There’s just no way this is…

There’s just no way this is a meaningful solution to the affordable housing crisis. This government has repeatedly promised not to touch the Greenbelt and with such a low voter turnout in the last election there’s no legitimate mandate to do anything, let alone something so deeply unpopular. This plan will force municipalities to jack up property taxes, making home ownership even less affordable for the average person at a time when we’re already being punished by the Bank of Canada’s interest rate hikes in a misguided bid to cool inflation and protect corporate profits. We need more medium density housing projects, we have tons of vacant lots and abandoned housing in our cities that can be redeveloped for that purpose. We need stronger rent control and we need to curb real estate speculation and flipping. Developing the greenbelt will further weaken local ecosystems, damage wildlife, harm farmland and force us to truck more food into our cities from further away (further exacerbating climate change and making food prices more susceptible to rising gasoline prices as a result), and hurt our drinking water as well. Not since the attack on the charter right to strike like two weeks ago has a government proposed something so harmful, unnecessary, and idiotic.