Road dispute doesn’t register in S’land plan

In 1995, a landowner erected a roadblock on Summerland’s Garnett Valley Road. The landowner wished to reposition the road to create a five-lot subdivision. The landowner believed that the road was never officially registered.

For whatever reason, the District of Summerland took on the task of a legal investigation. When one adds up legal fees and municipal staff time, this was the longest, most costly legal battle in Summerland’s history.

Proving that a road is a registered public road is not difficult. A similar road dispute at Cosens Bay, Vernon, only needed one small piece to evidence to declare the road public.

But in Summerland, staff and legal investigations were unable to find sufficient evidence to declare the road public.

Council presented troubling evidence. The old settlement of Priest along that road, the Ritchie Lumber Mill, the bridge across Garnett Lake (yes, pilings still there!) and highway records of 1906 that showed more money spent on that road than any road in the Okanagan Valley. This was not enough evidence, apparently.

On Sept. 8, 2001, to obtain road access, the district was forced to purchase land at a cost of $25,000. And then the province stepped in. The province declared the road the Okanagan Brigade Trail, a provincially registered heritage site. According to the province, carbon dating confirmed there has been public use for 6,000 years.

In February 1998, Penticton historian Harley Hatfield and Mayor Don Cameron officially opened the 50-acre Priest Camp Historic Park on Garnett Valley Road.

In 2006, one of Summerland’s centennial projects was the 4.1-kilometre Fur Brigade Trail Linear Park on Garnett Valley Road

As of last week, the municipal zoning map showed no indication of a road, no indication of Priest Camp Historic Park and no indication of a provincial heritage site ing nation is unwilling to operate its own petroleum distribution systems. Canadians continue to use petroleum products on an undiminished scale, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

What are the options for Central Canada in the event of a Line 5 shutdown?

Shipping more oil by rail is a recipe for disaster. We saw the incineration of Lac Megantic, and heaven forbid a derailment along a major river or lake.

Then there’s the hazard of Indigenous blockades which had people in Quebec howling for propane last winter.

Quebec stonewalls on pipelines because it doesn’t suit their ideology, and because they can satisfy their petroleum needs from foreign sources.

What towering hypocrisy. Foreign oil delivered by tankers or trains to the east coast is good, but oil from western Canadian is bad, whether it’s moved by tankers or delivered by pipeline.

Why should we continue to subject our economic well-being to the ideological gyrations of the Liberals and foreign politicians, the myopia of Quebec and the agendas of the unaccountable environmental movement?

Yes, $100 oil may return in the face of increasing global demand and reduced supply.

With the third largest oil reserves in the world, we should be building more export pipelines instead of shutting them down.

Petroleum is our major export commodity and there’s nothing to replace it. If we won’t sell it to foreign consumers, they’ll find it somewhere else. It’s no coincidence that the value of our dollar tracks with the price of oil.

We should thank Whitmer for forcing us to confront our contradictions on oil, which remains essential for our lifestyles and economy.

We deserve realistic policies from a government which has spent six years deliberately suffocating our petroleum industry without providing any viable alternatives.

Prosperity isn’t built on ideology, hollow slogans, debt or promises.