I strongly believe Bill 23…

I strongly believe Bill 23 is poorly conceived and the only stakeholders' opinions that are being considered are those of a handful of land developers who happen to donate heavily to political parties. While the Greenbelt was terribly designed and implemented in the beginning, stripping farmers' property rights and having arbitrary and piecemeal boundaries, the fact remains that it is performing one of it's intended purposes. The drawing down of developable land in the Golden Horseshoe is the point, not the problem. This development should be pushed far out beyond the Greenbelt into areas of non-prime agricultural lands within existing city and town urban boundaries and good farmland should be conserved. It is a non-renewable resource that is required to feed all of the population growth. Southern Ontario is littered with post-industrial cityscapes within urban boundaries that should be remediated and used for housing developments before more sprawl permanently destroys more ag lands and green space. In addition, I feel the planned additions to the Greenbelt are a disingenuous smokescreen to distract from what is being lost. The urban creek valleys are already mostly protected as public lands and are not developable anyway due to conservation authority and other agencies. The piece of rural land proposed for addition appears to have been selected due to its isolation, sparse population and feeble but conceivable attachment to the current Greenbelt. I'm not opposed to development to house the growing population. What I oppose here is the rush to open the Greenbelt with a short and basically patronizing consultation period. Many citizens and local governments are opposing this but it appears the decisions were made a few years ago when certain well-known land developers began once again to aquire lands in the Greenbelt.