The liberals pandered to voters, they didn't line their pockets or their donors.
This is on an entirely different level.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s approval dips to historic low in wake of Greenbelt controversy
- Thread starter SaturnFan
- Start date
This is on an entirely different level.
$8 billion Greenbelt.
$4.4 billion missing in fed covid funding
Billions wasted at the 413, Metrolinx, Ontario Place, Science Centre
$1 billion in 407 fines DoFo wouldn't collect, missing a chance to lower rates
$230 million in cancelled renewable contracts, now restarted
So you're blaming him for not building housing by blaming him for making land available to build housing?
But Chow saying she will build affordable (ie subsidized) housing while crying the city is broke suddenly makes her successful? Lol!
Remember when Chow/Layton lived in subsidized housing while making huge salaries? Seriously bud, your rage is misplaced.
His own government reports said there was no need to build on the Greenbelt.
Blame them.
You do know that most of that land hasn't been used for farming in decades right?
We already have Toronto built and overly developed...you can't just build where there's no land to build on. Not everyone wants to live in a over-crowded building complex.
Wrong. Many purchased that land well before the Liberals created the Greenbelt in 2005.
You think its fine for politicians to make secret deals to friends and family?
The AG called it corruption and you don't see a problem with that?
Requisite and required Greenbelt 101 remedial course for the uninformed, Part1:
Province’s review of Greenbelt could ‘destroy its integrity’ (thestar.com)
Requisite and required Greenbelt 101 remedial course for the uninformed, Part2:
The Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve – locally known as DRAP – is the Crown Jewel of the Greenbelt. It is 4,700 acres of mainly class 1 farmland interwoven with rare carolinian habitat on agricultural soil north of Pickering, nestled between Duffins Creek and the Rouge National Urban Park (RNUP).
Not only does the DRAP protect some of the most valuable agricultural land in all of Canada – it supports the ecological integrity and agricultural systems of the adjacent RNUP and protects features and functions associated with the Petticoat Creek and Duffins Creek watersheds.
The DRAP is invaluable because it’s irreplaceable.
For more than two decades, the Rouge Duffins Greenspace Coalition (RDGC est. 2000) has been extensively involved in preserving lands in Pickering, Scarborough and Markham. Specifically, the DRAP, Rouge Park lands, Seaton and Airport lands with our “Link the Lake to the Moraine” campaign.
We are a group of many individual citizens, residents and environmental groups advocating sustainable, eco-based urban planning and preservation of farmland and greenspace for present and future generations.
A quick history:
1972: Agricultural lands in Pickering and Markham were expropriated by the Province not long after the federal government’s expropriation of nearby lands in north Pickering.
1993: The Ontario government announced its intent to declare 12,000 acres of the Rouge Valley a natural heritage park and an adjoining 8,000 acres as an agricultural preserve (this included the Markham portion, some of which would eventually be developed). The east side of Duffins Creek, provincial public lands known as Seaton, would be available for future development.
1995: The Conservatives were in power and decided to permanently protect the agricultural status of Pickering agricultural preserve lands by not selling any of the development-related property rights to farmers and tenants when land title is transferred.
Years of planning documents and studies supported maintaining the lands as agricultural. The province released the North Pickering Project, 1975, the Seaton Planning and Design Exercise, 1994, the City of Pickering’s Rural Study, 1997 and the Central Pickering Development Plan, 2006.
1999: The City of Pickering, the Region of Durham and the province signed a legal agreement, known as a Memorandum of Understanding, with the clear intent of ensuring continued and permanent agricultural and natural use by not selling any of the development-related property rights to farmers and tenants when land title was transferred to farmers. The agreement kept rights, other than rights to agricultural or natural use, permanently out of private hands by registering agricultural easements in perpetuity, and binding to all future owners of the property, on title. The limited package of rights conveyed to farmers is reflected in extremely low prices – approximately $4000/acre.
Beginning shortly after, these agriculture-only parcels began to be purchased by companies that supposedly act as the landlords for tenant farmers. However, a Narwhal/Star analysis revealed that the companies that owned 24 of the properties in the preserve actually listed Silvio De Gasperis – a well-known real estate speculator and sprawl developer – as a director. These portions of the DRAP were purchased by those firms for a mere $8.6 million combined – vastly less than their cost as land open for development.
2005: The Conservatives and New Democrats united with the Ontario Liberal Government to include the DRAP in the Greenbelt.
2005: Pickering Mayor Dave Ryan betrayed the other parties to the agreement by having Pickering unilaterally release easements it was entrusted to hold for the people of Ontario. The province used an emergency power – a Minister’s Zoning Order (MZO) – to create the Central Pickering Development Plan (CPDP). Ontario reinstated the easements and reversed the damage caused by Mayor Ryan by passing Bill 16, The Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act.
The DRAP became the most protected agricultural land in Ontario
The agricultural components of the DRAP became the most protected agricultural land, and only Agricultural Preserve, in the province. The DRAP had the following layers of protection:
- protected by agricultural easements on title;
- “Permanent Agricultural Reserve” in the Regional and City Official Plans;
- excluded from settlement area boundaries;
- included in the Greenbelt;
- enshrined in the Provincial Central Pickering Development Plan; and
- protected by the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act.
The day after municipal elections, Premier Ford stripped all protections from the DRAP, removing it from the Greenbelt, along with 13 other parcels of land, and revoking the Central Pickering Development plan. Soon after, the government announced its intention to repeal the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act.
The acquisition of what everyone knew was legally protected, rights-limited farmland at discounted prices, followed by a secret political influence campaign to have these protections removed, was a brazen scheme to capture public wealth to serve private greed.
Developers benefited from profits in the hundreds of millions of dollars (at least) on land value alone without a single home being built. The province could have sold these public lands to development in 1999 and profited for the public purse. Protecting these lands as agriculture represented a massive public investment in Ontario’s natural and agricultural systems and should be respected. Removal of these protections amounts to theft from the people of Ontario.
Unless this reckless scheme is stopped, these thousands of acres of prime farmland and natural heritage areas will be lost.
The public is outraged. Municipalities are flabbergasted that they were not consulted as the housing crisis could be solved by fast-tracking applications already in the works with planned and existing infrastructure.
The Rouge National Urban Park and Parks Canada
While protests, letters and petitions have had no effect on Premier Ford to date, Canada has a federal system of government, and the federal government has its own free-standing powers and obligations to protect these vital lands.
Even if the Greenbelt and DRAP had never been established, the federal government’s responsibility for matters like federal species at risk and federal Lands – particularly the RNUP – mean it would be obliged to prevent their destruction.
Parks Canada has described protecting the DRAP lands from residential, commercial or industrial development as “critical to the health and function of Rouge National Urban Park.”
This symbiotic relationship between the DRAP and the RNUP is about much more than the economic viability of the park’s agricultural system if agriculture is pushed out of adjoining lands. Because of the close hydrological and ecological connections between the two, the provincial government’s plan would likely destroy the habitat value of the park for many species.
Parks Canada’s response to Bill 39 expresses concern for the continued viability of the large agricultural system within the RNUP, as well as effects to watersheds, wetlands, endangered species, indigenous connections and biodiversity without the adjacent DRAP lands.
The federal government cannot allow this.
Federal Intervention
January, 2023, Steven Guilbeault, the Federal Minister of the Environment, signaled that – unlike the province – the federal government is likely to fulfill its obligations to protect the DRAP.
He stated that the federal government is concerned about the removal of lands from the Greenbelt and “looking at the potential use of federal tools to stop some of these projects.”
However, federal action is by no means a sure thing: just as they did with the province, real estate investors are almost certainly pressuring your MP to betray Ontarians by letting them replace vital habitat and a key reserve of farmland with generic and car-dependent sprawl.
That’s why it is vital that we reach out to Minister Guilbeault and our federal MPs to let them know we support federal intervention to save the DRAP, the crown jewel of the Greenbelt.
The De Gasperis family will also reap massive windfall profits from multiple parcels of land that at or near interchanges for Doug's proposed Hwy 413.
The De Gasperis family is behind the Doug's Dominion Foundry lands fiasco.
Attachments
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Requisite and required Greenbelt 101 remedial course for the uninformed, Part3:
Doug Ford’s latest attack on the Greenbelt hits a new low
The premier imagines himself a Robin Hood in reverse, taking from the people to give back to the rich, Martin Regg Cohn writes.
By Martin Regg Cohn Political Columnist
Doug Ford’s Tories are sinking deeper into their Greenbelt quagmire and sliding fast in the polls. But the premier has a bold new plan to dig himself out:
Bulldoze even more protected lands.
Enrich even more developers.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get more scandalous, Ford is reaching rock bottom on the Greenbelt.
Bad enough that his government rezoned 14 properties to benefit 14 lucky landowners to the tune of roughly $8 billion. Never mind that two watchdogs cried foul, two police forces started asking questions, and a public furor erupted over the giveaway.
Rather than returning those lands to the Greenbelt, as urged by the auditor general, Ford has a better idea:
Now, the premier is declaring open season on the entire Greenbelt — leaving any and all of its remaining 800,000 protected hectares up for grabs by developers with the best pitches.
When in doubt, double down.
Welcome to the land rush of 2023. Barely two decades after the Greenbelt was born, all bets are off — and all bids are welcome.
No matter the public interest in all those environmentally and agriculturally sensitive areas ringing the region. Going forward, as many as 800 other owners who also want to profit from Ford’s reckless Greenbelt bonanza can ask for their own lands to be liberated, following in the footsteps of those early birds who hit the jackpot on the first round — by whispering in the ears of well-placed Tories.
This is a repudiation of the auditor’s core recommendation to clean up the mess. And a renunciation of the Greenbelt’s foundational goal to prevent sprawl and protect an ecosystem.
When this scandal first took root, Ford’s purported objective was to build housing. Now we know the premier’s underlying purpose is to demolish the Greenbelt itself, by demonizing its raison d’être.
“Folks, there’s nowhere in the entire world — outside of, I dunno, Communist China and North Korea — that a government comes in, with no consultation, and takes two million acres of privately held property off people,” Ford declared this week in a rambling oration.
“We’re going to review it.”
Notwithstanding the premier’s world travels, I’ve been to North Korea and never seen Pyongyang’s environment protected. Nor have I ever set eyes on a Greenbelt in Red China.
Yet in Ford’s rigidly ideological view, this protected area is somehow stolen property — theft. It must be fully restored to its rightful owners, who have every right to repurpose their land into riches — even if it uproots the environment asunder.
The premier imagines himself a Tory Robin Hood in reverse — taking from the people to give back to the rich. Except that his fairy tale is false.
In fact, the previous Liberal government that founded the Greenbelt did not “take” any land — it remains entirely in private hands. After broad public consultations, it codified pre-existing restrictions — signalling that sensitive lands would not be rezoned on a whim into subdivisions and shopping malls by a future premier.
Unless that premier contrived to change the rules of the game.
In 2018, Ford first targeted those protected lands when running for the Progressive Conservative leadership, but quickly changed tack when his private comments were leaked in a video: “The people have spoken, I’m going to listen to them. They don’t want me to touch the Greenbelt, we won’t touch the Greenbelt. Simple as that.”
Having reversed himself to get elected and then re-elected, he has reverted to his original opposition to the Greenbelt. Having been condemned by the auditor and the integrity commissioner for a corrupted process that “favoured certain developers” — while other landowners were kept in the dark — he has decided to defy them both.
It’s as if Ford got caught on camera with his hand in the cookie jar and, rather than restore what he removed, turned the jar upside down to shake everything out so that friends can gorge on the chocolate chips. Cookies for every developer seems like an awfully sweet deal.
The auditor’s core recommendation was to put back what he took out of the Greenbelt jar. Ford’s response is to pretend he never heard it.
“Well, there was 14 recommendations and I said we’re going to follow those 14 recommendations,” he claimed this week.
Except that there were 15 recommendations, not 14. The one that Ford forgot is the one that told him to forgo the giveaway, restoring the integrity of the Greenbelt by retaining all its lands.
After that untruthfulness, Ford boasted about his trustworthiness.
“Let me tell you about trust — and why the people can trust this government.”
In truth, the premise of this giveaway was always a pretence, because every expert review had previously concluded that there is enough land to build housing in the region without raiding the Greenbelt. Ignoring this advice, restated by the auditor, the government is sticking by its seat-of-the-pants strategy.
Steve Clark resigned this week as housing minister when his position became untenable, and Ryan Amato quit as Clark’s chief of staff last month when his position became unsupportable. Yet the new minister, Paul Calandra, heaped praise on his predecessor and promised to perpetuate his legacy, noting that it all had cabinet approval.
Calandra claims he will hold developers to tight timelines, restoring their lands to the Greenbelt if they don’t have “shovels in the ground” by next year. But can anyone count on Ford’s government to follow through on compliance, years from now, after landowners get the final go-ahead?
Trust us, the Tories say. But this bizarre scandal goes well beyond questions of political integrity or fidelity to the truth.
It is an unprecedented mix of mendacity and malfeasance, impropriety and incompetence. Given all of the above, the government’s incoherence leaves Ontarians incredulous — and unlikely to ever again trust a premier who claims to have his ear to the ground on the Greenbelt.
Requisite and required Greenbelt 101 remedial course for the uninformed, Part 4:
“Let them eat concrete”: Ontario’s farmers are fed up with the Greenbelt giveaways
We disagree with Paul Calandra: this government is incapable building 1.5 million homes while respecting our natural heritage and finite farmland.
By Max Hansgen Contributor
Sunday, September 10, 2023
The Ontario government is delaying construction of affordable housing by doubling down on the Greenbelt scandal and gifting to even more developers the power to pave over the land that farmers need to grow food for the people of this province.
For this government, it is developers first and farmers, eaters, and the house poor last.
The members of the National Farmers Union — Ontario (NFU-O) are fed up with the ruse that a lack of land is the cause of the housing crisis. Successive government inaction — including the current government — to prevent farmland and housing speculation, encourage municipal density, build public housing, and enforce affordable housing targets for developers are the real reasons so many Ontarians can’t access affordable homes.
Farmers and farmworkers have not only been negatively affected by soaring housing costs, we’ve also borne the brunt of developer speculation driving up farmland prices. We’ve watched neighbouring farms removed from the agricultural landscape at a staggering 319 acres per day. Farmland speculation threatens sustainable local food systems and has placed farm ownership out of reach for the next generation of farmers.
Instead of listening to farmers, Indigenous leaders, concerned citizens, a Housing Affordability Task Force (which included as a member the former Conservative leader, Tim Hudak), the auditor general, and the integrity commissioner — all of whom have disputed the need for sprawling development on agricultural and ecologically sensitive lands — the Ford government now insists their $8.3 billion developer giveaway was not enough. Instead of returning the 7,400 acres snatched from the
Greenbelt they’ve decided that other deep-pocketed developers deserve a handout too.
As for the average, hard-working Ontarians that this government apparently cares so much about? In a twist on the famous phrase attributed to Marie Antoinette, Ford might as well be saying, “let them eat concrete.”
We have to disagree with Paul Calandra, Ontario’s new housing minister: this government has proven itself incapable of a viable plan to build 1.5 million homes while respecting our natural heritage and finite farmland.
We have to disagree with Paul Calandra, Ontario’s new housing minister: this government has proven itself incapable of a viable plan to build 1.5 million homes while respecting our natural heritage and finite farmland.
As the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs told the auditor general, the land already removed from the Greenbelt “will lead to significant adverse impacts on agriculture.” And while the government embarks on another dubious process for further Greenbelt land removals, properties within pre-existing municipal boundaries sit dormant awaiting a competent government that knows how to do the right thing.
We reject a Greenbelt giveaway scheme that takes away scarce resources and skilled construction workers to build unattainable sprawl instead of livable communities.
Tinkering with a corrupt process is not being accountable and endorsing sprawling development is not affordable or sustainable.
A viable plan to deal with the housing crisis would focus on building affordable housing where people actually work and where community infrastructure already exists.
The NFU-O demands the government return the 7,400 acres of Greenbelt land and halt any process that erodes Greenbelt protections or threatens the province’s agricultural operations.
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So were you against the 407? Should we demolish it and the extensions? It cuts right through some prestige land..the Pickering airport?
Rhetorical questions btw.
Rhetorical questions btw.
mitch lives in his mother's basement, he doesn't pay for groceries.
The Texas analogy is beyond laughable, Texas is mostly lowland with rolling hills and semi-desert areas that are widening. Ontario is over 3/4 in Canadian Shield rock, the topsoil is too thin for farming. I don't believe in downgrading the quality of life of Ontarians just so Marco Muzzo can become a billionaire...his family's holdings are $1.6 billion.
Ed Lake couldn't handle the loss of his children to a drunk driver, he killed himself.
Lol answering with a meme is typically the death knell of someone losing an argument.
Opinion pieces aren't really educational and are usually used as part of someone's cognitive bias towards a subject or belief.
Requisite and required Greenbelt 101 remedial course for the uninformed, Part2:
The Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve – locally known as DRAP – is the Crown Jewel of the Greenbelt. It is 4,700 acres of mainly class 1 farmland interwoven with rare carolinian habitat on agricultural soil north of Pickering, nestled between Duffins Creek and the Rouge National Urban Park (RNUP).
Not only does the DRAP protect some of the most valuable agricultural land in all of Canada – it supports the ecological integrity and agricultural systems of the adjacent RNUP and protects features and functions associated with the Petticoat Creek and Duffins Creek watersheds.
The DRAP is invaluable because it’s irreplaceable.
For more than two decades, the Rouge Duffins Greenspace Coalition (RDGC est. 2000) has been extensively involved in preserving lands in Pickering, Scarborough and Markham. Specifically, the DRAP, Rouge Park lands, Seaton and Airport lands with our “Link the Lake to the Moraine” campaign.
We are a group of many individual citizens, residents and environmental groups advocating sustainable, eco-based urban planning and preservation of farmland and greenspace for present and future generations.
A quick history:
1972: Agricultural lands in Pickering and Markham were expropriated by the Province not long after the federal government’s expropriation of nearby lands in north Pickering.
1993: The Ontario government announced its intent to declare 12,000 acres of the Rouge Valley a natural heritage park and an adjoining 8,000 acres as an agricultural preserve (this included the Markham portion, some of which would eventually be developed). The east side of Duffins Creek, provincial public lands known as Seaton, would be available for future development.
1995: The Conservatives were in power and decided to permanently protect the agricultural status of Pickering agricultural preserve lands by not selling any of the development-related property rights to farmers and tenants when land title is transferred.
Years of planning documents and studies supported maintaining the lands as agricultural. The province released the North Pickering Project, 1975, the Seaton Planning and Design Exercise, 1994, the City of Pickering’s Rural Study, 1997 and the Central Pickering Development Plan, 2006.
1999: The City of Pickering, the Region of Durham and the province signed a legal agreement, known as a Memorandum of Understanding, with the clear intent of ensuring continued and permanent agricultural and natural use by not selling any of the development-related property rights to farmers and tenants when land title was transferred to farmers. The agreement kept rights, other than rights to agricultural or natural use, permanently out of private hands by registering agricultural easements in perpetuity, and binding to all future owners of the property, on title. The limited package of rights conveyed to farmers is reflected in extremely low prices – approximately $4000/acre.
Beginning shortly after, these agriculture-only parcels began to be purchased by companies that supposedly act as the landlords for tenant farmers. However, a Narwhal/Star analysis revealed that the companies that owned 24 of the properties in the preserve actually listed Silvio De Gasperis – a well-known real estate speculator and sprawl developer – as a director. These portions of the DRAP were purchased by those firms for a mere $8.6 million combined – vastly less than their cost as land open for development.
2005: The Conservatives and New Democrats united with the Ontario Liberal Government to include the DRAP in the Greenbelt.
2005: Pickering Mayor Dave Ryan betrayed the other parties to the agreement by having Pickering unilaterally release easements it was entrusted to hold for the people of Ontario. The province used an emergency power – a Minister’s Zoning Order (MZO) – to create the Central Pickering Development Plan (CPDP). Ontario reinstated the easements and reversed the damage caused by Mayor Ryan by passing Bill 16, The Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act.
The DRAP became the most protected agricultural land in Ontario
The agricultural components of the DRAP became the most protected agricultural land, and only Agricultural Preserve, in the province. The DRAP had the following layers of protection:
October 25th 2022 – A Dark Day for the DRAP
- protected by agricultural easements on title;
- “Permanent Agricultural Reserve” in the Regional and City Official Plans;
- excluded from settlement area boundaries;
- included in the Greenbelt;
- enshrined in the Provincial Central Pickering Development Plan; and
- protected by the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act.
The day after municipal elections, Premier Ford stripped all protections from the DRAP, removing it from the Greenbelt, along with 13 other parcels of land, and revoking the Central Pickering Development plan. Soon after, the government announced its intention to repeal the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act.
The acquisition of what everyone knew was legally protected, rights-limited farmland at discounted prices, followed by a secret political influence campaign to have these protections removed, was a brazen scheme to capture public wealth to serve private greed.
Developers benefited from profits in the hundreds of millions of dollars (at least) on land value alone without a single home being built. The province could have sold these public lands to development in 1999 and profited for the public purse. Protecting these lands as agriculture represented a massive public investment in Ontario’s natural and agricultural systems and should be respected. Removal of these protections amounts to theft from the people of Ontario.
Unless this reckless scheme is stopped, these thousands of acres of prime farmland and natural heritage areas will be lost.
The public is outraged. Municipalities are flabbergasted that they were not consulted as the housing crisis could be solved by fast-tracking applications already in the works with planned and existing infrastructure.
The Rouge National Urban Park and Parks Canada
While protests, letters and petitions have had no effect on Premier Ford to date, Canada has a federal system of government, and the federal government has its own free-standing powers and obligations to protect these vital lands.
Even if the Greenbelt and DRAP had never been established, the federal government’s responsibility for matters like federal species at risk and federal Lands – particularly the RNUP – mean it would be obliged to prevent their destruction.
Parks Canada has described protecting the DRAP lands from residential, commercial or industrial development as “critical to the health and function of Rouge National Urban Park.”
This symbiotic relationship between the DRAP and the RNUP is about much more than the economic viability of the park’s agricultural system if agriculture is pushed out of adjoining lands. Because of the close hydrological and ecological connections between the two, the provincial government’s plan would likely destroy the habitat value of the park for many species.
Parks Canada’s response to Bill 39 expresses concern for the continued viability of the large agricultural system within the RNUP, as well as effects to watersheds, wetlands, endangered species, indigenous connections and biodiversity without the adjacent DRAP lands.
The federal government cannot allow this.
Federal Intervention
January, 2023, Steven Guilbeault, the Federal Minister of the Environment, signaled that – unlike the province – the federal government is likely to fulfill its obligations to protect the DRAP.
He stated that the federal government is concerned about the removal of lands from the Greenbelt and “looking at the potential use of federal tools to stop some of these projects.”
However, federal action is by no means a sure thing: just as they did with the province, real estate investors are almost certainly pressuring your MP to betray Ontarians by letting them replace vital habitat and a key reserve of farmland with generic and car-dependent sprawl.
That’s why it is vital that we reach out to Minister Guilbeault and our federal MPs to let them know we support federal intervention to save the DRAP, the crown jewel of the Greenbelt.
The De Gasperis family will also reap massive windfall profits from multiple parcels of land that at or near interchanges for Doug's proposed Hwy 413.
The De Gasperis family is behind the Doug's Dominion Foundry lands fiasco.
Opinion piece.
Opinion pieces by a biased media source are not requisite nor required thanks. (cognitive bias)
