I believe this change to the…

I believe this change to the Greenbelt is unethical both at the level of protecting our green spaces for wildlife and flora in Ontario, and in terms of governmental decision making. I believe an investigation should be launched, regardless of that really we need to be keeping these green spaces in southern Ontario protected. Wildlife and the benefits of these spaces will be harmed with these changes.

From birds CANADA, We share concerns that such changes will weaken environmental protections, infringe on Indigenous rights, limit public involvement in land-use planning and decision making, remove cities’ green building standards, remove farmland needed for food production – and, that it won’t increase (and may in fact decrease) the supply of truly affordable housing for people who need it the most. Further, the bill is based on the premise that there is insufficient land currently available for new housing – a premise that has been widely refused by housing and land-use planning experts.

This document linked presents an analysis of the impact these proposed changes, if implemented, would have on Ontarians. Taken together, the changes would:
● Do little or nothing to address the shortage of truly affordable housing
● Facilitate expensive urban sprawl and inappropriate high-rises at the expense of more
diverse housing types designed for all stages of life and ranges of incomes
● Divert limited construction materials and labour away from building mixed and affordable
housing and direct them instead towards sprawl development, creating fragmented
agricultural and natural landscapes
● Remove from the Greenbelt thousands of acres of valuable natural areas and agricultural
land and turn them into sprawl development
● Undermine the protection of wetlands, woodlands, rivers, streams and wildlife habitat
across Ontario
● Destroy key land use planning processes that Ontario municipalities, conservation
authorities and residents need in order to protect, manage and plan for climate-resilient
ecosystems and communities
● Create an ecologically vulnerable “Swiss cheese” Greenbelt by allowing land speculators to
develop the lands that the government would have removed from Greenbelt protection.

I absolutely do not support a government that enacts these changes.