Re: ERO # 019-3136 - Growing…

Re: ERO # 019-3136 - Growing the Greenbelt

Dear Minister Clark;

I am glad you’re finally listening to calls to expand the Greenbelt.

The Greenbelt creates almost $10 billion in economic activity and supports over 177,000 local-full time equivalent jobs. It is also vital to our province’s food security.

We need to develop in a smart way that respects our greenspaces. And an expanded Greenbelt to protect more of Ontario’s natural heritage is a good start.

Any Greenbelt expansion needs to include ecologically sensitive areas like all our wetlands, moraines, and urban river valleys. And extend far enough north to protect the at-risk Lake Simcoe basin.

A good first step would be passing Mike Schreiner’s Paris Galt Moraine Conservation Act Private Member’s Bill that has been buried in committee since 2019.

It’s also important that any expansion be undertaken with meaningful consultation with affected Indigenous populations and with a longer-term vision of climate resilience.

But I’m concerned that this process is simply a smokescreen for the environmental destruction your government continues to cause.

If you really cared about Ontario’s greenspaces, you would cancel Highway 413 and stop forcing through environmentally destructive legislation like Schedule 3 of Bill 257. 

If you really cared about Ontario's greenspaces you would stop using destructive MZOs to override important legislation and provincial policy. You promised the electorate you wouldn't authorize development of the Greenbelt.

You cannot expand the Greenbelt while at the same time try to tear up wetlands and farmland. That just doesn’t make sense.

Further consultations about growing the Greenbelt in a way that works for the future, resiliency, and sustainability of a greener Ontario is needed.

Cancel Highway 613 now! Expand the Greenbelt and stop development in the entire Greenbelt.

Thank you,