I have read the Ontario…

I have read the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force report published February 2022, and so I appreciate the housing crisis Ontario is facing.

However, within the same report, it reiterates that encroaching in the Greenbelt is unnecessary to address the housing issues Ontario is facing.

Moreover, years of ecological research have established the notion of "Edge Effects" in ecosystems, where the border region of biomes create a particular niche for flora and fauna. Human development causes increased fragmentation and concomitantly more edge effects. This is very basic ecology taught in any introductory class.

The Greenbelt was originally set up in order to maintain the boundaries of these contiguous biomes. While legislation may allow for swapping, the actual ecological consequences of development into the Greenbelt will be unresponsive to legislation . It would necessarily increase edge effect, which is historically associated with decreasing biodiversity and promoting invasive species.

This is the fundamental problem if they go through with the Greenbelt swap: it looks as if the party is enriching donors to the party at the expense of Ontario's ecological stewardship. With the new report that CBC released, i.e. that large developers own the proposed regions to be swapped, it looks even worse.

There are ways to solve the housing crisis without construction into the Greenbelt. The Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force has some good suggestions.