As an Ontario resident, Bill…

As an Ontario resident, Bill 5 will only serve as a detriment to preserving the history of this province and is a short-sighted attempt to solve housing issues without concern or understanding of the true problems that face Ontarians. As many news agencies have stated, housing issues are not supply and demand but a lack of consumer affordability. Consolidating the power to approve building projects will not address these concerns as the houses that are built remain unaffordable. Additionally, placing the ability and responsibility to preserve Ontario's history to a handful of officials not explicitly trained for that role will create unfillable gaps in future generations' ability to understand the past. Ontario is famously 'Yours to Discover', but it would be hard to discover anything if roads, houses, or businesses are built on top of those discoveries.

As an archaeologist, this bill is a threat to my livelihood and the livelihood of thousands of other skilled researchers and workers that represent a uniquely Canadian sector of labour. Bill 5 would effectively eliminate this work sector as the Lieutenant Governor could override the OHA under their own justification without due process. Current legislation provides set definitions of what will be preserved, where the proposed bill only makes relaxed suggestions that are too open to interpretation. Without those definitions in place, I feel that the Lieutenant Governor will deem as many sites as possible to be unnecessary for excavation, putting me and my colleagues out of work.

Please reconsider Bill 5 and kill it.