As members of the Wellington…

As members of the Wellington-Halton Hills Chapter of the Citizens' Climate Lobby, and concerned citizens of the Town of Erin and Georgetown, we strongly oppose the Ford government’s proposed changes to the Greenbelt for two major reasons:

1) The alarming and indefensible removal of 7,400 acres of irreplaceable land from the existing Greenbelt to be paved over by development.

2) The sudden addition of 7,000 acres of Greenbelt to the Town of Erin, the lion’s share of a misleading 9,400 acre ‘land-swap’ with no prior consultation.

With 88,000 acres of land already approved for development in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, a scarcity of land is not the cause of the housing shortage in Ontario. Instead, Premier Ford’s proposed plan to open 15 areas of the Greenbelt will have devastating social, financial and ecological costs, according to a wide range of experts.

Most of the lands about to be removed from the Greenbelt support “the highest concentration of the most sensitive and/or significant natural features and functions”. (Greenbelt Plan, sec 3.2.1) Developing these environmentally sensitive lands removes natural infrastructures that are the most affordable and accessible way to fight climate change. Instead, it will encourage unsustainable urban sprawl that enriches speculators and developers while putting communities at risk of flooding and the worsening impacts of climate change.

The proposed land swap – adding what the government declares to be 9,440 acres of Greenbelt in other areas, mainly the Town of Erin – is in fact misleading and inaccurate. The Greenbelt West Coalition (GWC), working with a prominent cartographer, identified that the government’s proposal will result in a net decrease of more than 400 acres of protected lands.

“While the Ford government is claiming that the Greenbelt will benefit from a net gain of protected lands (of up to 2,000 acres), the proposed expansion includes 13 urban river valleys,” the GWC states. “It is well known and understood the Urban River Valleys are already afforded environmental protection through Natural Heritage System designations in municipal Official Plans and this proposal was already announced earlier this year as the only Greenbelt expansion being considered by the government: https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-4803.”

The Town of Erin’s director of planning concurs with inaccuracies. At a council meeting November 24, Jack Krubnik said the province’s proposed expansion doesn’t match its own mapping of the Paris-Galt moraine in the area.

Furthermore, the Ford government is using a false equivalency in swapping prime agricultural land in the existing Greenbelt for the less arable alternative it is proposing. The lands being removed are “effectively irreplaceable” states Edward McDonnell, CEO of the Greenbelt Foundation, which is why they were part of the Greenbelt in the first place.

Mr. Ford, we are holding you to your promise to not touch the Greenbelt. Leave the 7,400 acres you intend to carve out for housing - unneeded! - as the legacy to future Ontarians that it was always intended to be.

Citizens Climate Lobby, Wellington-Halton Hills Chapter