I wish to express my deep…

I wish to express my deep concern with many of the provisions of the "Restoring Ontario's Competitiveness Act" (Bill 66). The people of Ontario have worked long and hard to implement reasonable regulations to protect their natural and built environments, their health and safety, and the security of their way of life. While it may be argued that some regulations create unnecessary red tape, any legislative changes should be specifically targeted to adjust the bureaucratic processes without losing the actual intent of existing laws. The new bill seems to be highly biased toward the desires of a very small elite of speculators and developers, while almost completely eliminating any chance for everyday Ontarians to have input in the planning process. While job growth is an important objective for government to facilitate, the people of Ontario do not want rampant uncontrolled growth that destroys the values we hold, the natural environment we love and enjoy, the environmental and health and safety protections we rely on, or the democratic processes by which we participate in governing ourselves.

Many of the provisions in the act would permit unilateral, irreversible, and incontestable changes in the fundamental character of Ontario. Repeal of the Toxics Reduction Act and deregulation of the Clean Waters Act would permit the potential fouling of water and soil resources on which Ontario depends for safe drinking water, safe food production into the future, and clean air on which we all rely. Notwithstanding pressures from agricultural and industrial lobbies who stand to increase short term profitability marginally from looser regulations, the long term effects of remediation or loss of agricultural land for the future, of making our water sources unfit for drinking or irrigation, and of health care expenses for treating environmental illness (e.g. E. coli poisoning in Walkerton, respiratory and cardiac conditions in northeast Hamilton) will all impose future costs on every Ontarian for the short term benefit of a few.

Provisions for overriding major components of the Planning Act and of the Provincial Policy Statement on planning would make a mockery of years of previous work in municipal planning. This work seeks to guide urban development in ways that not only provide for reasonable growth, but also make towns and cities healthier, more livable and more serviceable. The prevention of urban sprawl will, in the long term, provide major benefits to Ontario and Ontarians, by creating more efficient, less congested, and more environmentally sustainable cities, by preserving the farmland we need in a world of growing food instability and by providing ecological services such as cleaner air, groundwater recharge and healthy recreation opportunities. We absolutely need foresight and strong planning to manage the amount, location, timing, and long term impact of urban growth. Allowing either short-sighted municipal councils or profit-maximizing private speculators to drive the overall planning agenda is a recipe for future unsustainability, especially given the strong likelihood that climate change will exacerbate existing problems of stormwater management, transportation infrastructure, air quality, etc. over the coming decades.

Bill 66 opens too many loopholes through which a small minority of elites may irreversibly degrade the overall lives of a majority of Ontarians for short term greed in the name of job creation. At the very least, it needs the kind of very strong restrictive provisions that would be expected in any government legislation that permits for a small number of elected or non-elected individuals to override existing legislation. It needs far more specific and restricted definition of the character and number of long term, full time jobs that a project would have to create even to qualify for consideration, and it also needs far more requirement for public input into any such proposed overrides.