Bill 23 has been pushed…

Bill 23 has been pushed forward quite quickly and has the power to detrimentally affect our community for generations to come.

We're quite concerned about the negative impact of this short-sighted motion against our communities and environment. We have lived our entire lives in Ontario, as did our parents and their parents. We hope to raise our family here and to see their children grow up in Ontario too.

We do strongly believe we need a solution to our housing crisis, but Bill 23 is neither future-proof nor strategic - we need sustainable solutions built for all Ontarians, not a small percentage who can afford mansions built on environmentally significant wetlands that were protected for a reason.

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

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.

We cannot worse the climate change crisis by feigning to resolve in a sustainable manner our housing crisis. An absolute violation of our citizens' trust in our government to sustainably lead us into a better future. These proposed changes especially regarding Bill 23 only serve developers, all while stripping away the voice and authority of the very authorities in place to serve citizens.

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 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'.

Myself and our families, as concerned Ontarians, absolutely oppose Bill 23 and the actions therein that are posed to:
-devastate our local ecosystems - while paying out to developers with no intention of sustainably solving our housing crisis
-strip our communities of their democratic voices
-strip power away from our Conservation Authorities which only work to serve and support Ontarians
-open the doors to future infringements on protected lands and environments, and
-contribute to our climate change crisis.