Every municipality faces a choice about how it grows, and whether that growth strengthens the community or just costs residents more in the long run. To date Lanark Highlands hasn’t made that choice deliberately; it’s happened by default, without a clear plan to guide it. Here’s what that’s meant in practice, and what I’d do differently.

The Problem:

The township has no Local Economic Development plan at all, and no active effort to attract commercial or industrial revenue that could ease the tax burden on residents. When development does happen, it isn’t being screened for fit.

The Highland Line Pit is the clearest current example: Cavanagh Construction is seeking a license for a Class “A” aggregate pit beside Barbers Lake, licensed to remove up to 500,000 metric tonnes a year, excavating below the water table, operating 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s a development proposal that is wildly unpopular: Friends of Lanark Highlands and the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation have both been granted Party Status in the resulting Ontario Land Tribunal proceeding, and unanswered questions remain about traffic and roads, noise, dark-sky impact, wells and aquifers, wetlands, species at risk, and cold-water fisheries — while local taxpayers would be left to subsidize the resulting road damage. Council’s involvement and response has been tepid at best.

And there’s more: on connectivity, council has not made a real, concerted push to get high-speed internet to every part of Lanark Highlands — a basic piece of modern economic infrastructure other candidates have also flagged as a lost opportunity.

My Position:

The most sustainable way to keep property taxes in check isn’t just cutting services — it’s growing the tax base, so business and industry shoulder a fairer share of the cost of running the municipality.

But growth has to be smart growth. Development should fit our rural character and strengthen it: agri-tourism, eco-tourism, trades, and remote-work-friendly small business, rather than extractive projects like mining and lumber that quietly cost residents more than they return. Those extractive industries have been part of Lanark Highlands’ financial base for ages, but we need to diversify that base moving forward.

What I’ll Push For:

• Prepare a clear, actionable Local Economic Development plan, with real public consultation, dedicated resourcing, and measurable milestones that get reported on, not just announced.
• Actively court business and light industry that fit and strengthen our rural character and tax base, rather than waiting passively for proposals to arrive.
• Apply real environmental and economic scrutiny to industrial proposals like the Highland Line Pit, instead of a passive rubber stamp, so we don’t trade long-term tourism and fishery value for short-term gain that taxpayers end up subsidizing.
• Push for a real, funded plan to bring high-speed internet access to every part of Lanark Highlands. Connectivity is economic infrastructure, not a convenience, and council has treated it as someone else’s problem for too long.
• Publicly track progress on every economic development commitment, the same way every council initiative should be tracked.