I am providing comment on…

I am providing comment on Bill 66, also known as the Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act. As written, the bill would allow municipalities new power to bypass protection acts including sections of the Clean Water Act, Great Lakes Protection Act, the Greenbelt, and Lake Simcoe Protection Acts.

I care deeply about the Greenbelt, Lake Simcoe, the Oak Ridges Moraine and clean water. It is home to farmland, forests, watersheds and wetlands. The Oak Ridges Moraine is the rainbarrel of Ontario providing drinking water to over 250,000 Ontarians and feeding many river and streams that flow into Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe.

Cutting red tape can be effective if it delivers services to the public more effectively, but this is a public gift to a small group of property developers and the benefits will not benefit the public. Worse, it is at the expense of our safety, and the quality of life we are able to enjoy and economic opportunity that would be harmed by unmitigated development. Rather than support the health and future prosperity of Ontario, Bill 66 effectively wipes out decades of progress made in protecting water, farmland, natural heritage, and in prudent land-use planning meant precisely to ensure that our province is able to meet the demands of a growing economy far into the future.

Your government did not get elected on this platform. After hearing from Ontarians that they did not want to see the Greenbelt threatened by development, your government wisely promised not to touch that land. Now, Ontarians want to see that commitment fulfilled.