Hi there, I am extremely…

Hi there, I am extremely against the idea of removing or re-designating land's in the protected Greenbelt.The Oak Ridges Moraine especially, as the headwaters of so many of our streams, rivers and sources of water for our cities and towns should be protected. It is ridiculous that land specifically designated for protection, both in the Greenbelt and the Oak Ridges Moraine, is so easily given up for development rather than exploring other options, which exist by the way, and not first implementing them. We know that we can do a much better job at infilling current developed areas, as well as asking that future development in already approved areas meet greater density standards. We know how to build housing while maintaining our urban boundaries, so it is confusing and egregious to me as a farmer that the government would sooner pave over our precious resources, rather than protect them as we decided to do years ago. What makes it worse is that these moves by the government appear to solely benefit a few specific developer landowners.

There is already a huge backlog of approved land already approved for use, as most regions and cities have updated their official plans recently to account for growth for the next 30 years. So why take the Greenbelt land on top of that?

The Greenbelt contains a large chunk of our very quickly dwindling farmland in Southern Ontario. We are losing 0.94 percent of our farmland every single year, and that number is increasing every year. We should be doing all we can to preserve the protections given to these green spaces and farm fields, not removing and rezoning these areas, especially when it is not logical or warranted.

If the government would like to add lands into the greenbelt, that is a great initiative and should be supported. Land should not, however, be swapped in suspicious deals such as the government has shown. The addition of the swapped lands, which are likely impossible to build on or farm to begin with, is not a 1 for 1 swap. There is no guarantee that the swapped land provides suitable habitat diversity comparable to the land that is to be removed from the greenbelt.

The Ford Government's attack on our precious green spaces shows yet again what disrespect they have for the public, farmers, and future generations. It is frankly offensive that they treat the public with such disdain.

With the climate crisis at the forefront of the biggest threat to our survival in human history, we should be doing everything possible to build our urban areas smarter, sprawl less and maximize habitat, biodiversity and farmland protection. It should be absolutely within our rights to guarantee our survival through environmental protections.