I oppose amendments to the…

I oppose amendments to the Greenbelt Plan that allow for the removal of lands for housing development. Removing lands from protected areas is not the solution to building more homes. These lands were designated and protected for a reason, actions which were supported by strong government commitments to protect the lands in perpetuity. Removing protection for the purposes of homebuilding, when the government's task force on housing and other experts have already proven that lack of land is not the factor limiting housing development, is not sound policy. It undermines public trust in the government and the status of protected areas everywhere. For the sake of building homes, it destroys the very features of the landscape that would attract people to live there. This is a scorched earth policy built on a unidimensional notion of a "home" as a brick box to sleep in and ignores the natural features that make a neighbourhood, a region, a place worth living in.

Affordable housing should be achieved, but within the context of other goals, including the goal of livable cities and towns, and the goal to protect 30 percent of our province's land mass by 2030, which this proposal fearsomely undermines.

I am concerned about the integrity of areas near my home, such as the Niagara Escarpment, which is protected by similar legislation. This is a proposal that the government has introduced alongside other environmentally devastating legislation, namely Bill 23. The cumulative impacts of these legislative changes on our land, water and climate change resiliency must be considered. Considered in this context, this proposal is just one more step to an un-livable future.