, we looked at Ottawa, we looked at a few others that were smaller communities because granted those are bigger cities. They have larger staffs, da da da da da.

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But Ottawa, you have to go through six steps before a municipal support confirmation is even put to a vote. So that's for a solar project? For any type of project, whether it be solar, windmills. Any green energy? Yeah. Okay. Six step project, six steps. There's six steps before the council even(...) looks to give a municipal support confirmation. Who's in charge of,(...) who's the gatekeeper for those six steps? The clerk or the city? I would imagine it would probably be the clerk that would(...) kind of move things along the chain. So there would be a staff report. It would go to a committee.

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There would be public consultation.

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That would be a public meeting. You have to notify the surrounding neighbors for the projects to be located. Forgive me if I don't remember all the steps. But I mean, that's enough. That we didn't get(...) any of that. So what did you get?

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I know we might be rehashing it here, but what did you get? It came before council. They said yes. We had one dissenting councilor(...) and when the community got wind of it, the opposition was in here. Staunch? Yeah.

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So where are you at now?(...) So we're still trying to, at this point,(...) it's not a situation where council can just vote to shut the project down. Although the township does have site plan control. They can put conditions on the project. I don't know if there's a building permit that has to be issued. That's a bit of a gray area.

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Unfortunately, it seems like the solar developer is kind of steering the ship right now instead of the council. And(...) this is a new concept to everybody in the township. So it's a very steep learning curve.

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And we've obviously done a lot of research over the last year.(...) We did manage to push the council to consider rescinding their support before the developer got their contract with the IESO. So they had that vote back in March. But again, it failed because the council was under the impression that they had to prove it.

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So. Well, so what's the major, what's the consensus of most of the residents? Are they in favor or are they displaying a green light, a yellow light or a red light? Again, it depends on who you ask. On who you ask, yeah. But when we found out about the support vote,(...) the backlash was pretty strong right out of the gate because we are a farming community.

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So(...) a petition went out. It got 2,000 signatures.(...) So that's two out of three. So that's a lot.

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I've done a couple of just quick and dirty online polls on Facebook just in our township groups, community forums.(...) Majority opposed 90 to 95 percent with about 350(...) votes was one of them, which is good representative sample. It's over 10 percent. Okay.

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We started a Facebook page for our group and it's been growing by leaps and bounds. We started that in February. We're up to almost 700 followers on that page. Yep. Which is pretty strong. So where are things going to go? Like you guys are having an election just like,(...) well, I think most municipalities in Ontario right now. Where is this going to go realistically?

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It's very contentious at the moment. I've never seen an election like this in our township since I've been there. And(...) we have a group of councillors that are incumbents that are running again.

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Our deputy mayor was the only dissenting vote on the municipal support confirmation.

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He's now running for mayor.

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And we have a former federal MP who's running against him for mayor.

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So(...) it's been a lot. We've had three candidates' nights where the solar project is always the number one topic of discussion.

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And are the solar people that are there, are they,(...) I guess two-thirds are against it? Are they bringing this up with the prospective candidates? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Lots of questions about it.

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What we wanted from the very beginning was an official plan review.

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Let's look at the zoning maps because we don't have proper zoning for a lot of the agricultural land that's in our township. We're supposed to identify prime agricultural land(...) using the province's definition of it and the Canada Land Inventory Map.(...) And we don't have that.

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And the map hasn't been updated since 2018.(...) Well, a lot has happened in the last eight or nine years. In the township, there's been an incredible expansion of agriculture.(...) There was just a new dairy farm that went up.

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Farms are going for top dollar in high demand, like I mentioned before. And the regeneration has just been,(...) it's been explosive. So it wasn't a problem. The maps weren't a problem until it became a problem. So a couple of things here. Basically it seems like a solar pro-- it seems like a project is getting rammed down the throats of the residents of Massey. That's how it feels.(...) And then of course, you're killing, well, you would be killing(...) agricultural land. And if we don't have farms, where are we going to get our food from? Exactly.

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And if the highway is shut down,(...) how many more days until you have food? You know, worst case. But realistically,(...) food is paramount where(...) you should be growing it in your own backyard. It's so important to be able to have that regional and local component in the food chain.

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And(...) federal and provincial policy account for that.(...) Unfortunately, it doesn't trickle down to the local level.(...) And it's very frustrating, especially for our group that has taken up this mantle.

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And then there's the argument of it's private land. We can do whatever we want on our private land.

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And I understand that. And as a real estate broker, yes, that's very important. Property rights are really important.

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What I always say is(...) these farms, and for what they're selling for, we kind of wish the farmers just would have sold instead of leasing it.

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So that it could still be used as agricultural land. Exactly.

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A thousand acres. How many is that? Like two kilometers by two kilometers? Or just so we can get a sense of it? I don't know how many. Well, it's a thousand acres plus. It started off as it's a 600 acre solar project. But the land lease was for over a thousand acres. So there's going to be some pockets where you're not going to be able to.

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There's rock outcroppings in some parts of it. Some of it's pretty heavily forested.

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Some of it hasn't been cleared in quite a long time.(...) So what will the actual energy generation be used for?

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It'll just feed into the grid. So they're saying that the project will power 23 to 27,000 homes.

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So when you take(...) the energy generation of the project, which is now up to 150 megawatts, it started out between 80 and 120, and it keeps getting larger.

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If you do some rough and dirty calculations with regards to

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the megawatts for the project, the homes to be powered,

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the solar panels run at about 23 to 25 percent efficiency.(...) So it takes up a lot of land(...) for very little benefit.

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And our northern Ontario winters. What do you do if the panels have anything on them?

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What do you do when we only have(...) a good five hours of sunlight in the wintertime? That's another concern.

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Yeah. So many questions. There's more questions than answers, I think, right now. There are. Anything you want to say in wrapping up?

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I love our township. It's beautiful.

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The agriculture is just one aspect of it. We're also a cottaging community, so we have a lot of residents that come and spend their summers there.

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We have wildlife. We have Shoots Provincial Park,(...) roadside stands where you can go and pick up your vegetables and everything in the summertime, the butcher shop.(...) It's just such a beautiful community.

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And I hate to see the division that has erupted(...) over the election and over the solar project itself.

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And a lot of the rhetoric is getting out of hand, and I just would like to see it dialed back and get to the facts of what's happening.

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And I'd like to see a council come in that listens to its residents,

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takes into consideration the community.

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Because even though it's private land(...) and you have property rights to do what you want to do on your land, sometimes the things that you do on your land affect other people,

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or they affect wildlife as well.

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So that needs to be considered(...) when someone wants to do a project as big as this, I feel.

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Chloe, thanks for

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