Two weeks ago it was education workers picketing outside the Elmira office of MPP Mike Harris. On Wednesday, the people gathered out in front were protesting the Ford government’s plans to alter the Greenbelt.
Opponents of Bill 23 brought their message, including support for the Greenbelt, to Kitchener-Conestoga MPP Mike Harris’ Elmira constituency office on Wednesday morning. [Leah Gerber]
Opponents of Bill 23 brought their message, including support for the Greenbelt, to Kitchener-Conestoga MPP Mike Harris’ Elmira constituency office on Wednesday morning. [Leah Gerber]
Opponents of Bill 23 brought their message, including support for the Greenbelt, to Kitchener-Conestoga MPP Mike Harris’ Elmira constituency office on Wednesday morning. [Leah Gerber]
Some 30 people rallied at the location to air concerns about recent government proposals to allow development in the Greenbelt, the protected area of green space, farms, forests and other land surrounding the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Other groups of protestors were scheduled to gather at the same time in Fergus and Brantford as well.
“Local citizens and community groups are outraged at the provincial government for announcing Bill 23 with its many troubling provisions such as taking away public notice, public meetings, the right to appeal, etc.,” said Kevin Thomason, a spokesperson for the Greenbelt West Coalition and local environmental advocate.
“It is undemocratic and not reflective of Canadian values. Additionally, we are enraged at the government opening up the Greenbelt and taking away planning authority from upper tier municipalities. All of our environmental protections, source water protections and sustainability plans for the future are under threat by this attack on regional official plans.”
Alba Moore, 11, joined the protest. “I feel bad for all the animals whose homes he (Doug Ford) is destroying to make homes for people,” she said.
Corina McDonald was with Moore. “I’m incredibly disappointed with the conservative government and these bills that are coming out that are destroying the future of our communities without allowing us to speak to them,” she said.
Dorothy Wilson also came to the protest. “I am so upset about Bill 23 and the province’s plan to take away land from the Greenbelt,” she said. “I feel it’s going to seriously compromise the future for my grandchildren.”
The province’s justification for removing areas of the Greenbelt includes a previous proposal to expand the greenbelt into the Paris Galt Moraine area.
However, volunteers with local advocate group the Greenbelt West Coalition say they’ve crunched the numbers and that if allowed, the proposal would result in a net loss of more than 400 acres to the Greenbelt. This is because they say the urban river valleys included in the government’s proposal to add to the Greenbelt are already protected spaces.
The stipulations of the proposal include that the landowners of these pieces of former Greenbelt land would need to have significant progress on housing developments by 2031, otherwise, “If these conditions are not met, the government will begin the process to return the properties back to the Greenbelt,” according to provincial announcements.
Bill 23 is far-reaching, having an impact on many pieces of legislation at once, and takes authority away from upper-tier municipalities in decision-making, among other major changes such as what conservation authorities are allowed to protect, and the legal planning process for decisions about where development can go.
Thomason says the government’s proposals will have a drastic impact on everyday life in Ontario.
“This is going to dramatically increase taxes, reduce efficiency, pit municipalities against each other, and have developers deciding our future instead of our elected officials. Forcing such massive amounts of urban sprawl while gutting our conservation authorities even further will completely destroy any hope we have of meeting climate change targets.”
The proposal summary for the government’s Greenbelt expansion says that Ontario is expected to grow by more than two million people by 2031.
“To accommodate that growth and support the building of more homes, our government is proposing to remove or redesignate 15 areas of land totaling approximately 7,400 acres from the edge of the Greenbelt Area that are serviced or adjacent to services and will be used to build housing in the near term,” the government said in a release.
“If this proposal is adopted, it would result in the construction of approximately 50,000 or more new homes in the Greater Golden Horseshoe.”
