Expropriated for military purposes- not Private Profits

I strongly object to the Ontario Pumped Storage Hydropower Project and ask IAAC not to allow it to proceed at 4 CDTC. This is not a routine energy-storage project on vacant or surplus land. It is a proposal to place a large private commercial power project on federal land that was expropriated for military purposes and that DND itself says is still actively used by the Canadian Armed Forces and is not surplus to Defense requirements.

My central concern is land use. This land was taken from families for national defense, not for future transfer to a private industrial developer. If land is no longer needed for the military purpose for which it was taken, it should not simply be repurposed for commercial use. It should be returned, or at the very least the government must fully address the public-interest, historical, and ethical implications of using expropriated military land for a private project. My family has a direct and personal stake in this issue. Families affected by the original taking should not be treated as an afterthought while the site is considered for a project that has nothing to do with the purpose for which the land was originally expropriated.

The scale and nature of the proposal make this concern even more serious. The project description says it would require UXO clearance, decommissioning DND infrastructure, drilling, blasting, tunnelling, in-water works, and construction of a reservoir holding about 26 million cubic meters of water behind a 4.5 km ring dam enclosing about 135 hectares. This is not a minor change in land use. It is a major industrial transformation of a military site with a deeply contested history.

The Agency should specifically examine the historical land use of 4 CDTC, the original expropriation of this land, and whether it is appropriate to convert land taken for defense purposes into the site of a private commercial development. The proponent’s own materials acknowledge public concern about the historical use of the 4 CDTC property by settlers and farmers. That issue goes to the heart of whether this project belongs here at all.

The current record also shows that major issues remain unresolved. TC Energy says the design is still ongoing and approximate and that it is still considering alternative means for the project location, lower water source, spillway, reservoir design, transmission connections, and construction methods. The materials also summarize serious concerns raised by the public and Indigenous rights-holders about soil and groundwater quality, Georgian Bay water quality, turbidity and temperature, fish mortality, fish habitat and species at risk, restricted access, heritage and burial sites, reservoir safety, noise, vibration, drinking water, and historical land use. DND has stated that 4 CDTC is home to 30 species listed under the Species at Risk Act, that the proposed footprint contains UXO, and that disturbing the land could affect how munitions move through soil and groundwater.

For all of these reasons, IAAC should not treat this as a standard energy-storage proposal. It should require independent studies of non-DND and closed-loop alternatives, UXO and munition-residue risk, groundwater and drinking water impacts, fish and species at risk, reservoir failure consequences, impacts on military operations, and, critically, the land-use and expropriation issues raised by this site. On the current record, the project should be rejected.