We need the Green Belt…

We need the Green Belt intact. Refinements are not good enough. Period. This highway should not go ahead at all. There are no refinements that will avoid the environmental tragedy about to unfold.

As climate change worsens, the Holland Marsh provides mitigating factors for flooding of all areas within the watershed I.e Toronto and the GTA. It is the headwaters to drinking water which will be devastatingly degraded by this highway.

We are in a climate crisis . How is it okay to pave over a carbon sink to encourage more traffic? We should be investing in alternative solutions such as lite rail or opening up the 407 which would save billions. Drivers will save negligible amount of time using a new highway and it will likely be a toll highway. This is why the 407 is underused. 413 will likely be under-utilized as well. For what real purpose?

Complex ecosystems, 29 at risk species, and the health of the watershed will all be affected as the highway passes over rivers and waterways 85 times. It will irreparably destroy significant habitats and species that are already struggling al- not to mention arable farmland.

It will damage areas of historical significance for Indigenous peoples in favour of padding the wallets of developers. This is unconscionable. It will not reduce traffic but encourage more sprawl and more traffic.

Surrounding municipalities are against this expansion. Any input from citizens, conservation authorizes, and other levels of government have been severely eroded. What kind of democracy is this?

Ontario is being overdeveloped at such a pace that it is becoming an ugly, barren wasteland of concrete urban sprawl everywhere you look. I am no longer proud to live here. There is no integrity in our political systems anymore demonstrated by allowing this to move ahead. Shame on the politicians and developers and for the short sightedness that will lead to our ultimate ruin. I can’t look my children in the eyes knowing the Ontario they will inherit is just a whisper of what it was or could have been.