I ask the government to…

I ask the government to strengthen this legislation in the following ways:

- eliminating the “Essential Infrastructure” provisions so that new highways and other disruptive infrastructure can’t be built in the Greenbelt,
- prohibiting gravel mining and aggregate removal from within the Greenbelt,
- placing agricultural easements similar to the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Lands to all prime farmland within the Greenbelt,
- legislating that Greenbelt Reviews can only add lands, not remove them from the Greenbelt.

Your legislation as it is currently written may address the Greenbelt land grab; however Ontarians have completely lost trust in this conservative government. This legislation may be one step to restore trust but we must see many more steps:
- evidence that you also recognize the value of natural ecosystems, protected watersheds and ground water,
- plans to minimize the impacts of floods and droughts and
- the importance of actions to ensure food security as climate disasters here and now threaten our future.

We need evidence that you recognize all the ways your government has undermined our environmental safety net and that you are legislating with a goal to correct every piece of destructive regulation and acts and at the same time you restore the public’s ability to exercise our democratic rights.

Being elected by 18% of eligible voters does not give you a mandate. It is government responsibility to serve all the people, to plan elections to facilitate good turnouts of voters and to present a platform that voters can evaluate. Conservative candidates who refused to debate or even share platforms, declined participation in media scrums and after election refused to meet with constituents undermine the democratic process and have no right to claim mandates for legislation that was never proposed in the campaign or worse still to outright lie promising not to do something and then doing exactly what you promised not to do. The integrity commissioner must broaden the investigation and the RCMP must lay charges for corruption. This problem speaks to a failure of leadership, tolerance for conflict of interest and self serving decisions. There is so much more you need to do to re-establish any confidence in your government.