Please remove Schedule 3…

Please remove Schedule 3 from Bill 257

If enacted, Schedule 3 would remove the protections which the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS) provides for the environment, both our natural environment and our historic environment (buildings, landscapes and archaeological resources).

It would allow one individual, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, to contravene all the PPS's carefully considered policies and guidelines, with no public consultation and no chance of public appeal. Regardless of the knowledge or motivation of the Minister, it is dangerous to allow one person to make decisions for which they have no accountability.

Schedule 3 undermines the very basis of public land use planning in Ontario, which is supposed to be a policy-led system.

Schedule 3 undermines the support for heritage conservation and environmental protection which the Provincial Policy Statement provides.

Architectural Conservancy Ontario thus asks that Schedule 3 be removed from Bill 257.