I write to strongly protest…

I write to strongly protest the changes proposed in Bill 23 for the Greenbelt lands.
In short:

• Opening up 7,400 acres of protected Greenbelt lands for development, thereby permanently destroying our remaining farmland;
• Moving away from environmental protection at a time when climate change impacts are being felt more at the local level;
• Undermining the collaborative and productive changes put forward by the Ministry led Conservation Authority Working Group over the past two years;
• Stripping and changing the language used to evaluate a wetland's significance;
• Asking Ontario's three dozen conservation authorities to look at the swaths of land they own to see what could be turned over for housing;
• Limiting the amount a city can charge for parkland and forcing a municipality to spend 60 per cent of its parkland reserves every year;
• Exempting developers who build affordable, inclusionary zoning and select attainable housing units from paying development charges, parkland dedication fees, and community benefit charges;
• Changing a conservation authority's role in reviewing and commenting on planning applications on behalf of municipalities.