Protection of farmland falls to the wayside once again

There’s just one thing to dislike about the region’s plans to turn prime farmland into an industrial zone: everything. Maybe there’s an argument to be made for the idea, but thus we just don’t know. The secrecy is a big red flag. Firstly, if the project has merits, why not be more forthcoming? Certainly, some details may have to be excluded in the early going, but the region appears to be in a huge rush to get this done, meaning typical oversight is being discarded.

Perhaps more troubling is that this is just another example of a trend toward less transparency – and even less accountability – from regional government, though it’s not alone in that disregard for the public good.

There also appears to be no recognition that the proposal is diametrically opposed to the region’s many pronouncements about protecting farmland. That much is not even acknowledged.

That the landowners there are being threatened with expropriation unless they sell – at rates called laughable – makes the whole process even more problematic.

And speaking of process, the move to develop an industrial site on farmland comes hard on the heels of the adoption of a new regional official plan, which makes no mention of developing the land in question. As with many other exceptions, amendments and rezonings – many admittedly the result of legal action from developers – this move calls into question the value of the planning process.

At the root is the intentional loss of a farmland, already a longstanding concern. It’s an issue that’s been in the spotlight with the Ford government’s pro-development focus, much of it under the banner of increasing housing supplies.

Agricultural organizations have decried recent provincial plans that would see already dwindling stocks of prime farmland disappear to development.

Farmland is already slipping away at an alarming rate. Statistics Canada reports that Ontario lost 580,000 acres of farmland between 2016 and 2021 alone. The province loses about 319 acres of farmland daily. At that pace, 25 per cent of the province’s existing farmland will be gone in the next 25 years.

The building spree promoted by the province serves to weaken already poor controls over the loss of farmland, including sprawl. The government has already gutted some municipal planning controls – some of them wasteful – and added new areas of development to the likes of Woolwich and Wellesley townships, for instance, in its purported effort to see some 1.5 million new homes built over a 10-year period.

Along with losing arable land, the policies behind the current plans in Wilmot, by way of example, will likely drive up the price of farmland and act as an incentive to sell land for profit. Developers already buying up land on speculation might be encouraged to do even more, a trend the Ford government has exacerbated, not helped.

Among the provincial measures already generating opposition are overriding municipal official plans, expanding urban boundaries, fast-tracking planning reviews and building permits and the use of Minister’s Zoning Orders to allow new development.

Some of the moves will see farmland disappear. Given existing concerns about food security and prices, the loss of agricultural land is already difficult to justify. Add in projected growth – however unjustifiable and unsustainable – and that situation is only going to get worse.

The province and municipal governments need to be mindful of farmland protection. Policies that would push back against growth, reduce the demand side of the housing equation and promote less-as-more are anathema to the development mindset that currently dominates the landscape.

Ersatz environmental measures and lip service to climate change are also disregarded. Nor are there any assurances more such land grabs won’t happen. Perhaps that explains all the secrecy.