I am deeply concerned about…

I am deeply concerned about Bill 212 and the Highway 413 Act. The former constitutes massive overreach of the provincial government into municipal affairs and both bills fail to address their stated goals, while putting public health and safety and the environment at risk.

The proposed Highway 413 cuts straight through the Greenbelt, impacting farmland, wetlands, and many at-risk species of flora and fauna; yet Bill 212 seeks to grant this project an exemption from the Environmental Assessment Act.

At a time when food prices are skyrocketing, do we really want to raze prime farmland?

At a time when extreme weather is only getting worse and more frequent, do we really want to pave over our watersheds and increase flooding risk?

Furthermore, the highway will not even improve traffic in the long term. Induced demand is a well-studied phenomenon that we saw play out with highway 401. At best, highway 413 will provide temporary relief, but it will push more people to commute by car and the housing developments that will likely follow its construction will fill up the roads.

If the Ontario government really cares about reducing car traffic, they should be implementing and improving alternatives to driving. This is the most reliable method to reduce the number of cars on the road. Yet, Bill 212 seeks to hamper the ability of municipalities to build new bike lanes.

Requiring provincial approval for any new bike lane that takes away a lane of traffic would seriously delay many bike infrastructure projects. Municipal governments are better equipped to analyse and understand the needs of their constituents. When the Ontario government seems obsessed with expediting the construction of a new freeway, why do they not extend this consideration to bike lanes? Bike lanes are part of building a strong network of transportation infrastructure that is safe and accessible to all Ontarians.