Imagine waking up one morning and at your door is someone—an American company—telling you that you will accept $35,000 an acre for prime farmland or that land will be expropriated by the regional government. Imagine serving your community for years, Speaker. This is what’s happening in Wilmot.

I’m pleased to present 400 signatures from the people of Wilmot, from the people of Cambridge, Waterloo and Kitchener, to ask the regional government and this government, the provincial government, to pause on expropriating 770 acres of prime farmland in Ontario.

It’s my pleasure to present a petition on behalf of the people of Wilmot, who are very upset, for good reason, that their prime agricultural land is being expropriated without transparency or without due process.

It reads, “Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately pause all plans to expropriate and rezone lands in Wilmot—

People in Wilmot are very angry for good reason. They are expropriating their land without good cause, without good rationale. I support the people of Wilmot and sustainable farming practices in the province of Ontario.

Thanks to the member from Guelph for coming to Wilmot township last week. We met with farmers who are being expropriated from their prime agricultural land, 770 acres. Developers have already gone to this land, back in January, and offered $58,000 an acre, based on rumours that it would be rezoned for industrial land.

We can’t study soil and the farming sector if the farmers aren’t there. So I ask the member, what do you make of the fact that regional politicians have signed NDAs? It’s silence on our democracy. This land is clearly being set for a large industrial project, and we have before us a piece of legislation which claims that we should be studying and thriving in the farming sector, and yet the Get It Done Act, schedule 1, fast-tracks expropriation and makes it more difficult for farmers to exist in Ontario.

It’s my pleasure to welcome farmers from Wilmot township here in the House today: Mark Reusser, Alfred Lowrick and Steve Bottoms. Welcome to your House.