There is no question Ontario…

There is no question Ontario is experiencing a housing crisis. Urgent action is required to provide more housing but there is no need to do so in the manner proposed by Bill 23 the More Homes Built Faster Act. Bill 23 is an attack on the environment, on existing environmental safeguards, and an affront to citizens’ right to participate in planning decisions in their own municipality. Under cover of addressing a truly pressing need, this Bill instead profoundly threatens Ontario’s wetlands, watersheds, and our already-dwindling supply of farmland. The timing of this Bill is dire. Since 1971, the world has lost fully one half of all species and wildlife habitat. This figure should terrify us. The upcoming COP15 in Montreal is urgently addressing this situation. The climate crisis is here – flooding and drought already breaking records. Rather than threatening the environment, this government ought to be increasing our climate crisis preparations, it ought to be working to protect species and habitat loss. It ought to be responsive to its citizens facing a cost of living and housing emergency. Instead the Bill makes all of these things profoundly worse-off.

Housing in Ontario is in a crisis, and this Bill and its provisions miss the opportunity to address a truly pressing problem while causing profound harm elsewhere. Ontario’s Housing Affordability Task Force stated in its Report that the housing crisis is best addressed, in part, by increased density. And that while there is a dwindling supply of farmland, there is no shortage of land for development, both within built up areas and in places beyond the Greenbelt.

By making Greenbelt lands newly available to development, despite this government’s promise not to, this Bill does not address the crisis faced by Ontarians, but serves instead to profit a select group of developers. How will municipalities be able to deny any other developers to build inside the Greenbelt and extend the harm? This question does not seem to concern this government. It should.

In what can only be seen as an effort of divide and conquer, with changes to the Planning Act and the gutting of Conservation Authority’s function, citizens of this province and their municipalities will be powerless to protect its wetlands, watersheds, farmlands and municipal planning functions from any developers who have no intention to avoid environmental harm.

The bill proposes to change the function of the Conservation Authorities
- they cannot enter into an MOU with municipalities
- they are directed to review their land holdings for surrender to developers for development
This drastic reduction of the CA’s function will remove municipalities’ ability to assess the environmental impact of development proposals before them.

The Bill proposes to change the Ontario Wetlands Evaluation System (OWES) and to alter the Provincial Policy Statement to remove from it consideration of natural heritage systems and protecting habitats found in wetlands and woodlands. As a result, existing protected wetlands will lose their protected status. The possibility of designating new provincially significant wetland protections will be practically zero. The species at risk that would otherwise be included as part of the environmental evaluation process will lose their protection as the provincially significant wetlands will no longer be required to be considered for development application approvals. Ontario will no longer have any meaningful oversight to ensure the public are notified and kept informed about the protection of wetlands under the application and approvals processes.

Wetlands must be protected, not removed because of the critically important services they provide:
-wetlands provide habitat in the face of catastrophic habitat and species loss experienced globally and in Ontario
-wetlands play a critical role in flooding control at a time when municipalities are already dealing with increased instances of flooding due to the climate emergency
- wetlands play a vital role in regulating the quality of water in the local watershed
The loss of wetlands will mean taxpayers will have to pay for water quality and flood management services that are currently performed free by wetlands

The Bill proposes to “offset” the wetlands lost to development by creating new wetland areas elsewhere. This proposal is preposterous on its face. If the wetlands could be sited someplace better, there would already be a wetland over there at that superior site. Why take away a successful habitat if your stated intention is to create successful habitat? Leave it where it is.

The bill proposes changes to the Ontario Planning Act which represent a serious affront to democratic participation of citizens in their municipal government:
- the public will no longer be required to be informed of proposed development plans
- the public will no longer have the right to appeal municipal planning decisions
- the Minister would be given increased powers to unilaterally override the municipal planning decisions and thereby leave the public with zero say in developments in their own municipality
- the planning power of entire regions is to be removed, to be devolved to lower-tier municipalities. These are: Halton, York, Peel, Durham, Simcoe, Niagara and Waterloo. This move would gut the effectiveness and coordination of planning across regions particularly in the Golden Horseshoe, leaving farmland, Greenbelt, watersheds, wetlands, and wildlife habitat open to piecemeal development without due consideration of the overall holistic health of these region-wide systems.