10 Conservation Authorities…

10 Conservation Authorities from across Ontario have written a letter outlining concerns with Bill 23 and the loss of local decision-making. We should listen to our Conservation Authorities as that is their responsibility to protect environment from harmful development.

I understand there is a huge need for housing in Ontario. However, this should not be at the expense of ecosystems vital to our environmental, physical, emotional, cultural, and mental health. To have a bill that would allow developers to bypass approval processes that were designed to protect significant environments and ecosystems would defeat the purpose of having those processes in the first place.

Let’s think about brownfield development and other more strategic methods of building affordable housing that does not contribute to urban sprawl. As a province, I believe we have the skills and ingenuity to tackle this problem in an environmentally and economically responsible way.