Idyllic Ontario cottage country feuds over public access to shoreline

Ontarians are enjoying their last few summer weekends in Great Lakes cottage country but a longstanding dispute over whether they have unrestricted access to the shore seems no closer to resolution.

Waterfront is some of most prized real estate across Canada, be it a view of Pacific or Atlantic surf or idyllic lakefront, but property owners in areas such as Georgian Bay are at war with visitors strolling the shore.

Some homeowners on Georgian Bay have built fences down to the waterline and stuck no-trespassing signs on them to dissuade people from crossing their property, the Toronto Star reports.

“A lot of these houses with fences and signs are large, palatial properties," Garry Skerrett, founding president of the Ontario Shorewalk Association, conceded to the Star. "The owners argue they pay high taxes which goes to the town’s coffers so they should be allowed to put up the fences.

“My argument is when you look at the Atlantic shore, places like Florida, you have houses with beaches behind them, but no matter what, when you get to the beach, it’s public."

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Just what are the public's rights when it comes to shoreline access?

The foreshore, the area between the normal high and low water marks on a body of water, normally is considered Crown land and therefore public. Provincial rules throughout Canada generally provide for access to and transit across the foreshore. That includes lake and river beaches, according to a B.C. government document.

But a web site called Beachapedia, notes the B.C. Environment Ministry warns that "these are not public rights and they cannot be guaranteed in all cases."

Like in Ontario, there have been disputes. Last year, CBC News reported local fishermen were upset because the American billionaire owners of the famed Douglas Lake Ranch, near Merritt, B.C., were reportedly blocking access to two public lakes located on the 200,000-hectare property. The issue appears headed to court.

But the situation on the Great Lakes seems chronic and acute. Some Georgian Bay homeowners have hired security guards to stop people from walking along the shore near their homes, Doug Lorriman, who owns a waterfront property on Balm Beach, told the Star.

Lorriman allows public access across his property and belongs to a group called Preserve the Use of Balm Beach. In previous years, the issue has sparked fights and vandalism.

The problem, with hundreds of police calls, got so serious at one point at Balm Beachthat the Ontario Provincial Police were pushed into a show of force, including bolstered patrols and floodlights along the beach to deter vandals, the Star reported in 2008.

Most locals trace the beginnings of the feud to 2006 when resident John Marion, whose home sits next to the public beach, built a fence along his property line that eventually reached the water's edge, the Star said. The fence was subject to a chainsaw attack and even set on fire.

Others say a 1951 Ontario government decision to shift the province's jurisdiction to the low-water mark from the high-water mark effectively privatized the lakefront foreshore.

"With one stroke of the pen, thousands of kilometres of coastline disappeared from public lands," said Stephen Passero, the director of Shorewalk, to the Star in 2008.

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Lorriman supports an effort by Liberal MPP Kim Craitor to pass a private member's bill called the Great Lakes Shoreline Right of Passage Act, introduced last year.

The law, which would cover not just the Great Lakes but the St. Lawrence River shores and any waterways connecting to the lakes, would provide the public with the right to travel along the shoreline between the water's edge and high water mark — essentially the beach — but only on foot or non-motorized means.

Craitor introduced his bill in 2008, when the dispute first came to a head. It was modelled on legislation in neighbouring Michigan that guarantees public access to the high-water mark. This will be his fourth attempt to get it past second reading.