Thanks going out today to David Cairns for saying what many of us have been thinking. We know the situation in Summerside is not an isolated incident. In fact it could well be that the uprising from Islanders over the Point Deroche debacle was a major factor in Premier Lantz’ decision to reprimand Gilles Arsenault. The fact remains that Ministerial privilege is a problem here in PEI. It is, plain and simple, an abuse of power.
LETTERS: Point Deroche – P.E.I.’s other permitting irregularity, and other letters
Apr 27, 2026
3 minute read
The Guardian’s editors selected the controversial Point Deroche development as P.E.I.’s news story of the year for 2023. As of Dec. 21, 2023, the property sits abandoned and half-constructed after an 18-month controversy. For many, the permit for the construction of the private home became a symbol of the perils of unrestricted shorefront development.
by Stu Neatby
P.E.I. media are awash with news that a provincial minister permitted development in the Summerside area in contravention of P.E.I.’s wetland conservation policy. A $100,000 charitable donation is also part of the story. What media reports have not mentioned is that this episode closely echoes a separate, and ongoing, permitting irregularity in another part of P.E.I.’s coastline.
In 2022, Jesse Rasch, an investment fund manager from Toronto, began construction of a 7,000-square-foot villa at Point Desroche, on P.E.I.’s north shore. The design included a large building at the edge of the bank and a rocky fortification that covered the beach in front of it. Soon after the project came to public attention, provincial officials visited the site, determined that it contravened provincial regulations, and issued a stop-work order. The legal basis of this determination is detailed in internal government emails released under freedom of information legislation. Later, a legal opinion prepared by a Halifax law firm also supported the conclusion of illegality.
However, shortly after the stoppage order was issued, the provincial government rescinded it. No legal justification for this decision has never been provided publicly.
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Mr. Rasch, taken aback by the public fury that greeted his project, stepped away from it, and P.E.I. developer Tim Banks became its owner in late 2023. In January 2024, Mr. Banks told media that he would donate the bulk of the 60-plus-acre property to the province for wetland conservation and that he would complete construction of the villa in spring 2024. Mr. Banks’ website declares that he made a “40-acre land donation in Point Deroche.” However, provincial land records show the entire 60+ acre holding is owned by his company, Pan American Properties.
Here, the Summerside and the Point Deroche stories converge, because both involve charitable donations, made or promised, of a size that only rich people can afford. The key question in both cases is whether these gifts exempted their donors from rules that everybody else must obey.
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As it turned out, Mr. Banks did not continue work at Point Deroche in 2024, and to this day the site remains a desolate array of concrete footings and steel skeletons. This means that construction could be feasibly removed from the bank-edge zone where development is prohibited, thereby bringing at least the dry-land portion of the project into regulatory compliance.
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In the Summerside permitting irregularity case, Premier Rob Lantz has shown remarkable vigour in reversing a non-compliant ministerial decision, in holding accountable the person who made it, and in alerting the RCMP about the matter.
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Will Mr. Lantz apply the same vigour to resolve the ongoing permitting irregularity at Point Deroche?
David Cairns,
Stratford
