There are no 'barriers to…

There are no 'barriers to planning' - there are regulations which serve to ensure that valuable and important environmental, cultural, landscape, wildlife and heritage issues are given the full weight they deserve. These planning considerations affect the well-being of all residents of Ontario. The removal or weakening of planning regulations will only serve to profit a few very vocal and influential developers and will do nothing for the rest of us.

In my opinion, planning regulations need to be more vigorously applied, not weakened. Ontario has so far done a lousy job of regulating development, resulting is huge losses of valuable and viable farm land - particularly in the GTA fringe - , the degradation or removal of wildlife habitat, the destruction of heritage buildings and archaeological sites, and the expansion of ugly and excessive urban sprawl.

The very concept of 'Open for Business' shows that this government does not have the interests of the people of Ontario at heart and is only interested in furthering the concerns of those for whom too much is never enough. It is top-down Reaganomics at it's worst.

Furthermore, weakening existing planning controls will result in the loss of countless jobs in areas such as environmental revue, heritage management and archaeological assessment - fields within which countless highly skilled and qualified individuals do their best to ensure reasonable and effective management of the province's resources.