The Town of New Tecumseth rested its case at the Conservation Review Board hearing on the status of the Banting Homestead Monday afternoon.

The hearing is to determine the merits of a town proposal to designate all 100 acres of the property as heritage land under the Ontario Heritage Act, which would protect it from future development. The Ontario Historical Society (OHS), which currently owns the land, has objected to the designation and wants only about four acres (including the existing structures) protected.

In order for the board to recommend all 100 acres be preserved, the town has to prove that the entire farm has cultural and historical heritage significance - meaning that the fields are a part of the farm, and are themselves as important as the rest of the property to the development of Sir Frederick Banting and his work which ultimately led to the discovery of insulin.

"The history of Ontario is about children working on the farm, and that is what his (Banting's) childhood was based on. It was not based on working in the house," said the town's expert witness Julie Harris.

Harris is the president of Contentworks, an Ottawa-based company specializing in cultural resource policy and historical research, hired by the town to prepare a report on the cultural heritage value of the property. In a 32-page report, the company recommended the entire plot of land be designated as a significant heritage site.

"A farm landscape without fields is no longer a farm," she said.

During cross examination, OHS solicitor Ian Godfrey asked whether Harris thought four acres would be sufficient to preserve the cultural heritage.

"No, you won't get the sense of what farming is," she replied. "In a farm, you have to get the sense that it is a journey to travel to the other end (of the land)."

She was also asked to explain what kind of access the public typically has to different areas of the farm, and how the family uses them. She said the houses and buildings typically represent a family's presentation of the farm to the public.

The town also called Peter Banting and Bob Banting, two of Sir Frederick Banting’s surviving descendants. The Banting family, through their lawyer Anne Benedetti, had requested official party status at the hearing. The OHS objected to the request.

"It is not a suggestion that the Bantings don't have anything interesting to say," Godfrey said during a break in the hearing. "It is the town's case; it is the town's role to put forward the public case for designation."

The board denied the party status because it felt that given the scope of the trial, the information provided by the Bantings would be the same the town's, said Peter Zakarow, chair of the board. They did however, allow the Bantings to be called as witnesses for the town's case, and Benedetti was taken as co-counsel to the town's James Feehely.

The Bantings told the board family stories regarding Frederick's experience on the land.

"There is a clear association between the discovery of insulin and Fred's upbringing on the farm," said Bob Banting.

He said Banting's experience with farm animals aided him while researching insulin, as well as providing the inspiration for a method to mass produce it, using the pancreatic material from fetal calves. Bob also said that one of Fred's childhood friends he played with on the farm, died of childhood diabetes.

"She became diabetic, and bit-by-bit, day-by-day, she grew into a living skeleton in front of his eyes," he said.

The Bantings added that the farm provided the financial support needed to help Frederick during his research and also instilled a work ethic during childhood that would be needed later in his life.

"It shaped his character and the values he had… If he hadn't had the tenacity (developed on the farm) he probably would have given up," said Peter Banting.

The OHS solicitor did not cross-examine the Bantings.

The town called three additional witnesses, Museum on the Boyne curator Rachelle Clayton, former New Tecumseth Mayor Larry Keogh, and Heritage New Tecumseth member Donna Jebb.

Clayton spoke to some of Banting's ties to the land, as well as the previous position of the town in designating the land as heritage. She said the area was on a longtime list for potential heritage designation, but when Edward Banting willed the property to the OHS, the town assumed that it would be protected, negating the need for a municipal designation.

Keogh, a former Banting Memorial High School principal and proponent of saving the Banting homestead, spoke to the community's ties and commitment to preserving the property. He outlined Banting Memorial High School students' annual diabetes run which goes from the school to the homestead and back.

Jebb was at the hearing representing the Heritage New Tecumseth committee, as well as the local farming community. She spoke to the Banting family farm's contribution to farming history in the area as a whole.

"To be able to be at the farm, and possibly feel what Fred did is his younger days is indescribable and irreplaceable," Jebb said.

The Ontario Historical Society will begin presenting its case Tuesday. It plans to call three witnesses. However a plan to have prominent Banting biographer Michael Bliss take the stand fell through when he couldn’t attend Tuesday. Instead a letter he wrote was entered into the record.

The town began to work on a plan to designate the land as heritage while it was in the midst of negotiating a deal with the OHS to purchase the land for $1 million. The town then found out that the OHS had sold the land to Solmar Developments, for reportedly more than $2 million. The town decided to continue to move forward with the designation plan in any case.

Under the Ontario Heritage Act, if a property owner objects to the a municipal designation of a heritage land, the case goes to the Conservation Review Board, which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture.

The proceeding were scheduled to run until Wednesday, but it looks as though they could be wrapped up Tuesday.

After the hearing concludes, the board will provide its recommendation to the town within about 30 days. The board's recommendation is not binding, but does carry considerable weight in providing legitimacy of a town zoning bylaw protecting the site, especially if it were to go to court.

The hearing continues at the New Tecumseth council chambers in Alliston Tuesday.

E-mail reporter Kurtis Elsner at kelsner@simcoe.com