Municipality makes last ditch appeal to overturn Sauble Beach decision

The Town of South Bruce Peninsula is making one final push to try and win back the shoreline of Sauble Beach.

“It's frustrating that it has to be done this way. It would be nice if we could sit down in a room and hack out these issues, but we have to involve the federal government with this survey. So, until that's done, we still have to keep playing our cards, doing the right thing for the taxpayers, and Sauble Beach,” says Town of South Bruce Peninsula Mayor, Jay Kirkland.

The town wants the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn an April 2023 ruling that awarded a stretch of valuable sand along Sauble Beach’s shoreline to the Saugeen First Nation.

The Town’s appeal of that decision to the Ontario Court of Appeal was dismissed on Dec. 9, 2024.

At issue is an upcoming land survey by the Federal Government on what exactly is Saugeen First Nation land, and what’s owned by South Bruce Peninsula.

“If the survey line isn't where the two parties think it is, if we don't put our appeal in now, then we don't have any say in the matter in the future,” says Kirkland.

The 2.2 kilometre stretch of sand in question attracts more than 400,000 tourists each summer and brings in nearly $1 million in parking revenue. Public access has continued, unfettered, since the Saugeen First Nation took ownership two summers ago.

“If you're a person coming here on holidays, you wouldn't have known any different from the way we ran it or the way that they run it. They’ve done a fantastic job. We have no complaints about that,” says Kirkland.

But that literal line in the sand is what’s in question. While the Saugeen First Nation has publicly said that public access to Sauble Beach’s valuable shoreline will continue, and there are no aspirations to own any property or cottages, east of Lakeshore Boulevard, that runs along the stretch of disputed sand, South Bruce Peninsula wants something in writing, that those two issues, will remain status quo, for the foreseeable future.

“As long as that’s going to continue, I'm okay if we don't own the sand portion of the beach. It's just we have to make sure that that goes for, you know, a long time. So, it's something that is a big concern of ours because it'd be detrimental to Sauble Beach, if that changed,” says Kirkland.

The town says it will submit its “leave to appeal” to the Supreme Court of Canada by the Feb. 7 deadline.

The court can allow that appeal to proceed or dismiss it before it even begins.

If the leave to appeal is dismissed, South Bruce Peninsula would have no further legal recourse in regards to the April 2023 decision to transfer ownership of most of Sauble Beach’s shoreline, from them, to the Saugeen First Nation.