“It threatens the stability…

“It threatens the stability and certainty of the Greenbelt,” said Victor Doyle, a former provincial planner who’s credited as an architect of the protected area.

“It undermines its permanency. … This is the edge of the wedge that creates an incredibly powerful precedent that will weaken the Greenbelt significantly — and allow it to be eroded through a death by thousand cuts.”

Will the Greenbelt changes actually be a net benefit for the environment? We don’t know for sure. But existing evidence shows it likely won’t — and the government hasn’t released proof that it will.

The addition of the new urban river valleys to the Greenbelt doesn’t add much, since they were protected anyway. And, although the protection of part of the Paris-Galt Moraine could be positive, it’s not clear how to weigh the ecological value of it against the loss of other pieces of the protected area because the government hasn’t released evidence to back up its plan.

Another thing to consider is the importance of habitat connectivity. Water flows and animals migrate. Experts say you can’t just draw a line around a piece of land, say it’s protected and assume it will all work out — how that land is connected to what’s around it will also define how successful conservation efforts there might be. That’s why land on the edges of the Greenbelt is just as important as what’s at the centre.

One example of this is Carruthers Creek east of Toronto: though parts of the waterway are protected through the Greenbelt, its headwaters aren’t. Environmentalists have long worried that development in those unprotected headwaters could degrade water quality and contribute to flooding in the protected areas downstream.

Connectivity was top of mind when the Greenbelt was designed. Though the legislation that created it may technically permit land swaps, it was never intended to allow them because the land it protects was intentionally chosen, Doyle said.

“We wrote innumerable briefing notes saying that swaps were not envisioned by the act,” he said. “The argument that you could take land out, particularly along the southern edge, and add it on the outer edge as they’re proposing would mean in the fullness of time, the Greenbelt will migrate. It’ll end up in northern Simcoe County if this pattern is continued.”

Environmentalists and opposition parties have also argued for a long time that a lack of land isn’t the reason for Ontario’s housing crisis, and that more than enough has already been set aside for development.

Earlier this year, the Ontario government’s own Housing Affordability Task Force delivered a report that said the same thing: “A shortage of land isn’t the cause of the problem,” it read. “Land is available, both inside the existing built-up areas and on undeveloped land outside greenbelts.” A bigger problem, the report said, is that Ontario hasn’t used the land it has efficiently.

If the Ontario government has evidence contradicting the task force, it hasn’t shown its work.

Ford himself pitched a plan to open the Greenbelt for development at an event in 2018, before he became premier. And at the time, he said the idea came from developers, many of whom have donated large sums to his party.

Many in the development industry have been against the Greenbelt since before it was created, as it limits which land can be built on. And many have been pushing for years to get lands they own removed: in 2017, the former Liberal government did a review of the protected area’s boundaries, and received over 700 requests to sever land from it. Of those, it only approved a handful of minor adjustments.

“I’ve already talked to some of the biggest developers in this country and again, I wish I could say it’s my idea, but it was their idea as well,” Ford said at the 2018 event, which was captured on video. “Give us property, we’ll build and we’ll drive the cost down. That’s my plan for affordable housing.”

More recently, it has become clear that the Greenbelt plays an important role as part of a natural solution to climate change.

By absorbing carbon from the air it helps mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and by slowing and absorbing water it helps adaptation efforts that address the impacts of climate change, such as flooding.

By growing the Greenbelt we can increase these benefits in a way that also enhances our collective health and wellbeing.

The Greenbelt also helps ensure that the way we develop our communities is done prudently. By putting a check on sprawl it encourages development of complete communities, within which people can live, work, and play without having to commute elsewhere. This benefits taxpayers as the cost of sprawl, including infrastructure maintenance, as well as externalities associated with increased pollution and environmental degradation, are reduced.

The Greenbelt provides ecosystem services, such as cleaning air and filtering water, worth more than $3 billion each year. How will this be replaced?

In conclusion, this is bad for the environment, doesn't solve the housing crisis and is a giant gift to Ford donors. The rich get richer and everyone else will pay the price through lost farmland and more flooding. "Socialise the cost and privatise the gains" is the mantra of this disastrous government.
Any businessperson will tell you that the best ROI you can attain on any investment is to buy yourself a politician.
Corruption at it's finest.

Future generations will look back at the disaster left behind and ask why. The only truthful answer will be that we couldn't satisfy the rich in this province.