I am writing to oppose the…

I am writing to oppose the proposed amendments to the Greenbelt Plan. The proposals are a reversal of recent promises by the current government. They are also a short-sighted land grab to support developers at the expense of the environment and land planning stability. Below are recent promises by Premier Ford and Housing Minister Steve Clark that as a citizen I expect to be kept.

Premier Doug Ford: "The people have spoken. I'm going to listen to them, they don't want me to touch the Greenbelt, we won't touch the Greenbelt"

Housing Minister Steve Clark: "I want to be clear: We will not in any way entertain any proposals that will move lands in the Greenbelt, or open the Greenbelt lands to any kind of development."

And this is a quote from Phil Pothen at Environmental Defence that explains better than I can why the current proposal is so wrong.
“Promises by the government to ‘swap’ in 9,400 acres of land in other locations will do nothing to mitigate the damage to the Greenbelt system. That is in part because at least some areas being floated as replacements for bulldozed segments of the Greenbelt were already off limits for development – meaning those additions would not mitigate the net loss of protected lands. Even more importantly, the government’s plans would utterly destroy the certainty of permanent protection that is vital to the functioning of the Greenbelt as a whole,” says Phil Pothen, Ontario environment program manager with Environmental Defence.

“Stripping these 7,400 acres of protection at the request of land speculators would unleash a firestorm of land speculation across the entire Greenbelt – denying farmers the certainty they need to continue stewarding the forests, wetlands and soils on their land, and pushing ownership forever out of reach. It will also start a never-ending queue of Greenbelt land speculators at the Minister’s door, each with their own convenient rationalization for paving their own patch of Greenbelt.”

According to Pothen, the government’s attempt to rationalize this attack on the Greenbelt as a measure to deliver “more homes” is disingenuous, as there is a vast supply of unused “greenfield” land already open for development within existing municipal settlement boundaries.