Stop Sprawl Students organized farm festival to celebrate local farmlands and protest urban expansion
On Nov. 4, Stop Sprawl Students, a student-led organization promoting farmland conservation in Hamilton and throughout Ontario, held a farm festival at a local Hamilton farm.
The event was held at Manorun Organic Farm and aimed to engage students with local farms and raise awareness about the threat of urban sprawl and boundary expansion. The farm festival event had over 120 students attend and celebrate the government's decision to reverse the urban boundary mandates.
Stop Sprawl students is a McMaster University Ontario Public Interest Research Group project, which began as an academic project for a SUSTAIN 2SS3 course. The founding students have continued to work towards their goal of stopping urban boundary expansion both independently and in association with Stop Sprawl Hamilton Ontario.
The primary goal of Stop Sprawl Students has been to call for the repeal of Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act. Bill 23, which received royal assent on Nov. 28, 2022 would enable developers to build homes on Ontario Greenbelt lands and force cities like Hamilton to expand their urban boundary to allow construction of suburban zones on farmland.
In September 2023, as a result of public pressure and the efforts of organizations like Stop Sprawl Students, Premier Doug Ford reversed the government's decision to build on the Greenbelt and force urban boundary expansion upon cities.
However, the threat to Hamilton’s farmland has not yet ceased. According to Sunit Toor, one of the student organizers of the farm festival, Hamilton city council will vote on Nov. 14 on whether to hold or expand the current boundary.
Due to the progression and looming threat of further boundary expansion, Stop Sprawl's Farm Festival event aimed to raise student awareness. Toor encouraged students to reach out to their city councillors and voice their opposition to urban boundary expansion.
Toor encouraged students to reach out to their city councillors and voice their opposition to urban boundary expansion.
At Manorun Organic Farm festival, McMaster students had the opportunity to meet and interact with farm animals, share a meal, engage with the student organizers, learn about the threat of urban expansion that Hamilton’s farmland is facing and come to understand the value and importance of local farms.
Emily Gaul, one of the founders of Stop Sprawl Students, expressed that students in particular ought to care about the threat to local farmland and urban boundary expansion, as the proposed plans could increase grocery prices as well as rent, contrary to the intention of Bill 23.
Emily Gaul, one of the founders of Stop Sprawl Students, expressed that students in particular ought to care about the threat to local farmland and urban boundary expansion, as the proposed plans could increase grocery prices as well as rent, contrary to the intention of Bill 23.
The fight to protect local farm land is not over and Stop Sprawl Students encouraged McMaster students to call their councillors and support the boundary remaining as it is currently.
By Sarun Balaranjan, Contributor
Note: Sarun Balaranjan is a member of the Board of Directors for OPIRG.
Before I begin, I must acknowledge my conflict of interest as a member of the Board of Directors for OPIRG. This year has been troubling for OPIRG in many respects. The Student Choice Initiative forced us to terminate all of our staff. The new Board of Directors had almost no prior experience with OPIRG. Oh, and the McMaster Students Union decided to threaten our very existence.
OPIRG McMaster is a unique group on campus in that it is not a service provided by the MSU, but the MSU plays a role in the process of funnelling our annual budget from students. Because we are autonomous from the MSU, we are able to provide a platform for students who want to engage in activism that the MSU may not condone, potentially for bureaucratic reasons. We are currently supporting new groups like Divest McMaster, a student-run initiative aiming to push McMaster administration to sell the investments tied up in the extraction of fossil fuels through McMaster University’s endowment fund. A group like Divest McMaster would likely have no clear place in advocacy through the MSU, since intuitively, the MSU would protect the interests of the university. By putting OPIRG McMaster to referendum and potentially defunding this organization, the MSU is limiting the extent of student activism.
On Nov. 29, 2019, the Student Representative Assembly proposed sending OPIRG to referendum. A major reason was that we were spending too much money on staffing and administration. Granted, this was fair given the preliminary budget received by the finance committee showed that roughly 87 per cent of our funds were allocated towards staffing and administrative costs. However, upon receiving our opt-out rates, we updated our budget to reflect that only a reasonable 30 per cent of our costs would be allocated towards staffing. Despite this change, the MSU continued to cite this 87 per cent figure in proceeding OPIRG referendum documents.
On Feb. 9, The board of directors were brought in a second time to delegate on the topic of being sent to referendum on the grounds of bylaw infractions. By this time, the previously cited staffing cost issues were pushed into the background in favour of bylaw infractions. At this point, it was clear that the MSU had an agenda to push and that moving goalposts was well within their capacity. One of the broken bylaws cited by the MSU was a late budget submission. Yes, we were four days late in submitting our budget, but we had only received the opt-out numbers near the end of September with an Oct. 15 due date. In addition, our treasurer, the primary point of contact with the MSU, had been taken out of commission with serious personal issues and we were still negotiating with our Union regarding budgeting limitations. Some leniency would have been appreciated in receiving our updated budget, but we admit that there were communication issues due to these external circumstances.
In terms of the other infractions, the associate vice-president (Finance) and their committee ruled, without any consultation with the SRA, that we broke Bylaw 5, article 3.1.2 on financial transparency. Some of these bylaws are fairly vague in phrasing and describe only general tenets that must be followed. I would like to remind you that, originally, the vote to send us to referendum passed by only two votes. On Feb. 23, we returned to delegate to the SRA in the hopes of reconsidering the motion to send OPIRG to referendum on Feb. 9. The motion to reconsider the original referendum decision had seven SRA members in favour, nine members opposed, and the final six members abstained. The ambiguity and uncertainty in the room was palpable each time. It seems inherently unjust that this decision on a bylaw violation was determined by a small subset of the elected body that is supposed to prioritize student interests.
Democracy is a process. The continual reforming, reshaping and restructuring of practices are based on a common understanding of what works and what fails society. A major issue ingrained in democracy is that democratic leaders need flashy campaigns for upward mobility. Sure, whoever spearheads this movement gets to say on their resume that they managed to create “tangible corrective action” against a “financially opaque group.” Or, maybe on their next election platform, they get to flex themselves as proponents of financial transparency. Again, maybe the SRA should provide their own input as to what constitutes a bylaw violation, rather than leave it in the hands of a small, potentially biased group to act as arbiters.
We as a board are deeply aware of the importance of student choice. This is why we advertise students’ choices so that students can opt out of our fees should they feel that they want to. A referendum sounds like the MSU is putting power back into the hands of the students, but, in reality, the opportunity is being provided for the majority of McMaster students to take a platform of free speech and social justice away from a marginalized minority. Even if the majority of students do not believe in the value of OPIRG, the organization remains an important outlet of free speech and support for alienated students who want to engage in activism.
The punishment that has been carried out doesn’t quite reflect the crime.
Dina Fanara
Assistant News Editor
Each year, McMaster’s Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) joins forces with local stores and vendors of fair trade products to put on the annual Fair Trade Fair in the McMaster University Student Centre (MUSC) atrium.
The fair, which has been taking place for over ten years, shrunk slightly in size this year, but is still going strong.
Products for sale included the usual Fair Trade Certified chocolates, coffee, and tea, jewellery from all over the world, Christmas ornaments, clay and wooden figurines, clothing, journals, soaps, moisturizers and several other odds and ends.
Also present at the Fair was McMaster’s Engineers Without Borders (EWB), promoting Fair Trade Certification awareness, focusing on educating students on the process for products to become certified, and why it is important to purchase Fair Trade products when possible.
According to one EWB volunteer, Meaghan Langille, fair trade “promotes social responsibility by ensuring that that the people who made the product that you’re purchasing were paid a fair wage and ethical working conditions.”
“It’s a great way to promote a global economy,” she said about the event. “It’s something that we can do to help people in developing countries through what we are purchasing and consuming,” said Langille.
It was widely expressed by several vendors that a second-term event, which used to occur but was stopped several years ago, would be greatly beneficial to the cause.
Another suggestion was to add another day to the first-term fair, as many students asked vendors if they would be returning the following day.
