This is despicable. I…

This is despicable. I emphatically condemn the Ontario government's plan to open Greenbelt lands for housing. The entire point of the Greenbelt is that these lands remain untouched and undeveloped. If our urban areas are to be liveable in a future marked by climate crisis, then we need agricultural and green spaces, proximate to urban centres, that provide local food sources, help to regulate wildlife populations, and manage flood and erosion risks. As Ben Vanderbrug, the former GM of the Hamilton Conservation Authority, recently wrote in the Hamilton Spectator, opening up the Greenbelt also opens up a future in which our cities are not only ecologically vulnerable, but "dull" and "unimaginative." These interconnected outcomes of the provincial governments' plans are unacceptable. Additionally, the government's new plan violates its own repeated promises to leave the Greenbelt untouched. That eager developers are set to see massive payoffs only makes this plan all the more disturbing, as does the fact that the More Homes Built Faster Act has been approved despite ongoing criticism of this major component. Democracy, indeed.