Heritage Committee Issues
First off, I should note that I am a newcomer to Elora, a self-published historian (three books on Guelph and Ontario Calabrian mafia clans, and one of three new works on the role of first nations and settlers in Wellington county in funneling fugitive slaves into the Queen’s Bush settlement north of Pilkington township.)
I also happen to be a heritage and landscape stone worker.
Otherwise I am a not so proud Ontarion who is disgusted with the way rural and natural environments have been obliterated by municipal councils colluding with subdivision developers who appear to know only one model of building, slash/burn and little boxes lining endless miles of paved banality, without, it would seem, a single idea on how to create neighbourhoods or communities, preserve nature or imagine local variations, all of what they build is centred around the car, not people, and all of it will have to be retrofitted when climate change clobbers future generations.
As an Ontarion, I do not need to be from Elora to appreciate its history or heritage, or to see the pit into which Centre Wellington Council is dragging the municipality at the urging of developers, some of whom have unsavoury origins dating back to the 1930’s, but who hide behind the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Places to Grow Legislation, and the power of corporatism that has taken over the global and Canadian economies since the first free trade deals started destroying localism under Mulroney in the name of open for business.
All that said, the citizens of this province deserve their own inquiry a la the one Quebec’ers have in the Charbonneau commission’s investigation of the role of mafia developers in the political economy of that province. Gangster capitalism thrives in Canada to the disgust of the Italian government and their police forces, including the paramilitary carbonari.
Much of the Ontario mob is centred in Woodbridge/Vaughn and has been for half a century, n’drangheta, cosa nostra, camorra, Russian mafiyas etc., Toronto being the home of their allies in the 1% ruling class, Hamilton and Guelph have retreated into the depths of respectable money pools. No one should trust Vaughn developers or most other large builders in this province, the exceptions proving the rule, not the norm. Drive through developed Vaughn to see what a truly ugly stain it is.
As for the issue of CIP grants, and whether the Heritage committee is too close to developers, I know that CIP itself is a worthwhile project, but like all such things is this province, it is easily corrupted by developers. If the Elora ruins and other outbuildings – all of which can be restored by competent heritage stone workers – are kept, we will know the committee has done its job, if some are lost through excuses about them being unsalvageable, we will know that for the untruth it is.
My few general heritage suggestions – my pleas really – are for owners of stone homes to use heritage mortar, and no other kinds of mortars, they must be primarily lime based (ie. a non pre-mix product like Mortaseal lime that can only be bought at Patene’s in Guelph) two parts lime to one part federal white portland, six parts brick sand and three parts concrete sand (tiny stones in sand.) Unadulterated cement products destroy stone because old buildings breathe/move and cement doesn’t, which is why any large scale concrete work on the ridge rock of the Grand River bank in place of the stone ruins will probably bust the ridge to pieces over time, the ridge is “alive”; concrete is inert, it moves enmasse and destroys stone, whether ridges or individual house stones. If you have dark gray mortar in your heritage home, hire someone to replace it, someone who understands restoration work.
If the CIP grants don’t include heritage mortar requirements, they are a waste of money and will destroy what they are meant to save. Don’t take my advice alone, look up heritage mortar online, do your due diligence, save your own piece of the past, with or without help from the municipality.
My other suggestions have to do with water: via damaged roofs, faulty/missing/miss-directed downspouts and ground grades: water in Ontario equals ice, ice destroys stone. And get tree and large vine roots away from your foundations, they grow into the stone and crush it, if the mortar has become dirt, replace it, don’t use concrete anywhere but as a base for stone to be mortared onto. Save your stone work, and you’ve saved a heritage building, (beyond any special wood and design features needing proper care and protection.)
We are all part of history, save some of the human and natural world around you, and let future folk do the same. When the 1% and gangster capitalism are overthrown, the subdivisions can all eventually be ploughed out of existence and replaced with real communities, where people can walk to work and to shop, walk to play and gather in a restored landscape, in renewed wilderness zones: as a reminder to all that the urge to Keep Ontario Beautiful was always more than a license plate slogan.
Jery Prager