The processes of development…

The processes of development in the province of Ontario support and employ professionals in several sub-industries (archaeology, environmental management, conservation science, ecology, geology, hydrology, urban planning, etcetera).

The stripping of these processes threatens the livelihoods of tens of thousands of Ontarians as well as threatening the Canadian businesses that employ them. I imagine the Doug Ford administration must assume we're all government workers employed by public sector agencies and ministries, but we are mostly employed by private sector engineering and consultancy firms. I imagine they must think we're all a bunch of useless bureaucrats who create unnecessary paperwork to justify our own jobs, but we are mostly qualified, certified, skilled tradespeople, and we work out in the field, on job sites at proposed development locations. We practice our trades to prevent serious harm and permanent damage to our shared homeland prior to extensive construction projects.

Since Doug Ford has been floating these proposed legislative changes, in various different forms, for these past few years, many of the projects set for these past few field seasons have been delayed, suspended, or even canceled by the development corporations. His developer buddies can afford to wait patiently. They know that if they continue to buy property lots and purchase as much land as possible, even if only on speculation, even if only to build their portfolio of investment properties, they will still be able to sell amassed tracts of land at exorbitant prices, whether they ever actually construct anything on them or not. They believe that if they just keep kicking these cans down the road, they will eventually be able to develop those tracts of land without having to pay for archaeological or environmental assessment or any other forms of mitigation or protection. They might be right, eventually, but it will take years to reinvent regulatory wheels and refine the procedural details of the plethora of bills introduced by the Doug Ford administration.

In the meantime, all these proposed legislative changes are not "unleashing our economy" by allowing development corporations to go ahead and build housing faster. This protracted mess is removing any incentive for them to do so. If they continue to delay and suspend construction projects, they believe they will eventually be able to create fewer jobs, employ fewer professionals, and pay unskilled labourers less to work in worse conditions on less safe job sites, all while doing more environmental damage.

In the meantime, thousands of us are languishing on indefinite layoffs due to lack of work as jobs planned for our field seasons keep getting canceled. This threatens livelihoods of Ontario residents. The businesses that employ us are having to shutter entire departments. This threatens Canadian businesses and whole industries.

The residents of Ontario do not benefit from this. The only people who benefit from the systematic dismantling of our provincial regulations are Doug Ford's developer buddies and their shareholders who own corporate stock. Doug Ford claims to support hard workers and skilled tradespeople and ordinary Ontarians while showing us again and again that he does not understand how to value anything except "business" as some abstract concept and simple profit.