Even conservatives pan Ford’s Greenbelt plan
Taking a hammer to environmental protections is a grave mistake
What will make Doug Ford understand that taking a sledgehammer to environmental protection here in Ontario is a grave mistake — and change his government’s reckless course?
As a physician, university professor and as a GASP (Grandmothers Act to Save the Planet) grandmother, I am deeply concerned that Canada will not be able to meet its international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because of Ontario’s extensive attacks on environmental laws, policies and protected lands.
Ford’s government has been wreaking environmental havoc — sabotaging legal protections, increasing urban sprawl, forcing municipal boundary expansions despite the abundance of existing land for new housing and slashing protections offered by Ontario’s conservation authorities.
He is opening farmland to speculators, planning unnecessary mega-highways, threatening biodiversity and destroying wetlands that reduce flooding and lessen the impacts of global warming
The recently passed Ontario Bill 23 puts private profits over the protection of nature thus threatening the future health of the environment, and our children and grandchildren.
But for many in this province, Ford’s slashing of 3,000 hectares of Ontario’s world-renowned Greenbelt is the most immediate, tangible and alarming of all these changes, despite all his promises not to touch it. And the premier claims the Greenbelt needs to be developed, despite the fact that over 14,000 hectares or an area the size of the city of Vancouver is currently available for housing in municipalities across the Greater Toronto Area.
By far the largest portion of his Greenbelt carve-outs — nearly 2,000 hectares — is the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve (DRAP), which lies adjacent to Rouge National Urban Park.
In December, Parks Canada warned Ontario that development on the DRAP preserve would violate an agreement between the two levels of government and likely cause “irreversible harm” to ecosystems and agricultural production in the park.
Surely to the chagrin of Ford, a staunch Conservative, Friends of the Rouge National Urban Park fiercely agree with Parks Canada. This is a group chock-a-block with Conservative politicians — though generally of the more progressive stripe — including former federal cabinet ministers Pauline Browes, David Crombie and Peter Kent, plus the current MP for Wellington-Halton Hills, Michael Chong.
In early January, Friends of the Rouge pulled no punches in a sharply worded letter to Ford, saying the “Rouge National Urban Park’s boundaries did not include the 2,003 hectares of neighbouring lands now known as the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve because we understood that it was already protected.
“We strongly advocate that the provincial government preserve the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve by restoring the original protective legislation and easements to these lands and use other mechanisms available to you to protect these lands from urban development, and work with the Government of Canada to make these lands part of the Rouge National Urban Park in order that it will be protected in perpetuity.”
There are many other challengers, including federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, who appears fully aware of the significant harm to areas of federal jurisdiction, the considerable level of public concern, the lack of public hearings and consultation with Indigenous communities regarding the Greenbelt cuts.
Like Friends of the Rouge, I and so many other Ontarians strongly support granting federal protection to the Greenbelt, especially given Canada’s commitment at the recent COP15 convention on biodiversity to conserve 30 per cent of our land, coastal and marine areas by 2030.
We also need a full impact assessment of housing developments on Greenbelt lands, especially those adjacent to Rouge National Urban Park.
As we environmentalists (and grandmothers) say, there is no Planet B. And there surely is no Greenbelt B once its choicest acreage has been paved over. As Friends of the Rouge have implored, we must cherish and protect the Greenbelt in perpetuity, not just for the sake of our kids and grandchildren — but for all generations to come.