Our conservation authorities…

Our conservation authorities are authentic stewards of our environment and our communities. Tirelessly they are dedicated to the betterment of the earth we all live and depend upon, not to mention providing and maintaining the wellbeing of critical community spaces where children, families and citizens can learn and grow alongside the natural world. How dare our government propose to strip these vital community representatives of any voice at the table, especially when their area of expertise is exactly the area we need consultation and informed action on. The climate change crisis is a crisis that NEEDS to be addressed today in order to impact the health and wellness of all Ontarians for the future.

How can we take away conservation spaces and intrude upon the VITAL green spaces that nourish our province - both from an environmental perspective and a community perspective? How is the SHORT-SIGHTED and GREEDY perspective of putting up non-sustainable houses for families that cannot afford them solving an ongoing and systemic housing crisis all while VIOLATING the trust of voters and citizens and DESTROYING critical green spaces that feed our communities, and are one of our last pieces we can use in our evolving battle with the climate change crisis? As a member of the community, an Ontarian, and head of a household raising children who will have to live with the DISASTROUS consequences of these proposals, I strongly disagree with the anti-democratic and anti-environmental implications of these 'proposed amendments' in Bill 23.

The proposal carves 7,400 acres out of the Greenbelt for development - with an unfounded excuse that these lands are need for housing.

The amount of land already zoned and ready for development within existing municipal settlement boundaries far exceeds what is needed to meet long-range housing targets. That includes 88,000 acres within the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area alone. This is a direction promise broken by this government to protect the Greenbelt, and strips conservation authorities and municipalities of their voices being heard. These 'houses for the future' are paying developers today while critically endangering our collective futures. There is nothing strategy, thought-out or sustainable about these proposed amendments - all under the veneer of supporting housing that no will be able to afford. If we were truly motivated by providing housing we should focus on sustainable, affordable housing instead of stripping our lands, our globe in the face of a massive climate change crisis all for the benefit of short-sighted, greedy developers.

According to Ontario’s Housing Affordability Task Force, “a shortage of land isn’t the cause of the problem … land is available.” The Task Force further advised that “Greenbelts and other environmentally sensitive areas must be protected, and farms provide food and food security. Relying too heavily on undeveloped land would whittle away too much of the already small share of land devoted to agriculture.”

The proposed removal of Greenbelt lands sets an alarming precedent, opening the Greenbelt to development at the request of those who stand to reap immense profits – and at the expense of the rest of us. Stripping these 7,400 acres of protection would unleash a firestorm of land speculation and development pressures across the entire Greenbelt.

Most of the lands to be removed from the Greenbelt (10 of the 14 areas shown on the maps) overlap with the Natural Heritage System, which supports “the highest concentration of the most sensitive and/or significant natural features and functions” and is meant to be managed “as a connected and integrated natural heritage system, given the functional inter-relationships between them.” What an outrage! And all of these 'proposed' changes are swept under the rug and not available for public discourse - in fact the opposite, where critical conservation authorities and community voices are being muzzled to make way for developers and this government's short-sighted greed. Are you not there for the best interests of Ontarians today and for the future? Nothing about removing lands which also overlap with our Natural Heritage System says 'consideration for our communities'.

And finally, regarding the detrimental and incredibly damaging proposal to remove lands from the Greenbelt and arbitrarily add 9,400 acres. Some of the proposed replacement lands are already off limits for development (e.g., publicly owned lands designated as municipal parks and open space). Further, these lands were already part of the government’s previous Greenbelt expansion proposals – the Paris-Galt Moraine in 2021 and the Urban River Valleys in 2022. Those proposals went nowhere, despite great fanfare at the time. NOWHERE. And now, the government is dusting them off to soften the blow of removing lands from the Greenbelt. This is ludicrous and unethical!

I absolutely oppose these proposals to devastate our local ecosystems and pay out to developers with no intention of sustainably solving our housing crisis - only contribute to our climate change crisis.