Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks inside the legislature in Toronto on Sept. 14.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
The Ontario government issued regulations this week, with no formal announcement, to go ahead with its contentious plans to remove 7,400 acres from the protected Greenbelt, 10 days after public consultations on the proposal ended.
Two regulations, posted on the Ontario government website and dated Dec. 14, say that new boundaries for the protected Greenbelt had been filed, but the text of filings does not provide details or maps.
Chris Poulos, a spokesperson for Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark, said the regulations enact the same changes posted last month on the government’s environmental registry website, where public comments were solicited until Dec. 4. He said the details were expected to be posted there next week.
Mr. Clark and Premier Doug Ford have said their plan to remove the 7,400 acres in 15 areas from the protected two-million-acre Greenbelt, while adding 9,400 acres to it elsewhere, was needed to meet the province’s goal of building 1.5 million homes over the next decade. They say the changes will produce at least 50,000 new homes.
Investigations by The Globe and Mail and other media outlets have shown that key parcels of the land are owned by developers who are large donors to the governing Progressive Conservative Party and that some of the land changed hands as recently as September.
The opposition Ontario Liberal Party and the environmental group Environmental Defence called this week for the OPP to investigate whether developers were tipped off in advance of the Greenbelt proposals. The NDP has called for the province’s Auditor-General and the legislature’s Integrity Commissioner to investigate whether rules were broken.
Mr. Ford has said no one in his government gave developers a heads up. Mr. Clark has also told the legislature he did not. But when he was first asked about the issue last month, Mr. Clark would not answer the question directly.
Mr. Ford and his Housing Minister promised repeatedly before their re-election in June that the government would not touch the protected lands. The Premier first made the pledge back in 2018 – after a backlash erupted when he was caught on video promising “a big chunk” of the Greenbelt to developers.
ONTARIO
Greenbelt
Detail
U.S.
0
15
KM
DURHAM
YORK
TORONTO
CANADA
U.S.
Lake Ontario
Legend
Greenbelt
Areas of
settlement
outside the
Greenbelt
NIAGARA
john sopinski and murat yükselir /
the globe and mail, Source:
GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO
ONTARIO
Greenbelt
Detail
U.S.
0
15
KM
DURHAM
YORK
TORONTO
CANADA
U.S.
Lake Ontario
Legend
Greenbelt
Areas of
settlement
outside the
Greenbelt
NIAGARA
john sopinski and murat yükselir /
the globe and mail, Source: GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO
Legend
0
15
KM
Greenbelt
DURHAM
Areas of settlement
outside the Greenbelt
YORK
PEEL
TORONTO
CANADA
U.S.
HALTON
Lake Ontario
ONTARIO
HAMILTON
Detail
Greenbelt
U.S.
NIAGARA
john sopinski and murat yükselir/the globe and mail, Source: GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO
Phil Pothen, the Ontario environment program manager for Environmental Defence, said the government’s move to go ahead with the changes ignores “tens of thousands” of letters from citizens opposing the plans and a series of protests across the province. He said the decision will haunt the government for years, given the scale of public opposition.
“It’s clear from the government’s actions that it is under the misapprehension that it can rip off the Band-Aid and wait for this all to blow over,” Mr. Pothen said in an interview. “But this will never blow over. … This is going to be an albatross around the government’s neck that will continue to hang there until it ceases to be the government.”
He said the Greater Toronto Area already has enough land earmarked for housing and that builders do not need to move into the Greenbelt – something the government’s own blue-ribbon panel on housing also concluded
.
In addition, the government issued an order this week officially withdrawing what is known as a ministerial zoning order dating back to 2003 that banned urban development on the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve, about 5,000 acres located east of Toronto that makes up the bulk of the government’s Greenbelt removals. Separate legislation to repeal the agricultural preserve’s protected status passed last week.
Mr. Poulos, Mr. Clark’s spokesperson, said in an e-mailed statement that the government expects construction on all the former Greenbelt lands to begin “no later than 2025″ and that “significant progress on approvals and implementation” must be achieved by next year. Plus, he said, the government expects “at least 10 per cent of these homes to be attainable/affordable.”
He said developers will still need municipal approvals and must also produce plans for things like stormwater management, new community centres, schools, hospitals and long-term care homes. If the province isn’t satisfied with the plans, he said, it is prepared to return lands to the Greenbelt.