Doug Ford shows his true colours with attack on the Greenbelt, Cohn, Nov. 11
Premier Doug Ford and his developer cronies want to kill the type of communities federal Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner is talking about and what Jane Jacobs talked about before him.
Building mansions on farmland and conservation areas does not make a community people want to live in. Besides shops and transit, people want well-funded schools in good repair and accessible health care where staff are not devalued in burnout jobs. Cultural amenities are lacking in the suburbs: theatres, galleries, concert halls, museums and parks where people enjoy the benefits of nature.
Doug Ford is not interested in viable communities or nature conservation, and our democracy suffers as a result.
The Greenbelt grab, Nov. 19
Kudos to the Star team for looking into what looks like a huge scandal. And I completely agree with the spokesperson for Environmental Defence, who is quoted as saying: “Nobody would pay this amount of money for land if they didn’t think it was going to be open for development.”
The question is, how can this be fully investigated, how can it be stopped and what will happen to those in government who appear to have colluded with those making (at least) the most recent purchases of Greenbelt land now proposed for development?
Truly a very sleazy mess, and one that must be investigated by the police, the Auditor General and appropriate ethics officers.
David S. Crawford, Toronto
Then there is this letter, from Orillia:
The Ford government’s recent proposal to open the protected Greenbelt to housing development seems to be, yet again, another financial windfall for his developer friends.
The developer buys the land cheaply because it is protected from development and then reaps gigantic profits when your government changes the rules and allows housing. Some might say that such action may be evidence of shady backroom deals and hidden kickbacks for secret government services rendered. It certainly is not being done for the environment or to the long-term benefit of the citizens of Ontario.
Please protect our watersheds, our conservation areas and our scarce farmland for the next generations. Ontario needs more affordable rental stock and more dense, multi-storey units that are priced according to income. Ontario does not need more urban sprawl and more ‘McMansions’ on our Greenbelt lands.
David Howell
Orillia
And this, from London, Ontario:
You are free to tell Doug Ford to halt his plan to destroy the Greenbelt so we don’t hasten climate change. You are free to tell Doug Ford to stop paving over agricultural land so we can rely on our own country to supply us with food.
As evidenced by his about-face with CUPE, public opinion does matter.
Jennifer Mills, London
It has been said that politics is perception. If that is true, much of the public is perceiving the dark shadow of corruption and insider information in the government it helped re-elect, either by intention or inertia, this past June.
I've been keeping an eye on ProgBlog these past few weeks. Lots of posts about Trump and Doug Ford, left v. right, Poilievre, Covid, teachers' unrest. Yet nowhere on the posters' horizons can be found mention of the great social justice challenges of the day or the most immediate and existential threat facing mankind, the climate catastrophe. We were absolutely betrayed, sold right down the river, at COP27 and no one cares. We'll still vote for those who ignore this peril and leave us unprepared and at its mercy. What have we become?
ReplyDeleteI can only speak for myself here, Mound, but I have given up any hope for climate change salvation. However, in writing about the Doug Ford depredations, I am really expressing a belief that we can do something at the local level to stop accelerating the process of destruction that the government seems intent on.
DeleteI have not completely given up. A few more nasty disasters like the BC floods, Texas turning into an ice cube and most of Pakistan becoming a wading pond may actually cause some people to do sensible things.
DeleteI really wish I could share your cautious optimism, jrk. Of course, I have been wrong on a number of things in my life, so I claim no special insight, only my feeling, in my gloomy outlook.
DeleteWhen has anybody in Ontario ever been held to account for the type of backroom deals that are no doubt taking place now? Everywhere you look, it's already happened before. It would take a special kind of policing and an attitude toward enforcement that just doesn't exist in the province. The people and the money involved are too big to deal with. Maybe we should ask Tim Hudak for his thoughts on the matter.
ReplyDeleteI would imagine we only get a small inkling of what goes on behind closed doors, John. The kind of secrecy this government embraces invites all kinds of speculation about corruption, etc. They have only themselves to blame for such.
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