By Chad Ingram

The following are brief reports of items discussed during a Feb. 17 meeting of Haliburton County council.

Haliburton County councillors passed a resolution in support of the Blue Dot movement a campaign from the David Suzuki Foundation asking municipal councils to lobby the provinces to lobby the federal government to add the right to a clean environment to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Canada is one of the few democracies in the world without the right to a clean environment guaranteed in its constitution. Locally the campaign was promoted by Environment Haliburton with members of the group visiting local councils last year.

County council had originally said it didn’t want to pass the resolution without the matter going to the lower tiers first. The municipality’s four lower-tier townships have since passed resolutions of support. Councillors passed the resolution after watching a video from members of the eco club at Haliburton Highlands Secondary School.

The county continues to have issues with the province over signs it wants to erect at entrances to the municipality along provincial highways. The signs which would feature the county’s My Haliburton Highlands branding logo are apparently not popular with staff with the province’s Tourism-Oriented Directional Signage (TODS) program which must approve the signs. The issue has been going on for a number of months.

“It’s a bit ridiculous we can’t have the sign we want” said Algonquin Highlands Reeve and County Warden Carol Moffatt.

Moffatt said the municipality has been told TODS would prefer signs with natural imagery. “There is concern thinking one person can say ‘I don’t think you’ll be happy with your sign based on my graphic design background’” she said.

The tourism department will be resubmitting information and Moffatt said perhaps the county should be looking into getting a delegation at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference if the issue is not resolved.