Doug Ford’s proposed…

Doug Ford’s proposed amendment to the Building Transit Faster Act (BTFA), 2020, through Bill 17 ("Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, 2025"), is being pitched as a benign bureaucratic update to speed up transit delivery. But underneath the rhetoric of "efficiency" and "growth" lies a suite of power-consolidating changes that erode public accountability, sideline municipalities, and open the door to unchecked land grabs and environmental degradation—all under the pretext of building transit “faster.”

Ford had proven himself and his party to be untrustworthy and unreliable, any such leeway gives him too much credit. The Progressive Conservative Party is short-changing Ontarians and peddling misleading narratives:

1. Expanding the BTFA beyond “priority projects” = carte blanche for Metrolinx
Lie: “We’re just improving efficiency so we can build more transit faster.”

Reality: This amendment removes the requirement for legislative or regulatory oversight when designating transit projects. Metrolinx would have sweeping, pre-authorized powers for any future provincial transit project, without requiring public debate or transparency.

That means:

No more needing to justify why a project should qualify for extraordinary powers.

The government can designate any project as “transit” infrastructure and use this as a legal crowbar to override municipal opposition, expropriate land, or fast-track development without environmental scrutiny.

This dismantles local democracy and reduces transparency—a Ford government hallmark.

2. “Utility coordination” and “right-of-way access” = municipal steamrolling
Lie: “We're just simplifying permits to get shovels in the ground.”

Reality: These measures strip municipalities of permitting power and hand over unchecked access to public services (like sewer, water, and roads) to Metrolinx. This is particularly nefarious because:

It overrides local development sequencing and infrastructure planning.

Municipalities (and therefore residents) shoulder the costs and disruptions without recourse.

It allows Metrolinx to use city infrastructure without compensation or adequate environmental vetting.

3. Corridor Development Permits & Land Entry = legalized trespassing and development creep
Lie: “These are just reasonable allowances to support transit construction.”

Reality: These provisions allow Metrolinx to:

Enter private property without consent to "obstructions and encroachments" to clear anything they deem authorized. Who has the authority to authorize? According to the Act, they do.(“due diligence” is a euphemism here).

Providing the perfect method for remove "inconveniences" like endangered plant species and animal habitats, or demolish encroachments up to and including "part of a building" and any person who "hinders, obstructs or interferes [...] loses any entitlement to compensation". with no other details of minimum compensation requirements or timely appeal mechanism, this WILL be used to supersede personal and Indigenous rights .

Expropriate or restrict private development near proposed corridors—even if a project is speculative or incomplete.

This privatizes the costs of public transit while socializing the risk, putting homeowners, tenants, and small businesses at a systemic disadvantage against state-backed developers.

4. Environmental protections = marketing fluff
Lie: “We’re committed to net-zero emissions and environmental safeguards.”

Reality: Ford Stood on the Floor of the Provincial Legislature and called anyone who cares about endangered species "radical environmentalists", he's weakening the Environmental Assessment Act, and bulldozing wetlands (like the Bradford Bypass and Greenbelt scandals). This "nothing promise" is not just hollow— IT IS FRAUD... AGAIN.

The so-called “mitigation strategies” are:

Voluntary, unenforceable, and vague (e.g., “to the extent possible”).

Not tied to binding project-specific environmental assessments (ensuring that EAs themselves become an endangered species ).

This is a "don't ask, don't tell" policy for unchecked pollution of whatever volatile, hazardous or harmful contaminants that "just some guy" says is fine?

This is a PR shield to justify removal of any inconvenient ecology, the disruption of communities, and publicly hazardous construction.

5. Net effect: Corporate real estate welfare and deregulation by stealth
Lie: “This is all about helping people get to work faster.”

Reality: The real winners are private developers, infrastructure consortiums, and consultants profiting from Ford’s deregulation spree.

Transit projects are often used to justify upzoning, inflating land values and enriching land speculators who hold real estate near proposed corridors.

Metrolinx’s powers are extended without matching commitments to actually affordable housing, community benefits, or climate justice.

Summary:

Claim: Faster transit delivery
Real Impact: Reduced public oversight, increased legal overreach

Claim: Lower costs and improved efficiency
Real Impact: Burdens municipalities, fuels deregulation and expropriation abuse

Claim: Environmental protection
Real Impact: Fraud on the government, lies, platitudes, while he green-lights deforestation and environmental contamination.

Claim: Empowering Metrolinx
Real Impact: Concentration of power in an opaque, unaccountable provincial agency

Claim: Supporting Ontarians
Real Impact: Prioritizing developer interests over local residents and democracy

Bottom Line— Bill 17 isn’t about building smarter or faster. It’s about removing the speed limits for bulldozers, both literal and metaphorical—paving over democratic planning, environmental safeguards, and community consent in service of Ford’s sprawl-and-speculate agenda, to suit his and Conservative self-enrichment.