conservation

Tuesday May 30, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 30, 2023

Doug Ford’s Greenbelt Blunder Exposes His Betrayal and Ignorance

March 23, 2023

In a shocking display of betrayal and ignorance, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has denounced the province’s cherished Greenbelt as a “scam” and dismissed its creation as a random act of the previous Liberal government. This absurd characterization is not only an insult to the countless professionals, citizens, and organizations who dedicated their time and expertise to establish the Greenbelt but also a blatant disregard for his own promises.

Let us not forget that during previous elections, Ford assured the public that his government “would not touch the Greenbelt.” Fast forward to the present, and we witness his administration allowing developers to encroach upon 3,000 hectares of the protected 800,000-hectare Greenbelt. Such a move, justified under the guise of addressing a housing crisis, raises serious concerns about the integrity of the decision-making process.

Opinion: Doug Ford needs to level with Ontarians about the Greenbelt  

May 9, 2023

The Premier’s decision has triggered investigations by both the integrity commissioner and the Auditor-General, amid allegations of unfair benefits bestowed upon developers with close ties to the government. The irony is striking. Ford, who claims to champion the interests of the people, appears to be serving the interests of his well-connected friends instead.

In his attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the Greenbelt, Ford casts doubt on the process by which it was created, alleging that it was haphazardly conceived using a dartboard and highlighters. These baseless accusations demean the hard work and dedication of experts, scientists, and planners who meticulously analyzed agricultural conditions and evaluated lands for inclusion. Victor Doyle, the former senior provincial planner involved in the Greenbelt’s development, emphatically refutes Ford’s claims, highlighting the comprehensive evaluation process that was undertaken.

January 12, 2023

Ford’s dismissal of the Greenbelt as a mere “fancy word” concocted by the Liberals is not only factually incorrect but also reveals his astonishing lack of understanding of the significant environmental, agricultural, and economic benefits it provides. The Greenbelt ensures clean water by protecting aquifers and rivers that feed the Great Lakes, safeguards forests that supply clean air and habitat for diverse wildlife, and preserves Canada’s prime farmland, which is crucial for food security and the economy. Moreover, the Greenbelt plays a pivotal role in mitigating climate change impacts through flood prevention, carbon sequestration, and temperature moderation.

It is ironic that Ford, as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party, denounces the Greenbelt while conveniently overlooking that the Greenbelt builds upon and expands the protections established by prior Conservative administrations, including the Niagara Escarpment and Oak Ridges Moraine Plans. The Greenbelt represents a culmination of extensive research, analysis, and consultation, incorporating the expertise of leading hydrologists, ecologists, biologists, and other specialists, as well as valuable input from local communities and stakeholders.

December 17, 2022

Ford’s comments about the Greenbelt reflect his profound disconnect from reality and his willingness to dismiss internationally recognized preservation initiatives as inconsequential. His disregard for the importance of protecting the environment, safeguarding water sources, and preserving green spaces for future generations is deeply troubling.

The Greenbelt is not a partisan issue. It transcends political affiliations, with supporters from all parties recognizing its significance in ensuring a sustainable and prosperous future for Ontario. The Premier’s attempt to carve up our green spaces to reward his wealthy associates is a clear demonstration of his misplaced priorities.

News: Doug Ford calling the Greenbelt a scam is ‘unbelievable,’ Canada’s environment minister says  

February 3, 2023

Furthermore, Ford’s audacious claim that his government has one of the best environmental records in Ontario’s history is a laughable distortion of reality. His actions speak louder than his empty words. From curbing the powers of conservation authorities to canceling renewable energy projects and weakening protections for endangered species, Ford’s track record demonstrates a concerning disregard for the environment.

It is disheartening to witness the leader of Ontario’s government spout baseless claims, belittle the efforts of dedicated professionals, and undermine a vital environmental asset. The Greenbelt stands as a testament to the power of collaboration, science, and evidence-based decision-making. It is a vision for a sustainable future that Ford has callously abandoned.

As concerned citizens, we must hold our elected officials accountable. We cannot allow the Greenbelt, a symbol of our commitment to environmental stewardship and the well-being of future generations, to be tarnished by the shortsightedness and political expediency of our leaders. It is time to stand up for the Greenbelt and demand that Ford’s government rectify its misguided actions. Our collective future depends on it. (AI)

 

Saturday December 17, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday December 17, 2022

Why is COP15 important?

The definition of “biodiversity” is: “The variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.” Biodiversity encompasses all aspects of life — genes, species and ecosystems — and it is currently in imminent danger. That means we are too.

December 10, 2022

The COP15 UN biodiversity conference runs from Dec. 7 to 19 in Montreal with 196 counties trying to agree on a plan to stop biodiversity loss and help restore nature because our fate as the human race is inextricably linked to the rest of nature. The plan is to protect at least 30 per cent of our lands and oceans by 2030 and the biodiversity that we depend on to survive.

Elizabeth Mrema, UN biodiversity head, has described the conference as “calling for ambitious outcomes.”

“Clearly the world is crying out for change, watching our governments seek to heal our relationships with nature,” she says.

The 2022 WWF Living Planet Report warned that global wildlife populations declined by 70 per cent from 1970 to 2022. This accelerating loss of nature has already impacted human well-being and economies. Healthy ecosystems also play indispensable roles in tackling climate change, and the loss of biodiversity weakens our resilience to that change. We are stripping our planet so aggressively and unsustainably that the resources we depend on will soon be extinct.

The 2022 Global Biodiversity Framework’s four goals focus on conservation, sustainable use of biodiversity, fair benefit-sharing, and “resource mobilization” (more funding). The targets cover expanding protected areas (like the Greenbelt that Premier Ford will destroy with his outdated Bill 23 legislation), reducing pollution to ensure food production is healthy and sustainable and phasing out billions of dollars of public subsidies that harm nature. That’s why Bill 23 is a direct contradiction to COP15 and needs to be repealed.

November 23, 2022

Bill 23 will harm the Greenbelt, create more biodiversity loss, increase urban sprawl and emissions that will also affect Peterborough. It will also pollute prime agricultural land that was protected for growing local food and poison the soil and crops that grows there.

So, when Dave Smith says that Bill 23 will not affect Peterborough, he is wrong because this legislation will harm our environment and human health by allowing municipalities to move away from environmental protection and build big carbon footprint housing developments on protected land near protected waterways, wetlands and forests.

It’s hard work to balance the environment with the economy. That’s why we need politicians and governments who can do both because they are both connected to each other. By passing Bill 23, the Ford government has shown it doesn’t know how to make this connection work for the common good. It’s a fine balance, but a balance crucial to the health and survival of our biodiverse human race. (The Peterborough Examiner) 

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro … These sped up clips are posted to encourage others to be creative, to take advantage of the technology many of us already have and to use it to produce satire. Comfort the afflicted. Afflict the comforted.

 

Wednesday November 9, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 9, 2022

Pushing back against Doug Ford’s heavy hand

October 22, 2022

Premier Doug Ford and his government backed down dramatically on their unconstitutional dealings with education unions, specifically, CUPE. Is there any chance Ford will similarly back down on his government’s decision to override the will of Hamilton city council to freeze the city’s urban boundary?

It would be nice to argue yes, but it would also be fanciful. Ford didn’t back down from the education fight for any ethical or moral reason. It wasn’t because he wanted to keep kids in schools or wanted a fair deal for Ontario’s lowest paid education workers.

Rather, he backed down entirely out of fear. He saw the public opinion polling that showed most Ontarians blamed his government for the standoff, not the union. He heard the threats of wider-spread job action in support of CUPE. Faced with a protracted labour war, recognizing that the optics don’t favour his government, Ford did a dramatic reversal.

December 11, 2018

Good for CUPE and other unions lined up in support. But the grim reality is Hamilton city council does not have a similarly big stick. Municipalities are creatures of the province, and there is no real appeal of a decision taken directly by Queen’s Park and dropped on a local government.

Nor is there much people can do when a government so blatantly reverses itself on environmental policy, which it did last Friday with the decision to allow development on Greenbelt lands.

Four years ago, Ford said: “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.”

May 12, 2022

That was after he was recorded telling development friends that he would free up Greenbelt land so they could build more urban sprawl. His response was that now historic promise, which now lies in pieces on the ground.

The plan is to take 15 pieces of Greenbelt land, totalling 7,400 acres, and make them available for development in places like Hamilton, Toronto, Grimsby, Pickering and Ajax. But it’s all good, says the government, because we will add another 9,400 acres back in from somewhere else.

What many people don’t yet know is that most of that replacement land, river valleys and the like, is already covered under other environmental protection policies. So it can’t be developed anyway, and the net environmental impact will be more development and on previously protected lands.

November 12, 2021

That’s the sort of sleight of hand practised by Ford and friends. And up against it, there’s a limit to what a local government, like Hamilton’s, can do.

That doesn’t mean city council shouldn’t try, only that our expectations should be tempered. Re-elected Coun. John-Paul Danko put it this way to Spec journalists: “I think we need to turn over every stone, as it were, to find ways to resist this kind of growth that is not in the best interest of our city.”

An example, cited by Danko, could be delaying servicing previously protected lands with essential infrastructure. You can’t build houses where there are no roads and sewers. Another tactic might be expediting intensification in existing neighbourhoods, suggested Environmental Defence lawyer Phil Pothen.

These and other ideas are worth exploring, and will challenge our new city council. But based on the overall reaction to the province’s stomping all over local democracy, they are worth discussing and implementing where it makes sense. The good news is that we’re hardly alone as other municipalities are also feeling betrayed and will be weighing their options.

November 13, 2020

Given that, it makes sense for municipalities of a similar mind to come together, perhaps under the auspices of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO). Individually, there might be little they can do to slow down the government’s “pave paradise” mentality. But collectively, who knows?

What is the alternative? Roll over and accept the government’s ideologically-driven development agenda? Allow conservation and wetland protection to suffer as conservation authorities are neutered? Watch farmland disappear under expensive urban sprawl, which ultimately costs local taxpayers because greenfield development doesn’t pay for itself? Those options are even more unappealing. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro … These sped up clips are posted to encourage others to be creative, to take advantage of the technology many of us already have and to use it to produce satire. Comfort the afflicted. Afflict the comforted.

 

Tuesday November 8, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 8, 2022

Doug Ford uses a big principle for small politics

There is no real substantive reason why the Premier of Ontario can’t testify before the inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act, but, as a Federal Court judge has ruled, he has a “lawful excuse.”

November 4, 2022

Doug Ford has found that he can indeed use an important, constitutionally entrenched principle to serve small political goals.

Mr. Ford and his Deputy Premier, Sylvia Jones, had claimed parliamentary privilege, the venerable precept that ensures the work of legislatures isn’t sidetracked by lawsuits and legal proceedings, to avoid a day of testimony this Thursday – on a day when the Ontario legislature isn’t even sitting.

He has won in court, so now he won’t have to explain why he felt Ontario’s policing laws, and Ontario’s police, weren’t enough to handle February’s truckers’ convoy protests and blockades of border crossings and city streets, or testify about those events, which took place mostly in his province.

Justice Simon Fothergill’s ruling made clear that Mr. Ford won in court because parliamentary privilege protects MPPs from having to testify before courts and inquiries – whether or not testifying would actually impede the work of the Premier, or the legislature.

February 5, 2022

In the end, Justice Fothergill acknowledged the breadth of parliamentary privilege. It isn’t some tiny technicality. It’s a principle of parliamentary independence from the courts that comes from Westminster and is entrenched in Canada’s Constitution.

But the key issue is still that Mr. Ford and Ms. Jones didn’t have to hide behind that privilege. Parliamentarians often waive it. The Premier used this big principle as a legal loophole to protect himself.

If you’re keeping score, you might notice that Mr. Ford has made a habit of invoking big constitutionally recognized mechanisms to deal with political challenges. He pre-emptively invoked the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights in back-to-work legislation for support workers in Ontario schools. He backtracked on that Monday. Just because you can invoke big principles to further small politics, it doesn’t mean you should.

February 19, 2022

It is true, as Mr. Ford has argued, that the Emergencies Act inquiry revolves around a federal government decision. What’s at issue is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to invoke the act on Feb. 14 to respond to the convoy protests. That legislation, 

which allowed the authorities to employ extraordinary powers including freezing bank accounts, is only to be used when no other law will do. The inquiry must determine whether that threshold was met.

But to get there, the commission has to figure out whether normal policing – under the jurisdiction of the province – should have been enough. Mr. Ford felt it wasn’t. (The Globe & Mail) 

 

Thursday December 10, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday December 10, 2020

Doug Ford takes an axe to greenbelt protections

First, Doug Ford big-footed environmental protections and local authority. Then he went home early, adjourning the legislature until February. Not a bad day’s work for Ford and friends.

November 13, 2020

Under the cover of COVID-19, the government is hacking and slashing the network of regulations and oversight that for years helped balance the preservation of Ontario’s environment with the interests of voracious development.

Think back to before Ford became leader of the not-progressive conservative party. He was recorded telling a roomful of his development industry friends that he would ensure Ontario’s cherished greenbelt would be opened to allow development.

In case you’ve forgotten, the outcry was immediate and very loud. So much so that Ford had to publicly retract his pledge, and reassure Ontarians that he would respect their will on the greenbelt.

But Ford never said he wouldn’t use a back door to accomplish the same objectives. This week, he demonstrated that he has done exactly that.

May 3, 2018

Schedule 6 may sound innocuous, but it is anything but. Passed this week as part of the government’s Bill 229 — a pandemic recovery bill for heaven’s sake — it neuters all of Ontario’s conservation authorities. Their mandate is now dramatically narrower, and a government minister will have the power to veto conservation authority decisions. 

Ontarians have been able to rely on conservation authorities for years to effectively manage and protect rivers, tributaries, wetlands, forests and local drinking water. CAs are not perfect, but they generally work, and they represent local and regional interests. No longer. 

In another alarming change, the Conservation Authorities Act has been amended to allow the provincial minister complete control over issuing permits, with or without input from CAs. And there is no appealing the decisions.

December 11, 2018

Not satisfied with hobbling conservation authorities, the government is also making increased use of Ministerial Zoning Orders. MZOs allow the provincial minister to override planning and zoning decisions, regardless of local government or public input. Again, the decisions cannot be appealed.

This destruction of local control has not gone unnoticed. Conservation authorities, mayors, the Association of Ontario Municipalities, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, the World Wildlife Fund (Canada), Ontario Nature and Environmental Defence of Ontario have all spoken out strongly against the government’s centralization of control. Countless letters to the editor, columns and editorials have condemned the changes.

The government’s response was to double down and push the changes through, hidden deep in pandemic recovery omnibus legislation. 

All this is part of a disturbing big picture. Remember the Ontario Municipal Board, which provided a flawed method of appealing local planning decisions? The government replaced it with the Local Planning Appeals Tribunal (LPAT) a developer-friendly organization that almost always rules on the side of unfettered development.

Then came MZOs, being used increasingly to authorize zoning and planning changes in the absence of local due process and input. Then came the gutting of conservation areas, with their crucial oversight, including of Ontario’s drinking water.

Does anyone else see a theme here? Ever since Doug Ford blew up Toronto city council to suit his personal whims, it has been clear he is not remotely interested in local decision-making authority. He wants Ontario open for business, regardless of environmental impact. And he’s getting his wish. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)