While we welcome the…

While we welcome the restoration of the protections accorded to the Greenbelt under this legislation,they do not go far enough, especially when it comes to the protections for the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve (DRAP). In this time of climate change and local food crisis, we have to protect this Class 1 farmland, adjacent to the Rouge National Park, and rich in wetlands, creeks and ecological diversity. The DRAP previously had 4 layers of protection: The Greenbelt, the DRAP Act with its easements, the Central Pickering Development Plan and MZO 154/03.

This Bill does not restore all the levels of protection: The CPDP and MZO are not proposed to be reinstated. It is critical that the Central Pickering Development Plan be reinstated if the Ontario Government is to meet its commitment to sincerely return these lands and protections. Otherwise, parts of the DRAP will remain threatened by development and we will quickly lose this precious ecological and agricultural asset.

Restoring the CDPD is also critical to providing greater certainty to the urban planning process, which has been turned upside down by the actions of the Ford Government over the past year to 18 months and have left all participants notably municipalities in a state of flux, ultimately working against the province's housing targets. Restoration of the CDPD is also important to entrenching the commitment that growth should pay for growth, and not add to the burden of current and future taxpayers.