In Ontario, the race for industrial megasites meets farmers’ fury

A plan to clear a handful of farmers off 770 acres in Ontario’s Waterloo Region to create an industrial megasite, in the hopes of attracting a future multibillion-dollar factory and thousands of coveted manufacturing jobs, has turned into a pitched political battle.A group of farmers in the region’s rural Wilmot Township, about 150 kilometres southwest of Toronto, say they were told without warning in March that they had just days to agree to sell their properties to the municipality of Waterloo Region for future development – or face potential expropriation.