This omnibus bill is wrong…

This omnibus bill is wrong for many reasons and should be changed/repealed, including laws that will strongly affect the Greenbelt.

Premier Ford and Minister Clark have promised many times to never to touch the Greenbelt, for good reason.

The protection ensures that there will be adequate watersheds to clean the water and to prevent flooding, that there will be enough farmland to provide local food to the GTA and southern Ontario and that biodiversity will have a chance to flourish, as well as helping to lessen climate change.

Gouging out parts of it will reduce its benefits and be the thin edge of the wedge to further encroachment.

Now that the premier and Minister have broken their promise, the public will be suspicious of any more "promises". The people should be able to respect the integrity of their government in a democracy.

The promise of building affordable housing is admirable, but there is enough land already available for housing (over 80,000 acres). The Ontario's own Affordable Housing Tax Force says" “a shortage of land isn’t the cause of the problem … land is available.” The Task Force further advised that “Greenbelts and other environmentally sensitive areas must be protected, and farms provide food and food security. Relying too heavily on undeveloped land would whittle away too much of the already small share of land devoted to agriculture.” (p. 10)
and we need to build more affordable homes inside of our cities and towns where many including immigrants want to live and work.

It seems the biggest beneficiaries of this bill will be developers who have bought land in the Green belt. If 7400 acres are removed from Greenbelt protection, their value will increase dramatically . These developers donate large amounts of money to the P.C. party.
And only 5% of the resulting residential building will be required to be "affordable". And what is to be considered affordable has not been exactly defined to my knowledge.

Therefore I strongly oppose Bill 23 and ask that the government follow the report of their Affordable Housing Task Force and not reduce the Greenbelt.