NewmarketToday welcomes your letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). This letter is in response to a reply sent to constituents by Newmarket-Aurora MPP Dawn Gallagher Murphy regarding the removal of lands from the Greenbelt for development.
As a lifelong citizens of Ontario, we are extremely concerned about this government’s use of the Greenbelt for housing. This is Ontario’s government — NOT the Ford government, although he continues to act as if Ontario is his personal property. This government has no consideration of the needs or desires of people living here. Many decisions impact and, indeed, infringe on our rights for a clean, safe and sustainable environment.
MPP Gallagher Murphy’s reply to our concerns obfuscates the reality. She repeated the status quo and talked down to us as if we were high school students she was trying to be very patient with and couldn’t quite understand our confusion. We are not confused and understand the situation very well.
MPP Gallagher Murphy cites the growing population for the necessity to build houses, especially in this present moment. And this is true. So why blame the former Liberal government for not building new housing if the crisis is in this moment? Why has this government not built houses during its first term in office? Are they so short sighted that they didn’t see this wave coming?
And if the former Liberal government was so remiss, why didn’t this government do something about it when first were elected? The premier is very good at criticizing, demeaning and dismantling all the good things that were done, but has done nothing to make it better.
The influx of immigrants was cited. Again true. But the housing crisis has been with us for some time — please don’t lay this on the backs of newcomers to Canada.
And if you think this influx is great, wait until we receive the thousands of environmental immigrants arriving due to flooding, fires, excessive heat because politicians cannot think outside the fossil book. In fact, you are like fossils embedding yourselves in rock refusing to change to meet today’s needs.
MPP Gallagher Murphy states we need the lands on the Greenbelt when her own government reports say otherwise. We have plenty of land on which to build. But she says there is non-sensitive land to be “swapped” in the Greenbelt. NO land is non-sensitive in the Greenbelt. When you “swap” the land, you cut off corridors for wildlife to live, eat and travel. You pave over wetlands that we know for a fact helps prevent or control flooding.
You take farms away from farmers who grow our food and cover good agricultural land with cement. There are severe droughts in many parts of the world. Millions may die because they cannot grow food. Yet you want to take away our land for developers who will reap the benefit.
Contrary to popular belief, boundaries are not just lines on a map. Boundaries have 1.7 million people living on both sides of that “line.” And our environment with all the wildlife, water, agricultural land, wetlands are on both sides of that line. Life inside the Greenbelt is distinguishable from life outside it — at least for now.
This Ontario government could be a leader in providing solutions to the climate crisis while providing housing for vulnerable people. New houses could be built using new sustainable energy — wind, solar, thermal. Green spaces with playground equipment for children to play could surround neighbourhoods. Community garden spaces could be built into the site, helping allay food insecurity and perhaps contribute to the food bank and many homeless individuals.
But NO! This government would rather accept a load of money from developers who contribute big time and are richly rewarded. This is greed if you would admit it, but instead you give us sanctimonious claptrap. This housing crisis is real. Climate change is real. This government’s plans exacerbate the crises.
Dorothy Zajac
Newmarket
Cathy Gross, Lenore Pressley, Sharon Willan, Kate Whittingham
Aurora
