BradfordToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to the controversy surrounding Premier Doug Ford's handling of the Greenbelt.
Imagine a surgeon intentionally severing part of a lung in an operation. Do you think she/he would be sued? Would she/he need to pay compensation? Without doubt that compensation would be an expected consequence.
Therefore, when Premier Doug Ford publicly admits that the procedure/process allowing 7,400 acres to be cut from the Greenbelt ostensibly for more housing and is then not willing to remedy that decision made in error, how do we, the Greater Toronto population get compensation?
Many reports, including one from the government’s own housing taskforce and last week’s explosive report from the Auditor General, have concluded that there is more than enough land to build the homes that we desperately need without paving over and diminishing the Greenbelt.
The Auditor General in her August 2023 report concluded “The auditor general’s investigation into Ontario’s decision to open protected Greenbelt lands up to housing development found the process favoured developers with ties to the housing minister’s chief of staff and failed to consider environmental, agricultural and financial risks and impacts.”
It is obvious to me that the real reason for building onto prime farmland, wetlands and floodplains is totally unrelated to helping everyday Ontarians. It has absolutely nothing to do with building affordable homes. It is strictly a money grab for powerful people who can help Premier Ford’s political career. This “gift” pours approximately $8.3 billion into the pockets of wealthy PC-friendly speculators.
It will cause harm to everybody else.
The Greenbelt is the last remaining part of the lungs of Greater Toronto. Deliberately reducing its hectares will cause more harmful breathing for everyone.
If the Ford government was led by people who listened to and cared for their voters, it would not just state that the process was wrong, but with haste, would correct the errors made by that process. Not doing the correcting is as meaningless as a thief admitting that the actions to steal millions was wrong without returning those millions.
So, I call on Premier Ford and his team to “please consider the voters and fix your errors.” Reinstate the 7,400 acres to the Green Belt lands.
Albert Wierenga
Bradford
