Preserve the Greenbelt The…

Preserve the Greenbelt

The Greenbelt is a vital part of the Greater Toronto Area and must be protected and preserved. Once it is paved over there is no turning back. Destroying land in the Greenbelt will endanger the animals that live there, will make flooding worse, will contribute to increased air pollution and climate change, and will negatively impact the health and wellbeing of all who live around it.

My personal experience is with the eastern front of the Greenbelt in Pickering that you plan to sell off to developers to destroy. My family lives right on the edge and we often go walking through it and see deer, herons, foxes, turkeys, and all types of wildlife. To loose this biodiversity and natural habitat would be devastating. I fear so much that the Ontario my children will grow up in will be a smoggy concrete hell hole owned by greedy developers. It is unconscionable that in a time when climate change and health should be our top priorities that this government is looking for ways to profit from bad policy that goes against these priorities.

You are changing Ontario’s landscape forever for the worst and we will all suffer long term because of it. You were not given the mandate to enact legislation like Bill 23. There was no talk of selling off the Greenbelt in the election, in fact there were (hollow) promises to preserve it. You have a majority government but have no where close the support of the majority of Ontarians. This is a decision that should be made by Ontarians and we did not vote for the Greenbelt to be paved.

I understand that there is a need to build more houses and quickly, but every expert panel has suggested selling off the Greenbelt is not needed to do so, and using existing properly zoned land with multipurpose development would meet our needs for housing. We need to use the resources we already have more wisely and this Government needs to prove it has explored all options until irreversibly taking any land away from the Greenbelt. And please do not promote the plan to add existing greenspace that wasn’t planned to be developed anyways into the Greenbelt as a benefit of this legislation – we need to keep the little green space we have near our urban centres intact.

Please put a stop to Bill 23 and engage in proper, meaningful public consultation before destroying Ontario.

Thank you,

Adam
Pickering, ON