This proposal reeks of…

This proposal reeks of corruption and deceit by the Ford government. It is a bait and switch at best. The urban river valley lands are already protected from development by local planning authorities and conservation authorities and the cost or inability to insure a structure in a flood prone area.
Follow the money...who stands to benefit from the removal of lands from the Greenbelt. It is not the people of Ontario or the GTA who find housing unaffordable or the precariously housed and homeless. Any increase in supply is years away and will not be in the places where they need it, close to transit and jobs. Developers have not been able to build the homes already approved to be built in many due to labour shortages and supply chain issues. They should be required to build every home already approved in GTA municipalities before a single shovel is permitted to dig a hole in the expanded urban areas. That would be the most affordable, fastest form of development available, in already serviced areas.
Affordability will not be addressed in any way by building high end homes in or on the edge of the Oak Ridges Moraine. We need rent controlled, purpose built rental buildings, in 4 to 8 story buildings along transit routes that can blend into existing urban areas.
This government learned nothing from the pandemic about the value of and need for greenspaces such as our conservation authority lands for our mental and physical health. The Greenbelt was created for a reason, to stop the urban creep into farmlands, the greenspaces and moraine that we need to keep humans and wildlife fed and watered.
As a Durham resident, I am most appalled by the government's appalling need to enrich and seek the approval of donors like the deGasperis family.