We can't get that land back…

We can't get that land back once its gone.
We have so much unused land in Canada...
Why not incentivize businesses to travel north? Incentivize developers to travel north...? Push the building of communities and homes there. Its much more advantageous to put money into the pockets of the people rather than the developers who don't care about anything but their bottom line.
We live in a digital age. Location has lost much of it's previous "value". There is no reason to destroy beautiful, fertile land to add to an already densely populated area when we have acres upon acres upon acres of land begging to be used.
Sure... its short term gain, and its faster and easier to sprawl out and destroy the little bit of beauty left in our surrounding area. But this short term decision affects generations and generations to come.
Its short sighted and in my opinion, despicable and laced with greed. There are so many smarter options... why arent we talking about them?