Many of the changes to…

Many of the changes to provincial policies proposed by the province in its new land use policy document are deeply flawed.
Scrapping the requirement for municipalities to do a comprehensive review before expanding their settlement area is irresponsible. The areas that municipalities will expand into, if and when they decide to do so, are dominated by farmland and natural areas like woodlands and wetlands. Given that only five per-cent of Ontario can support agriculture and farmland has been lost at about 175 acres per day, leniency towards municipalities expanding their settlement areas would reinforce an already unsustainable trend. Likewise, most of southern Ontario has been depleted of its forest cover. Massive biodiversity losses are being experienced all over the world, and encouraging the development of farmland, woodlands, and wetlands certainly contributes to this existential threat to mankind and the Earth we call our home.

Continuing to expand outward without proper review increases the likelihood of car-dependent urban sprawl continuing as a trend in municipal development. It is well known that urban sprawl contributes to municipalities, and by proxy taxpayers, being burdened by large and unnecessary infrastructure costs. Because urban sprawl involves building at a lower density than would intensifying the use of space within municipalities' urban boundaries (such as brownfields and greyfields), the taxes and revenue generated from new settlement will not cover the costs of infrastructure. which will, if anything, cause less housing to be built due to the inefficiency in land-use inherent to suburban sprawl. Growing cities at low density means increasing commutes, meaning rises in carbon emissions due to longer car commutes to employment and basic amenities. The low density of suburban sprawl means that servicing these areas frequently enough with public transport will be unfeasible, just as cycling and walking distances will become longer and make active transport an unlikely choice for residents of newly built low density settlements. Removing mandatory intensification and density targets will only exacerbate these problems.

As usual, these planning proposals lack any respect for Indigenous jurisdiction over their territories outside reserve lands, including a lack of any stated need to gain Indigenous consent before greenfields and environmentally sensitive areas. The province has already made the mistake of not taking Haudenosaunee land jurisdiction seriously numerous times, most notably in 2006 and 2020 in Caledonia within the Haldimand tract. Engagement and consultation are no replacement for the requirement to gain the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples as outline in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples.

Municipalities should not be forced to expand against their will, especially since doing so is almost always in conflict with the interests of and lacking the consent of First Nations. Increasing the availability of housing is not as simple as merely redrawing the boundaries of a municipality, since there is always the question of how these urbanized areas will have their needs met, including access to employment and basic amenities.