The Developers' Friend

Wetlands, or marshes, fens, bogs, and swamps, are the link between land and water. Wetlands include trees, grasses, shrubs, moss, and other plants that require at least some water coverage. Wetlands provide an abundance of essential ecosystem services, including:

1. Water storage, storm protection, and flood mitigation
2. Water purification through retention of nutrients, sediments, and pollutants
3. Groundwater recharge
4. Essential habitat for many plants and animals, including over 90 percent of the roughly 200 Great Lakes  fish species that occur in the Great Lakes
5. Shoreline stabilization and erosion control.

Excerpted from Wetlands Destruction

If one were to think of the provincial premier most inimical to the environment, one would naturally think of  Alberta's Jason Kenney. His unwholesome addiction to bitumen is an ongoing exercise in flagrant disregard for the future of our planet.

However, hiding under the cover of our current pandemic is another who is proving that a Tory leopard cannot change its spots: Ontario Premier Doug Ford. While earlier earning praise for his apparently compassionate response to this public health crisis, it is clear he is now reverting to form with a vision for sensitive wetlands that is chilling.

Toronto’s conservation authority is pushing back against the Doug Ford government, urging the public to get involved after the province ordered it to issue a permit allowing a developer to level and fill with soil a provincially significant wetland in Pickering.

In a statement issued Friday afternoon, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority said it was being forced to issue the permit “under duress” and “would ordinarily decline permission of such a permit.” It added that its only option was to add conditions to the permit to “lessen negative impacts” —conditions the developer is now challenging.

Friday’s move is the latest in the province’s attacks on the authority of conservation authorities, which included a rewrite of legislation last fall intended to rein them in. The development of the Duffins Creek Wetland — approved through a ministerial zoning order (MZO) — has become the first test of the new conservation authority regulations.

Anyone who has done even a modest amount of research on climate change know that with rising levels of water 'baked into' our collective future, the preservation of wetlands is a key tool in our survival arsenal. Yet Mr. Ford seems far more dedicated not only to the survival, but to the financial elevation, of  his friends.

An MZO is a tool that allows Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark to fast-track developments by overriding local zoning rules.

So far this year, the province has approved 33 MZOs. A handful of them are on land that is deemed environmentally sensitive, and according to the current provincial legislation would normally be untouchable.

“TRCA’s Board of Directors must now, under duress, adhere to the Province’s legally mandated directive, which conflicts with TRCA’s mandate to further the conservation, development, and management of natural resources in watersheds within our jurisdiction,” the TRCA said ....

On Thursday evening, the province passed a regulation ordering the TRCA to issue a permit to developer by March 12 to allow them to “to carry out part of a development project” on the 22-hectare Duffins Creek wetland at Squires Beach Road and Bayly Street just south of Highway 401.

That part of the development project, entailing the filling in of the wetlands with soil in preparation for its development, beggars belief, Fortunately, there are those refusing to accept this as a fait accompli.

“If this law passes, the minster can just waltz in with one of his developer friends and wipe away all restrictions on developments,” said Tim Gray, executive director with Environmental Defense, about the proposed changes to the Planning Act.

Gray’s organization is one of three environmental groups that has filed a lawsuit against the province, contending the Pickering MZO was a breach of provincial policy.

“Nothing that is currently protected by planning rules in Ontario — wetlands, river valleys, forests, endangered species habitat — is protected now,” added Gray.

And the Ford government is feeling the pressure:

 In confidential documents leaked to the media this week, the government expressed concern that the groups’ lawsuit had grounds and there was a risk the MZO could be found to be illegal.

“In the absence of the proposed amendments to the Planning Act, 1990 — and in particular the proposal for retroactive application — there is a moderately high risk that the MZO would be found to have contravened the Planning Act.”

It is difficult to know how all of this will ultimately play out. With any luck, however, as we gradually emerge from the pandemic, Ford and his cronies will realize that their actions are facing increasing scrutiny. With a provincial election not all that far off, that should give all of them real pause.

 

Multitasking Taken To An Entirely New Level

 Supreme skill, or supreme ego? You decide:

Eulogizing a Fallen Extreme Right-Wing Icon

And if your name is Donald Trump, you also take the opportunity to talk once again about how a corrupt system screwed you out of a second term.

Love, From Ralph Wiggum

 I'm sure Jason's message will be well-received.

But I like the source material better:

Poor, Poor Pitiful Me

 That seems to be the reaction of our hapless snowbirds, now that February 22 has been announced as the date international travellers arriving by air will have to quarantine for up to three days at designated hotels, costing them about $2000.

It just isn't fair, according to our older citizens, apparently too fragile to endure Canadian winters but hale enough to risk Covid-19 in southern hotspots.

Valorie Crooks, Canada research chair in health service geographies, says:

There are many reasons behind snowbirds’ decisions to travel to warmer climates each year, including during the pandemic ....

“You get a lot of people discussing things like improved arthritis symptoms, even changes to the amount of medication that is required.”

Others have planned their retirement finances around “snowbirding” and the pandemic has not changed that budgetary reality, she said.

It's not as if they weren't warned about travelling during a pandemic:

 Toronto-based insurance broker Martin Firestone said he’s advised against travelling during the pandemic, but more than a thousand of his snowbird clients are abroad and they’re all opposed to the hotel quarantine.

He said about a third of his clients headed south in November and hundreds more were spurred on in January by the accessibility of COVID-19 vaccine in Florida for people age 65 and older, though Firestone is careful not to count his clients among “vaccine tourists,” since most own property there.

Exceptions should be made, according to people like Denise Dumont, a Canadian living full time in Fort Lauderdale, asserting

 snowbirds “don’t act like regular visitors.”

“I don’t think it is fair to treat them like a simple visitor who will go for an all-inclusive two-week vacation in Mexico,” said Dumont, the editor in chief of Le Soleil de la Floride, an online source for francophone news in Florida.

As much as some might feel for the plight of these hapless oldsters, the only thing I can suggest is that on their return flight, they might want to give a listen to the following to reflect on the often cruel vagaries of life.

 

 

And Now For Something Completely Different

In these dark times, we all need a good laugh. If you haven't already seen this, I guarantee a lightening of the spirit.

Snowbirds Must Pay The Price For Their Selfishness

 

Like the majority of Canadians, my wife and I have taken all the precautions we can during this long season of Covid-19. We have not seen our son and daughter-in-law, who live out West, for over a year. Our daughter and her husband we have only seen outside the house, observing physical distancing. We shop for groceries once every two weeks in a large store, double-masking the whole time. 

None of these measures are pleasant, but they are wholly necessary if we are ever to come to grips with this pernicious virus.

Others feel differently, gathering willy-nilly as the spirit moves them, be it through gatherings of extended families, parties, or the other myriad circumstances in which close contact inevitably occurs. 

As a senior, for me the most egregious violation of the spirit of the precautions come from the snowbirds who have willfully chosen to ignore safety and gone on their annual hegiras to Florida, Arizona, etc., their compelling reasons including how hard the Canadian winter can be, their joints need the respite warm weather offers, etc. ad nauseam. For them I feel no sympathy; indeed, contempt might be a better description of my sentiment.

And their plaints, when something goes wrong, ring hollow in my ears. There is, for example, the recent case of a Nova Scotia couple who sojourned to Florida, where things quickly turned horrible awry:

A Kings County couple are facing hefty medical bills after they both became ill with COVID-19 while in Florida. Debbie Mailman of Aylesford says she and her husband, Wayne, travel annually to Florida for six months of the year because their arthritis, muscular issues, fibromyalgia and other existing conditions would leave them in in pain if they stayed in the cold Canadian winter. “If we stayed home we'd be in agony all the time,” she said. “We just come here for the warm weather.”

Their quest for respite didn't go exactly as planned, They quickly fell ill from Covid, resulting in hospitalization that will cost more than $300,000 for her husband's treatment and an unknown amount for hers. 

Clearly, I am not the only one who feels ill-disposed toward selfish indulgences. The following letters from Star readers, reproduced from both the online and print edition, reflect this fact: (I had some formatting problems here, so please forgive the inconsistencies.)

I do not feel one ounce of pity for Canadians who left Canada and have returned, or will be returning, and face a substantial cost to quarantine.

We have been advised for months not to travel. These people are just self-centred and selfish to think only about what they want. The COVID-19 virus and its variants got to this country by travellers, no other way.

Susan Magill, Gravenhurst, Ont.

 

Snowbirds must face consequences of selfishness

• Toronto Star
• 8 Feb 2021

Re Peeved Canadian snowbirds devising plans to avoid hotel-quarantine ‘jail’, Feb. 4

 

Snowbirds and other Canadians who travelled abroad deserve no sympathy.

 

One traveller mentions being punished for wanting to see the sun. Well, there are many Canadians who would also like to see the sun and close family they haven’t seen for a year and thankfully most of them are respecting the travel advisory and staying home. So no sympathy for those who confuse wants with needs.

Another traveller mentions that New Zealand made an exception to their strict quarantine rules for those who travelled before the new rules came into effect. Well, Canada has had a travel advisory since last spring and those who travelled chose to ignore the rules so, again, no sympathy here.

          A snowbird mentions that the quarantine hotels will be a financial hardship. Well, I’m sure that              Canadians who are struggling financially will be very understanding of those “poor” Canadians              stuck in their second home in the sunny U.S. Snowbirds are rightly facing the consequence of                having ignored the travel advisory that has been around since last spring.

          Claude Gannon, Markham

Re Peeved Canadian snowbirds devising plans to avoid hotel-quarantine ‘jail’, Feb. 4

As snowbirds with a Florida home, we chose to stay in Canada this winter.

          I have no sympathy for those who decided to travel during this worldwide pandemic and now                  may have to pay for a hotel stay on their return to Canada. I know teenagers with more common            sense than some of the seniors interviewed for this article.

 Giving up a winter in the sun is not the worst thing that could happen to a person. We have seen a lot of changes in travel restrictions during the pandemic and should be aware, after having seen what happened in the early months with people on cruises who became ill and had difficulty returning home, that nothing is guaranteed. Also, even though seniors are able to get travel insurance, they are in a group that is often hospitalized with age-related illness. Again, with hospitals full of people suffering from COVID-19 in the U.S., getting the needed health care could be a major problem.

I would hope common sense could make a comeback in our senior population.

 

Edith Ross, Thornhill