Ed Smith, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

About 75 residents filled the Grantham Optimist Club on Wednesday evening for a two-hour open-mic town hall hosted by St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe and Port Dalhousie councillors Bruce Williamson and Marty Mako. 

The meeting, open to residents from across the city, was intended as an informal chance to raise questions and share concerns directly with local leaders.

Residents discussed a variety of issues, including high property tax rates, snow plowing complaints, and waterfront sight lines, among other local concerns. But for most of those in attendance, one issue dominated the night: the former General Motors property on Ontario Street—a sprawling, contaminated site that has sat derelict for years, symbolizing both industrial decline and political paralysis.

The GM property has loomed over St. Catharines’ civic life for more than a decade. The Pointer has published a series of investigative pieces exposing the deteriorating conditions of the site, the contamination risks and the City’s tepid response. 

In 2020 more than 2,000 residents signed a petition demanding the municipality take decisive action on the GM site, and the calls have not ceased since.

Despite those efforts, little progress has been made and it remains a visual blight on the city, as well as a physical and toxic threat to residents and the environment.  The site’s filtration system—meant to contain and treat toxic runoff—was reported by The Pointer earlier this month as non-functional, while the surrounding fencing continues to crumble. Even a community effort led by Councillors Robin McPherson and Caleb Ratzlaff, bringing families together on the contaminated property to paint the plywood barriers, could not mask the ongoing decay. Each day, the blight worsens, and the risks to both the environment and public health remain.

For residents who live nearby, that reality feels not just frustrating, but unsafe.

“It’s a pretty bad place to be,” said Peter Russell, one of several residents who spoke at the town hall. “We’ve been living beside this toxic mess for years. The City keeps telling us it’s not their problem, but we’re the ones breathing it in and looking at it every day.”

Russell reminded the mayor of the 2020 petition and cited the latest article from The Pointer on the broken filtration machinery. His question was simple: “What’s going on with that?”

Mayor Siscoe’s answer was familiar. He said the City does not have “an environmental testing department” and that the matter lies primarily within the provincial Ministry of the Environment’s mandate.

“The City makes enquiries of the Ministry and that’s the extent of what we can do,” Siscoe said. “We don’t have the legal mandate or the staff to do environmental testing. My understanding from the Ministry is that they continue their regular perimeter checks and haven’t found any off-site discharges. So the Ministry is comfortable with the measures in place.”

The mayor repeatedly referenced a letter sent days earlier by MPP Jennie Stevens to the Ministry, requesting further investigation and support. Though Siscoe never produced a copy of the letter, he mentioned it several times throughout the night, positioning it as evidence that the matter now rested with Queen’s Park.

But many residents—and at least one councillor—weren’t buying it.

After Siscoe’s comments, Russell pushed back. He pointed out that the Ministry had a long record of minimizing contamination issues at the site. This was revealed through documents obtained by The Pointer through a freedom of information request. 

“The Ministry has lied before,” Russell said, referencing revelations that PCB levels at the GM property had exceeded allowable limits by as much as 900 times before independent testing forced disclosure. “If a guy has a little garage and there’s pollution, the City’s bylaw people are down there shutting him down before he can even open. So I’m not buying it.”

The mayor did not address Russell’s comparison or his challenge to the Ministry’s credibility. Instead, he thanked him for his comments and reiterated that residents should “reach out to the Ministry directly.”

Not everyone on stage agreed with the mayor.

“The recent article that described the situation with the filtration system not working, I find that very disturbing,” Councillor Williamson said. “It’s not only about liquid contamination—it’s also about the buildings. Those buildings are dangerous. There are people going on site and putting themselves in harm’s way with asbestos and all the other stuff that’s there. We’re going to push as hard as we can to see some action on this. It’s gone on too long, and it’s an embarrassment that the site sits there like that.”

Williamson’s comments drew a round of applause—the loudest of the evening. For a moment, the tension in the hall broke.

Then the mayor jumped back in.

“If there are areas that the City has levers to pull, I will pull whatever levers are at my disposal,” Siscoe said, raising questions about why he has failed to do so for years. “Right now, the biggest one for me is, I can force that property to be dealt with as a residential property, which means it has to be cleaned. That’s the biggest, most obvious lever for us.”

His claim was misleading.

The zoning of the GM property has no bearing on the City’s power to enforce cleanup. Under both municipal property standards by-laws and the Ontario Building Code, St. Catharines can order remediation of unsafe or contaminated properties at any time, regardless of zoning.  If the landowner does not comply with the order the municipal corporation can complete the work and bill the landowner.

The City has done so before. In 2021, following the fire at the Welland House Hotel, officials ordered a full cleanup under existing by-law authority, with costs recoverable through a priority lien. The same mechanism applies now to the GM site, especially since its demolition permit has been closed.

“Siscoe was not being truthful with us,” said Russell after the meeting. “I’m tired of the way they confuse and complicate every answer they give. The bottom line is the City has power and it is refusing to use it, meanwhile we residents live with the toxic mess of that site every day.”

Resident Michael Barahona took the mic on the GM issue next, reminding the mayor that 2,000 residents signed a petition in 2020 demanding action.

“I’m sure another 20,000 people feel the same way,” he said.

In response, Siscoe said he didn’t want “to raise expectations that the City can accomplish anything, because the reality is that the things that the City is able to accomplish are very limited.”

The City’s ability to enforce property standards, order cleanup, and secure reimbursement through liens is well established and is only limited by political will, residents pointed out.

“As I said,” Siscoe continued, “I look to the levers that I can pull, and I’m going to keep pulling those. With respect to this property, I committed during the election and I’ve committed to residents whenever I talk with them that whatever we believe we can do, we’re going to do.”

In the three years since his election, the mayor has refused to use the various levers he actually has and has consistently kicked the responsibility to the province.

Responsibility for ensuring the structural integrity of all buildings on the site normally rests with St. Catharines Planning and Building Services. This department oversees bylaw enforcement, including property standards to uphold community safety. As a vacant, non-residential property, a City bylaw officer is authorized to inspect the site “at any reasonable time without prior notice and without a warrant.”

Provincial legislation gives authority to municipalities to conduct such work and St. Catharines could be legally liable if it fails to use its powers to keep the public safe.

City officials, under Siscoe’s leadership, previously claimed that demolition activity at the site prevented inspections. It was misleading. The majority of the demolition work that has been done to date occurred nearly ten years ago, only scattered demolition activities have occurred sporadically in recent years, and at the start of October, The Pointer reported that the demolition permit for the site had been revoked in April due to inactivity. 

That gave the City an opportunity to go in and inspect the site. If risks were found, St. Catharines officials could have initiated action to address those risks.

When the property owner becomes negligent in their duties the responsibility to protect the public falls back to the City. The inspecting bylaw officer can make an Order to be served on the property owner to rectify the dangers observed. If the owner fails to take action the City has the power to take the appropriate actions itself, including repairing or demolishing buildings, and placing a lien on the property in order to recover the costs. The bylaw and provincial policy go even further, making it clear that the city can also: “clear the site of all buildings or structures and leave the site in a graded and levelled condition; (or) make the site safe or impede entry by erecting fences, barricades or barriers; and/or cause a prosecution to be brought”.

Siscoe has failed to take any of these actions, and during the town hall he misleadingly claimed the City does not have the authority to do so.

Glenn Brooks and his partner Susan Rosebrugh live in a rental property that abuts the former GM site. In 2020 Brooks was diagnosed with breast cancer. He speaks openly about the fact that doctors found no genetic pre-disposition to this type of cancer and informed him that he likely got the disease through some kind of environmental exposure. They are vocal advocates for a thorough clean up of the GM site.

“It’s hard to believe that the City is not using its enforcement powers to move the surface clean up of the GM (site) forward,” Brooks told The Pointer earlier in the year. “The abandoned structures there at the very least are dangerous and coupled with the fact the gates are left open continually, is a recipe for disaster either for the homeless seeking shelter or teenagers seeking adventures. As someone who observes daily the lack of movement by the City or anyone else to remove these buildings I can only shake my head in disgust at how long this has gone on unaddressed.”

Brooks highlighted concerns often voiced within the community: the openness of the site, its appeal to adventurous youth and its practical draw for those seeking shelter. The lands are pockmarked with hazards that might draw people for one reason or another, while masking threats that could prove disastrous. 

At the town hall, as the exchanges continued, Siscoe used another familiar argument: that the City could face massive financial exposure if it were to intervene.

He warned that taking direct action on the GM site might “put hundreds of millions of dollars of liability onto the City.”

The claim drew skeptical murmurs from the crowd. It’s an argument he’s used before, without explaining himself.

Municipalities that enforce property standards or cleanup orders are not assuming liability; they are fulfilling their duty under provincial legislation. The greater risk lies in failing to act. If contamination or injury were to occur because the City neglected its enforcement and cleanup obligations, that inaction could itself create legal and financial liability.

Wednesday’s town hall was not the first time Siscoe has addressed the need for action. In January 2020, when he was still a councillor, Siscoe struck a very different tone in front of a packed council chamber of residents concerned about the former GM site.

“If there’s a stone we can overturn to fix whatever we can fix, we’re going to do that,” he claimed at the time, calling for the use of waste by-laws and even proposing the creation of a dedicated GM-land fund to finance City actions.

Five years later, his message has changed.

The final question Wednesday came from this reporter and challenged Siscoe’s repeated claims that the City is powerless. Other municipalities, it was pointed out, facing similar environmental risks had succeeded in forcing action precisely because their mayor, council, and senior staff had led action, using authority that all municipalities have.
“This is a responsibility of the (provincial environment ministry),” he replied. “You don’t trust them and you’ve made that very clear, but as a municipality I can’t answer for every other level of government for what they are doing or not doing. And in the same way that there are many residents who believe that the shipyards in St. Catharines should be building the Kingston-class destroyers for the Canadian military, they do not come to me and demand that I start building Kingston-class destroyers at the Port Weller Drydocks.”

His confusing response and false claim that The Pointer does not trust the provincial ministry were not clarified (The Pointer has sought information from the ministry about its previous testing results around the site, which did not include samples from areas of concern). 

He continued: “Many people believe the twinning of the Skyway is a terrible idea — but that’s a provincial Ministry of Transportation issue. I am not the appropriate person to be yelling at about this.”

One resident remarked, we’ve “heard all this before.” 

Before the meeting concluded, Russell summed up the mood of residents. “We’re the ones who have to live with this every day. If the City won’t even admit what it can do, how can we ever believe it will actually do something?”

Email: ed.smith@thepointer.com

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