This legislation is aimed at…

This legislation is aimed at gutting our natural areas under the guise of addressing the housing crisis. This is a horrible proposal that is going to remove protections for endangered species, allow developers to run roughshod over sensitive ecological areas, and do real damage to our environment and the places we live.

I am speaking against this as an Ontarian born and raised in rural areas, who recognizes the importance of our natural areas and protections. I am speaking against it as someone currently living in an area where water treatment and processing is a concern. If we don't take care of the land and water around us, and the species living there, these issues will only be exacerbated.

The solution to the housing crisis does not lie in damaging natural habitats (which, yes, must extend beyond the root system of a single member of a species; ecosystems are *systems*, which include many interconnected species which rely on each other to maintain the environment they all live in). Instead, we must build more densely in our urban areas, so people can live close to the places where they work. We must discourage the hoarding of residential properties, to make the existing market more accessible for people who actually want to live in the home that they purchase. And we must support public housing projects, to make homes affordable for those who need them, whether they choose to rent or buy.

Paving over sensitive ecological areas to build expensive private housing projects will do nothing to mitigate the housing crisis. This is a blatant move to enrich private developers, and you should be ashamed that you didn't learn the right lessons the first time you tried to sell off the greenbelt.