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September
6, 2003
HAMILTON HAS 'DIRTY HANDS'
Court is told city's Red Hill record criminal
By Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator
Expressway
protesters argue the City of Hamilton is an environmental
criminal that doesn't deserve court help to push a road
through Red Hill Valley.
McMaster
University professor Jim Quinn told Superior Court Justice
Joseph Henderson yesterday that the city comes to court
"with dirty hands," convicted and fined for abusing
Red Hill Creek and under Environment Ministry orders to
stop sanitary sewage illegally entering storm sewers in
the valley.
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Defendants
Gord Pullar, left, and Jim Quinn, talk with Friends
of the Red Hill Valley Lynda Lukasik and Don McLean
during a break in court case yesterday. Photo
by John Rennison, the Hamilton Spectator,
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Quinn
is one of six co-defendants who return to court Monday to
finish presenting their case against the city's application
for an injunction to stop pickets from blocking construction
of a bridge to carry Greenhill Avenue over the planned Red
Hill Creek Expressway. The defendants are representing themselves,
without lawyers.
Lou
Frapporti, who led a city team of seven lawyers and articling
students, told the judge brought in from Welland that the
north-south route through the valley is the last leg of
a plan approved in 1985 to connect Highway 403 in Ancaster
to the Queen Elizabeth Way in east Hamilton.
He
said $260 million has been spent so far, the 12-kilometre
Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway is open and three other valley
bridges are already in use.
"The
horse has left the barn."
Frapporti
told the court protesters set up tents and repeatedly refused
to let Dufferin Construction crews enter the Greenhill site
early in August, even after police warned pickets were subject
to arrest for mischief.
But
police refused to arrest anyone, so the city sought a permanent
court order to end the blockade. Both sides have agreed
to a temporary injunction under which protesters are staying
off the site and the city is delaying construction until
the case is heard.
Frapporti
suggested protesters had resorted to civil disobedience
after exhausting "every regulatory, administrative
and legal challenge" available, but that they should
express their opposition without breaking the law.
He
urged Henderson to order a stop to the pickets because "where
bylaws of a municipality are flagrantly violated, the court
ought to assist."
Andrew
Loucks, another defendant, noted that expressway project
manager Chris Murray had asserted on July 30 that all permits
for the bridge were in place, but a Niagara Escarpment Commission
letter submitted as evidence by the city says there were
still issues outstanding. The court heard that commission
staff only gave the go-ahead on Aug. 5, the day Dufferin
was to have begun work.
Co-defendant
Rachelle Mitchell said the protesters were not "fringe
or über radicals who ought to be swept off the street."
She argued "this kind of solidarity, this kind of movement,
is what makes Canada a civil place."
Challenging
Frapporti's contention that the protesters were lawbreakers,
Mitchell suggested a criminal court might well find their
peaceful protest was within the tolerance limits of a democratic
society and didn't cross the line into criminal activity.
There
was no mention yesterday of the Six Nations Confederacy
citizens who continue to occupy the construction site. The
natives are not taking part in the court action.
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