People need places to live…

People need places to live. It is laudable that the government has recognized that and has focused on providing new housing. However, people also need to eat. The proposed changes simply do not provide sufficient protection for prime agricultural land.

Mark Twain famously said "Buy land. They're not making any more of it." How relevant this is to farmland in Ontario. When land is taken out of production for development, it is removed in perpetuity. Southern Ontario, and the Greater Golden Horseshoe in particular, has some of the richest soil in Canada. When parkland is removed from protection, it can be made up for by protecting land in a different location. That is not the case for prime agricultural land.

The province plays the most important role in making sure we still have agricultural land devoted to farming 50 years from now. Please reconsider the provincial planning statement to add specific protections for prime agricultural land. There is room to increase the housing stock without sacrificing farms.