Dear Doug Ford, Please…

Dear Doug Ford,

Please listen to the people around Ontario who want you to protect the Greenbelt in it's entirety, like you promised them.

Northeast Markham and Pickering is one of the few remaining places near Toronto where you can have an affordable family outing and take a drive to see some nature, and maybe stop at one of the Farmer's Markets up there. People like to be able to get away from the unending sea of subdivisions, big box malls and constant traffic that is typical of other parts of the GTA, such as Vaughan. During Covid, I noticed that all the available trails and nature spaces around Pickering were overflowing with families desperate to get some fresh air and to see some nature. I have never before seen the entrance to the Seaton Trail near where I live overflowing with as many cars and people before.

This Greenbelt is a treasure that possesses a long-term value to Ontarians that is almost incalculable.

Mr. Ford, why are you so preoccupied with paving the Greenbelt when there are plainly so many other places around the Greenbelt, land that is already open for development (350 square kilometers as of 2019), and which is closer to existing infrastructure and public amenities, which wouldn't cost so much for municipalities (e.g. the homeowners of Durham) to pay for?
Your government's own Housing Affordability Task Force stated categorically: a shortage of land is not the cause of the housing crisis. The task force have told you that the Greenbelt, along with other environmentally sensitive areas and farms, must be protected.
It simply isn't necessary to pave the Greenbelt, and there is an abundance of other alternatives for housing that haven't properly been looked at.

Mr. Ford, considerations such as wetlands, farmland, protection of wildlife, water tables and nature might not have great value to you. But you have a duty as Premier to consider the importance that the Greenbelt clearly has to the people of Ontario.
In case, you haven't noticed, people all around southern Ontario are mad as heck. I can't remember the last time there were so many protests in communities around Toronto over a single issue like this. This Sunday, December 4, alone, people held rallies in the communities of Blyth, Brockville, Eden Mills, Elora, Guelph, Hamilton, King City, Kitchener, North Bay and Mississauga. There were rallies in eleven more communities yesterday. At the large Queen's Park rally I attended yesterday, a common concern expressed by the rally-goers is that they want to protect the Greenbelt for their children, and the next generation, to enjoy.
Mr. Ford, you yourself have personally acknowledged that you're aware of how important the Greenbelt is to Ontarians, when you said “the people have spoken. I will protect the Greenbelt in it's entirety.”
Going ahead with this plan would display complete contempt for democracy, and show total disregard towards the people of communities all around Toronto who are deeply upset by what you are doing.

The Greenbelt is a pearl of incalculable value. To casually permit it to be permanently destroyed by paving it over would be to swipe this priceless treasure away from countless generations of families in Ontario.

I, and many others for whom the Greenbelt has great emotional value, beg you to reconsider.

Yours truly,

Whitevale, Pickering Resident