I am a biology professor…

I am a biology professor/researcher currently in the biology department at McMaster University. My concerns about this short-sighted legislation are manyfold, but many of mine will parrot those of other commenters who will have explained them in greater depth. Those include issues of loss of food lands, urban sprawl, and associated increases in emissions of carbon dioxide and resultant increases in the severity of our climate change emergency.
I am also very concerned about the impact of opening up opportunities for commercial developments that would impair various habitats and those plants and animals that rely on them. It is well known that habitat fragmentation is extremely detrimental to many specialist species that require continuous areas of suitable habitat. The greenbelt protects many such areas that are important to various species including hooded and Canada warblers, interior woodland bird species that are considered threatened under the species at risk act. Jefferson's salamanders and red-sided dace are species at risk in other taxa. The preservation of large tracts of green space provides both suitable stretches of habitat required for many species as well as corridors for movements of those species. A number of species require the availability of a number of nearby habitats as they are prone to extirpation and re-immigration in a metapopulation. Without having nearby suitable habitats, these species will be lost from isolated habitats without rescue populations nearby that would immigrate and re-establish a sub-population of the metapopulation. These areas that are linked by suitable habitat corridors, which allow immigration events, are being lost to development of the sorts that this legislation will allow.
I fully recognize that this Progressive Conservative party is focussed, almost exclusively on the economy. However, it might be worth looking at the name of your party and recognizing that you are far from conservative when it comes to conserving biodiversity. This has very important economic impacts as well. If you were to have a more long-range look at this legislation, you will see that it will have a strong negative impact on costs of ecosystem services, which are now served very well by many species and habitats. The loss of wetlands in the greenbelt will carry very harsh lessons for progressive conservatives if this legislation moves forward and allows the erosion of the green belt.