As a young person, growing…

As a young person, growing up in southern ontario in the 1980s and 1990s, the value and necessity of green spaces and corridors through urban and rural environments was made clear to us. Our generation gathered the data and showed the science that eventually led to the legislation of green spaces. The reasons for green spaces are well known and abundantly clear, and have been for decades. They are a necesssary aspect of urban planning and serve many important functions.

The Ontario Government clearly has invested not a lick of time or energy in to understanding those important functions, or why green spaces exist, while that same government has obviously spent a great deal of energy deciding who will get to develop this space. This lack of due diligence is beyond unprofessional.

Selling out these defined green spaces to your friends while pretending that their development is necessary is disingenuous at best. The fact that this government committed to not selling out green spaces and has now twice tried to do so is indicative of a failure of leadership to recognize the needs of the People of Ontario and the space in which Ontarians dwell in perpetuity. It's bad government, bad faith, backwards, and a huge middle finger to our future Ontarians and the sustainability of their habitat.

Premier Doug Ford's plan to open parts of the protected Greenbelt lands for development is stupid and probably greedy. One cannot trust a government who behaves like this.