The Premier has been unable to offer clear and consistent leadership on the Greenbelt
The Coalition of Ontario Water Guardians seeks to maintain and improve water security in the province in order to help safeguard our ecological integrity, public health, social equity, and economic vitality. As such, we perceive an overarching need for a sustainable lens that treats land and water as one, and offer the following comments and recommendations on this posting.
First, we are concerned when land use planning is being pursued in crisis mode, as it is now in Ontario under the Province’s own statements. We therefore support the broad range of sectors that have offered their comments about:
- the abolition of regional planning and restrictions to the mandate of conservation authorities;
- land conversion that will turn expanses of natural heritage and even areas of the Greenbelt into housing and expressways;
- significant reductions of agriculture land and indeed threats to the future of farming;
- autocratic amendments to municipal official plans that will create sprawl communities that will both exacerbate the climate crisis and increase the potential of municipal fiscal insolvency due to reduced development charges;
- a weak framework for attainable and affordable housing; and;<.li>
- the absence of any meaningful public and First Nations’ consultation on most land use planning initiatives over the last five years.
Click here to go to Ontario Water Guardians’ petition page: