After reading the article by John Chick on Pelham Planning Director Barb Wiens's comments regarding Doug Fords's controversial Bill 97, Pelham Advocates Trees and Habitat (PATH) is compelled to respond.
PATH was pleased that Pelham's Director of Community Planning and Development was very candid on Doug Ford's Bill 97 during the May 17 Council meeting. PATH hopes the Mayor and his council have listened to what Barb Wiens has told them and will voice their concerns to the provincial government. They would not be alone, for other municipalities in Niagara and around the province have done so already. We need to have our MPP come to an open council meeting and explain to our councillors and citizens of his constituency why he supports these regressive policies.
We began protesting, setting up rallies, and educating the public about Ford's broken promise to protect the Greenbelt since Bill 23 passed in November last year. The government has continued to pass other bills to implement this disastrous plan, all under the claim of weakening protection. Ford has used his foot soldiers to spread all these lies, including our MPP, Sam Oosterhoff.
PATH had a meeting with MPP Oosterhoff in January. Sam claimed that to meet the target of 1.5 million new homes, new housing in rural, small, large, suburban, remote and urban communities will be needed to address the affordable housing crisis. He even claimed that due to climate change, Ontario now has more new arable acres in northern Ontario to replace agricultural used for residential developments in the south.
Barb Wiens is quite right in her claim that this provincial government is setting us back 20 to 30 years in terms of planning policies. Residents in Pelham have already witnessed urban sprawl, urban boundaries expanded and the loss of prime agricultural land. The province favours more suburban sprawl on historically agricultural and environmentally sensitive lands. Provincially significant wetlands, woodlots and endangered species have lost protection from developments.
Again, Wiens is correct that Ford's proposals favour land-eating sprawl development and do little to address affordability. Developers sit on land to control the market and keep land prices high. Ontario's Housing Affordability Task Force concluded that a shortage of land is not the cause of the problem.
We are at a time when the residents of the Town of Pelham require a strong and united council to take a stand against this attack on our natural heritage, farmlands, and wetlands and Ford's taxes on homeowners of this town.
Mike Jones
President of Pelham Advocates for Trees and Habitat (PATH)
