Looming military radar project creates deep anxiety for rural Ontario community

For Rachel Brooks and her family, life was good on their 40-hectare farm, about 130 kilometres north of Toronto, until an expected letter arrived from the Department of National Defence (DND).

"It immediately impacted my sense of security in my home — having a place to live — and my security in the sense of something that I own could possibly be taken from me," Brooks told CBC News. "[That] something that we worked on so hard for the last 45 years could be stripped from us."

DND sent letters to Brooks and dozens of other farmers in the area during the summer asking if they would consider selling their properties to make way for a large-scale radar project. CBC has reviewed a number of these letters.

Brooks says she has no intention of selling her property and uprooting her family.

"I remember opening the letter and thinking, is this a joke? What's going on here?" said Brooks, who has helped spearhead local opposition to the project.

Clearview Township, near Stayner, Ont., is home to acres of lush farmland. It is here, the government wants to build a vast radar site that would span more than 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres).

Two sites have been identified in southern Ontario — one in Clearview and another in the Kawartha Lakes region — to house two massive transmit and receive stations, with rows of antennas surrounded by a six-metre-high barbed wire fence.

The Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar (A-OTHR) is part of a $38-billion investment to upgrade Canada’s contribution to NORAD.

The proposed project has created a wave of anxiety and fear in the community. There has been an initial meeting between affected community members and DND but few answers, according to Brooks. Residents want assurances that the government won’t expropriate their land if they decide not to sell. DND would be within its right to provide "due compensation" for the farmland if they decided to move forward with the project and deals can't be reached.

A few kilometres down the road from the Brooks’ property is the sprawling Hutchinson family farm.

"My family has been here since 1879 on this property, and I'm the fifth generation to take over, and my son is hopefully gonna be the sixth generation," said Matt Hutchison. "It's hard to deal with knowing that we might lose it all."

Hutchison and his wife say the uncertainty about the future has paralyzed their ability to plan ahead, a key component of running a successful farm.

"We're at a standstill. We don't know what to do. Do we move forward with our future plans that we've had?" said Jennifer Hutchinson. "We're just kind of sitting here in limbo and farmers don't limbo. Do we plan to move forward and keep working hard? You just wonder why."

The looming question, of course, is what happens if the Hutchinsons and others refuse to sell? DND has already purchased a roughly 280-hectare parcel in the area but needs to acquire hundreds of additional hectares to make the project viable.