The fate of the birthplace of one of Canada’s most famous physicians was debated in New Tecumseth council chambers for two days this week.

The Conservation Review Board hearing called to determine the merits of a town plan to protect the Banting Homestead ended Tuesday.

The Town of New Tecumseth proposed to designate all 100 acres of the property as heritage land, which would protect it from future development under the Ontario Heritage Act. Under the same act, the owner of the land, the Ontario Historical Society, objected to the designation, which brought the issue before the board.

The OHS argued that only the 4.7 acres immediately surrounding the buildings should be designated as heritage land, and that the fields did not have significant heritage value to warrant protecting.

In order for the board to recommend all 100 acres be preserved, the town had to prove the entire farm has cultural and heritage value. They need to show the fields are as important as the rest of the farm 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 heritage consultant Julie Harris.

Harris is president of an Ottawa-based research company 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 a significant site.

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

During cross examination, OHS solicitor Ian Godfrey asked whether Harris thought the roughly five acres the OHS proposed would be sufficient to preserve Banting’s legacy.

“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 they are used by the family. She said the houses and buildings typically represent a family’s presentation of the farm to the public.

In Godfrey’s closing argument, he told the board that while Harris’ report recommended the property be designated as having cultural value, she did not make the distinction between the buildings and the fields. He argued that because of this, the buildings themselves might actually be what gives the plot heritage value.

The town also called Peter Banting and Bob Banting, two of Sir Frederick Banting’s descendants. The Banting family, through lawyer Anne Benedetti, 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 the information provided by the Bantings would be the same the town’s, said Peter Zakarow, chair of the board. Benedetti, however, was taken as co-counsel to the town’s Jay Feehely.

The Bantings told the board family stories regarding Frederick Banting’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 Banting’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 said 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 it 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 it would be protected, negating the need for a municipal designation.

Keogh, a former Banting Memorial High School principal and proponent of saving the 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.

OHS solicitor Godfrey argued Jebb’s testimony should be weighed against her desire to preserve local, economically-viable farmland from development.

The OHS, the current owner of the property, received the land by will when Edward Banting, Frederick’s nephew, died in 1998. Since then, the OHS has held the land through a separate organization known as the Ontario Historical Society Foundation, which is comprised of four board members from the OHS’ board.

The OHS said it has spent money on the upkeep of the buildings, despite their own own admission they have been neglected and fallen into disrepair. The OHS makes roughly $15,000 a year by renting the fields to a farmer.

OHS president Chris Oslund said his group was in an “awkward” position, being that it is strange for a historical society to object to land being designated as heritage, instead selling it to a developer. He said the decision came after years of deliberation and discussion amongst the board.

“The decision we finally came to was the farmstead (4.7 acres, including buildings) was a tangible element. This is something we can work towards ensuring the life of Sir Frederick Banting is preserved.”

OHS past president Brian Osborne was the key expert witness for the OHS. He is a professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, and specializes in cultural and historical geography. He is also on the current OHS board, and has been a life member since the mid-1970s. He said that while Banting may have had a close tie to the farm as a child, that same farm no longer exists.

“The farm on the existing land is in no way similar to the farm Banting visited in the 1930s and 1940s, and is certainly in no way similar to the farm he interacted with as a young boy,” Osborne said.

He said the fields, which the OHS rents to a local farmer, are now used solely for potato production. Osborne displayed several pictures and drawings of typical local farms to the board. While none was the Banting farm, he said they were typical of what the farm would have looked like in the past with a mix of crops and livestock.

Feehely objected to Osborne’s designation as an expert witness because his testimony lacked independence, since he is a member of the OHS. The board decided to accept  Osborne as an expert, because he has thorough professional credentials, said vice-chair Su Murdoch. They said they would weigh Osborne’s testimony in connection with his link however.

In the town cross-examination, Osborne said it would be possible to reconstruct a heritage-style farm on the site, and in order to do that the land would have to be protected.

The OHS was planning to call prominent Banting biographer Michael Bliss, but had to settle for a letter he submitted to the society. Bliss was unavailable until Wednesday. The letter, which was admitted as evidence, outlined that the home on the property was rebuilt after Banting’s birth. Bliss advocated plaques or monuments at the site of his birth, as opposed to preserving the entire property.

“To me there is a grave danger that a preserved homestead would be extremely difficult for anyone to find a use for or maintain, and would become an expensive white elephant,” he wrote.

The general public was given an opportunity to talk towards the end of the proceeding. Marilyn Holmstrom said she remembers being invited to the home by Edward Banting. She said he maintained several historical documents regarding the family, and also stored several historical farm implements in the sheds.

Holmstrom said Edward Banting told her at that time that “‘...some day Marilyn, you will come here and it will be a museum to the heritage of Frederick Banting.’”

While the majority of the people who spoke were residents of the area, Jane Beecroft, from the Toronto-based Community History Project also spoke out. She said the city has failed to protect landmarks in Toronto that are significant to Banting and the discovery of insulin. Later, Beecroft told The Herald an organization she belongs to pulled its membership from the OHS over the homestead issue.

“I am here to ask the board to continue the efforts to honour this land, and to do what Canada has not done, and what Toronto has not done, and put him (Banting) back on the map for everyone.”

During closing arguments, Godfrey reiterated the OHS’ stance on the property.

“It is the society’s position that this best be done through preservation of the homestead, the 95 acres of cultivated field are not needed to celebrate Sir Frederick Banting.”

For Feehely, the separation of the property was not an option. He told the board the farm has to be looked at as a whole when applying cultural value, not in chunks.

“This is where Sir Frederick Banting trod as a child... A farm is not a confined building, and I don’t think Fred would appreciate that as an adult.”

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 it for $1 million. In the process, the OHS sold the land to Solmar Developments for just over $2.1 million. New Tecumseth decided to continue to move forward with the designation. The deal between Solmar and the OHS has yet to close, and could depend on the eventual designation of the land.

All that can be determined within the scope of the hearing is whether or not the land has heritage value. The purpose of the hearing was not to examine the past dealings between the OHS, the town and the developer, said Zakarow.

The board, which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture, will provide its recommendation to the town in about 30 days.