Marilyn Crawford made a difference

Jeff Green | Aug 28, 2014

Over the weekend, Marilyn Crawford died after a battle with cancer.

From what I've been told, she had been dealing with cancer for several years, but apparently was able to do some travelling with her husband and co-conspirator, Buddy.

For those who don't remember, she was a founding member of the Bedford Mining Alert and a major force in the revamping of the Ontario Mining Act as it is applied in Southern Ontario. She went on to become an activist for justice in mining, particularly the impacts of mining on women around the world, as a board member and co-chair of Mining Watch Canada in Ottawa.

The truly amazing thing about changes to the Ontario Mining Act, which came about a few years ago, is that groups like the Bedford Mining Alert and people like Marilyn, Mary Louks, Maureen Towaij, Peter Griesbach and Frank and Gloria Morrison and others played a direct role in bringing about reform.

It all started for Marilyn, and most of the others mentioned above, when they noticed that trees had been cut down, trenches had been dug and stakes were up all over their property. That's when they found out that they did not own the subsurface rights to their properties. They also found out that the prospectors who had laid claim to the minerals underneath had a lot of rights to use the surface in order to access their mining claims.

The first meeting of the Bedford Mining Alert took place in 2000. From that point on, the outrage they each felt turned into iron resolve. Everyone played their own role, and they did not always agree on tactics or even goals, but each of the people mentioned above was part of the change that took place.

For her part, Marilyn Crawford studied the Ontario Mining Act. She became so well versed in the act that when ministry officials came to meetings in Bedford and elsewhere in Eastern Ontario, they found themselves being instructed on some of the details of the act as they defended ministry practices.

When the mining act was changed, the initial goal of Bedford Mining Alert members, which was to protect the interests of landowners who did not own their subsurface rights, had been accomplished. Those lands cannot be staked any more.

But long before those changes and others came in, Marilyn's interests in the impact of mining on individuals moved her in many new directions and brought depth to her politics.

She was a resource person and a part of the struggle over uranium exploration in Algonquin and Land Claim territory in North Frontenac in 2007 and 2008.

Although she initially used the resources of Mining Watch Canada, an Ottawa-based not-for-profit that works with groups in Canada and around the world to help with her own case and that of her neighbours, Marilyn ended up joining the board of Mining Watch and was co-chair between 2008 and her death last weekend.

Ramsay Hart, the Canadian program director at Mining Watch, originally met Marilyn from the other side of a hiring table when he was being interviewed for the job he has held for five years.

He said this week that, “Beyond her role as board member she has been a great resource person for me whenever I have had questions about the mining act. She was also a very caring and warm person and wanted to make sure that the staff were doing well.”

He said that Marilyn developed educational material for schools around the Mining Act and made presentations to students.

“She always took a strong interest in the various ways the mining industry is privileged over the people who live on the land that they use for its resources,” he said.

This brought her attention to the plight of women and Aboriginal peoples around the world as they are subjected to international mining interests, a large issue, far removed from the interests of rural landowners in Southern Ontario.

As a political activist, Marilyn could be hard on those she opposed, and even on those she was working with. She was always clear about the specific change she was seeking, and did not generally alter her goals in order to get along with others. Many of the people she worked with had their own agendas and strong personalities as well, so she could be a polarizing figure, and she made and lost friends along the way.

My memories of Marilyn Crawford were of a mutual benefit situation. When she needed publicity for something, when she had a goal in mind, she called and was always upfront about what she was looking to get out of a story in the Frontenac News. When I was looking for information, she was a resource. She always shared whatever she knew or pointed me in the right direction. And she was a lot of fun. She had a sense of humour about politics and about the internal politics of the people and groups she was involved with.

Peter Griesbach, one of her first allies from the very beginnings of the Bedford Mining Alert, who went on to play a role with the Federation of Ontario Cottage Association and through them the Adivsory Panel on Changes to the Mining Act, put it this way: “Marilyn kept on with her mining rights activity long after many of us were done and had moved on to other things. I think she, and her husband Buddy - he played a role in everything she did, made a real difference - even though she was fighting cancer for a number of years.”