County’s bid to ‘stay’ IPC order to be challenged

By DOUGLAS GLYNN Midland Free Press
Steve Ogden’s battle with Simcoe County over access to the Modflow data relied on to approve dump Site 41 has taken a new twist.
In December, the county announced that it was going seek a judicial review of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario’s order requiring the county, “by all steps necessary” -including initiating a lawsuit -to obtain the Modflow model from its consultant.
However, as yet the county’s application for a judicial review has not been granted. And so the county has asked the IPC to “stay” its orders pending the outcome of its judicial review application. The IPC order arose out Ogden’s appeal of a freedom of information request in 2007 for the Modflow data on behalf of the Site 41 community monitoring committee. The data, he maintains, has never been seen by the county or the Ministry of the Environment which approved the dump site certificate of approval.
IPC adjudicator Colin Bhattacharjee has advised Ogden’s lawyer that he has decided to grant the county an interim stay, pending the resolution of whether a full stay should be granted. Bhattacharjee has invited Ogden to make submissions as to why a full stay should not be granted and Ogden says he has instructed his lawyer to do so. The deadline for Ogden to make submissions is tomorrow.
“As long as the county holds on to the certificate of approval and refuses to ask the provincial government to revoke it, there’s a chance the county can sell the landfill site to someone who could operate a dump,” says Ogden.
“It has always been the contention of the community monitoring committee that unless the Modflow data is independently peer reviewed the public and, in particular the people of Tiny Township, will never know the truth about Site 41.”
Ogden said he had hoped things at the county might change with a new warden in place. However, he added, “it’s evident that the county remains determined to withhold from the public information that was paid for with taxpayer dollars.”