Thank you for the…

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on this critical issue.

A reduction of the Greenbelt today, for short term gains, would be catastrophic to future generations. This rich and diverse landscape that is the greenbelt cannot be restored once it is gone, no matter how minimal the expansion thereto is this shift away from protecting this special part of our province only serves to further dismantle it in the future. The floodgates will be opened to destroy the green belt in its entirety.

You don't need to be an ecologist or environmental engineer to understand how important the Greenbelt is to Southern Ontario and its citizenry. The Greenbelt purifies the air for the GTA, carbon capture technology is not advanced enough to replace this effect. It purifies the water we drink; countless watercourses and wetlands weave their way through the Greenbelt, unmolested, providing natural filters for the water we drink and the water we use for crop production. The health of Ontarians as a whole will be affected by diminishing and corrupting these critical natural filters. Importantly, the Greenbelt provides a corridor for wildlife to travel and live freely. In a world where our biodiversity is in dire straits and in which we have seen a reduction of wildlife of almost 70% since 1968, protecting those species and plants, who cannot protect themselves, must be our duty. If we plow through the greenland to create commuter communities how long will it take until we expand into the prime farmland beyond that feeds our growing population? We must protect these natural gifts which make Ontario a beautiful and prosperous place to live. Paving over the Greenbelt is incredibly short sighted and a slap in the face to future Ontarians.

Granted we are in a housing crisis, but we must look to rebuilding outdated zoning bylaws, improving public transit exponentially, and building up not out. There are many existing communities surrounding the GTA that are flailing for opportunities to keep themselves alive, and many existing rail lines which do not service passenger trains within those very same communities. As a province we should be looking to revitalize these communities by increasing transit options thereto, not sweeping them into the dustbin of local history. Within the GTA there is land that remains unchanged and misused for decades, but held in stasis due to outdated and impractical zoning regulations. Low rise communities, within spitting distance of Toronto, hold fast to limit or fully block large scale development in their area. This strikes me as overly cruel; they got their slice of the pie to hell with anyone else trying to carve out a life for themselves, because of this young professionals are leaving the province because opportunities given to previous generations are being withheld by those very same generations that took advantage of those opportunities. We cannot progress when we let selfishness rule our society. Families are living in tents, immigrants return home with nothing due to a horrific real estate market, and these cruel people get to hold back other's potential prosperity for the sake of a view.

With respect to the Paris Galt Moraine: attributing environmental protection to our lands is a wonderful thing, but not at the expense of other areas.

Future generations are being left in the cold by our current state of affairs and policies, the dismantling of the Greenbelt is a great example of this. Continually eroding the peoples means of prosperity, in this matter and so many others, is tragic and shortsighted; if we continually take from the generations who are to succeed us they will have nothing to give when we are in need and are looking to them to care for us, and our province.

Please maintain our province's beauty and health, these lands need stewardship not investors. May Ontario forever be Ours to Discover.

sincerely,

A proud Ontarian