Don’t confuse generosity with corporate influence

Charity should strengthen communities, not serve as a bargaining chip for corporate ambitions. While community events matter, it’s worth questioning why a sponsor—CBM Aggregates and Votorantim (a Brazil-based cement making giant)—with no roots here is suddenly so eager to position itself as ‘local’ and sponsor a charity golf event. 

Genuine giving comes from connection, not strategy. 

For decades, Caledon has taken pride in real community giving. Neighbours helping neighbours, families raising money for local causes like Bethell Hospice, and events built on shared values like the Home for the Holidays Gala held by Caledon Community Services. It’s the kind of charity that makes small towns strong. 

As a small town, we love to see larger organizations support local initiatives and charities—but what Votorantim and CBM Aggregates are doing is something else entirely. Their sponsorship of the Legacy Golf Classic earlier this month wasn’t about agriculture or community spirit. It’s a multinational corporation using the language of generosity as a Trojan horse for its real agenda: securing approval for a massive new quarry that will destroy 700 acres of farmland while blasting up to 80 feet below the water table. 

Let’s not be fooled. This isn’t about golf or charity. It’s about CBM Aggregates trying to buy its way into Caledon—softening us up. They present themselves as benevolent neighbours, buying goodwill now, all while planning to extract billions of dollars in revenue from aggregate extraction over the next 50 years. 

And in return, what does Caledon get? 

Farmland stripped away. Our aquifer drained. Brook trout in the Credit River put at risk. Noise, dust, truck traffic and decades of disruption. 

This is corporate welfare disguised as charity. If they had to pay the real cost of managing the billions of litres of water they plan to pump out, it would be astronomical. Instead, they shift those costs onto the community because they are taking drinking water and releasing it in ways that damage ecosystems; all in the hopes we’ll accept it because they offered a few token gestures of generosity. It sounds nice, but it’s another kind of pollution: eroding both our environment and our public trust. 

Does a few thousand dollars in event sponsorship offset those costs? Of course not. A good neighbour doesn’t ask for a free pass on policies meant to protect our town. A good neighbour doesn’t arrive with a business plan that gambles the town's future for profit. A good neighbour invests in a community because they belong to it and care about its future—not because they need or want something from it. 

That’s what makes this so troubling. CBM Aggregates and Votorantim don’t live here. They don’t work here. Their multi-national roots are in Brazil, not in Caledon. And when their business here is done, they’ll leave behind a scarred landscape for the people who call this place home. 

This isn’t an isolated tactic. Across Ontario, aggregate companies follow the same playbook: sponsor local sports teams, fund events, donate to charities—all to look like “good neighbours” while quietly advancing projects that damage the environment and threaten water security. Caledon deserves better. 

Real community investment comes from those who live here and share our future, not from corporations looking for a free pass. The question now is whether we’re willing to let them buy our trust with token gestures of generosity. 

David Sylvester is the Chair of the Forks of the Credit Preservation Group, a volunteer organization dedicated to preserving Caledon’s natural beauty and valuable headwaters. 

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