‘It means everything’: Oak Bluff farmers facing expropriation over interchange project

Some Oak Bluff residents are concerned about losing their land due to a planned highway interchange project. CTV’s Joseph Bernacki explains.

An interchange project on the Perimeter Highway is putting several farmers at risk of losing their farmland, leaving at least one concerned over their livelihood.

Bradley Dusik has farmed grain crops on hundreds of acres in Oak Bluff for decades. He currently has 1,400 acres but could be set to lose over 125 acres due to a planned highway expropriation.

“It’s going to break my heart to know that possibly we’re not going to have it anymore,” the third-generation farmer told CTV News.

“For me to lose land, they don’t just build any more of it. It affects me a lot. I don’t know how I’m going to survive,” Dusik said.

The planned expropriation comes as the province intends to replace the intersection at Provincial Trunk Highway 3 and the Perimeter Highway with an interchange.

According to maps released by the province, Dusik has several parcels of land that will be impacted and expropriated. He currently has no offer on the table.

Dusik said negotiations surrounding the project have been ongoing since the 1970s, but they have never come to fruition.

“Typically, it was, ‘It’s (going) through right away; it’s going through within five years.’ Long story short, it still hasn’t gone through,” he said.

“There’s nothing we can do with our land. We can’t sell it. It’s more or less like you’re almost kind of landlocked.”

Dusik said he has been in talks with the province since 2024 to try to settle things but has not heard anything back in months. Dusik said he’s now asked for a letter of intent.

Brad Erb, reeve for the R.M. of Macdonald, said several meetings with the province have indicated work on the interchange could begin in 2026.

“They’ve met with us on three or four occasions,” Erb said. “It’s really been more updates than it is consultation, and it is their plan.”

Erb also farms in the R.M. and though he won’t be directly affected, he said other farmers will. He wants consultations to honour the project design while minimizing the impact on farms.

He said it’s a matter of respecting the integrity of the land.

“I would hope and want that the province is consulting with them and providing them with as many options as are possible, whether that’s purchasing the land or making sure that they’re not as cut up into small pieces that are impractical,” Erb said.

In a statement to CTV News, Lisa Naylor, the minister of transportation and infrastructure, said the interchange project is now in the final stages of procurement for a design-build contract.

“To complete the project, some property acquisition through expropriation is required, affecting 19 property owners. The department has begun making offers to property owners, with the remaining offers to follow shortly,” the statement read in part.

“We understand this process can be challenging for those affected and are committed to ensuring it is carried out fairly, respectfully and in full accordance with legislative requirements.”

A start date for the beginning of construction is not yet known.

Still, to Dusik, all the acres he is at risk of losing are much more than farmland.

“It means everything,” he said.