greenbelt

Thursday May 12, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 12, 2022

Use Highway 407 to ease GTA traffic woes

Premier Doug Ford raised some eyebrows last week when he talked about highways, and actually made a lot of sense.

December 11, 2018

That’s not what we’ve become accustomed to hearing from the premier in this area. He seems bound and determined to build new highways wherever he can, no matter the financial cost and environmental consequences.

But when it comes to Highway 407, the underused, mostly private toll route across the northern GTA, Ford hit the bullseye.

“I would never have sold it,” he said. “What did they sell it for, $3 billion? And it’s worth, what, $20 billion now? So I don’t believe in selling off toll roads.”

Two things on that. First, current estimates actually put the value of Highway 407 closer to $30 billion, making the sale back in 1999 look even more foolish. And second, it was a Progressive Conservative government, the one led by Mike Harris, that sold off the highway for what we can now see amounted to a handful of beans.

But never mind. Ford wasn’t part of that government and it’s a long time ago. The essential point is that even a PC premier can now see the folly of selling a valuable public asset for far below its long-term worth.

Tuesday December 11, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday December 11, 2018

Environmentalists fear provincial changes mean Greenbelt is open for development

Environmentalists and critics are accusing Premier Doug Ford of breaking a promise to protect the two-million-acre Greenbelt from development with changes they say endanger wildlife and drinking water, setting Ontario’s environmental protections back 40 years.

May 3, 2018

The Progressive Conservative government’s proposed changes to the planning act will undermine the province’s anti-sprawl smart growth plan, the Greenbelt Act, the Great Lakes and Lake Simcoe Protection acts and the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act, said Environmental Defence executive director Tim Gray.

The changes were announced Thursday as part of Bill 66, the Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act.

It would allow municipalities to obtain provincial approval to use a new open-for-business zoning bylaw that would bypass some of the existing development requirements. The bylaw would only be available if the municipality could prove a development would create 50 jobs for places with populations under 250,000 or 100 jobs in larger municipalities. Of eight Ontario municipalities with more than 250,000 people, five are in the Toronto region.

“The aim is to have all provincial approvals in place within one year so qualifying businesses can begin construction,” said an emailed statement from a spokesperson of Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark.

March 9, 2005

Conditions would remain on the building, material and other design elements of the employment projects but municipalities would not be required to provide advance notice of the bylaw’s adoption.

The new tool is the kind of opening environmentalists have feared since Doug Ford was caught on video during the election campaign telling developers he would open up the Greenbelt if he became premier. He walked back the remarks after the video was released.

“There is no longer any rational approach to land designation so all areas that we’ve carefully considered being worthy of protection no longer have that protection. Anyone with a property just has to convince Queen’s Park to give them an exemption and (that’s) all it (needs) to go forward for development,” Gray said.

While the bill is driven by job creation, retail and residential components can be part of the projects which qualify for the bylaw’s use, he said. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Thursday May 3, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 3, 2018

Ford reverses course on Greenbelt development, says he’ll maintain protected area

Public backlash prompted Doug Ford to backtrack Tuesday on an election promise to allow housing development in a protected green space around the Toronto region, with the Progressive Conservative leader saying he’s going to listen to those who want the area preserved.

A Tory government would maintain the Greenbelt in its entirety and enshrine that pledge in the party’s soon-to-be-released platform, Ford announced in a statement issued a day after saying he’d open the region to some construction to ease the housing crisis in the Greater Toronto Area.

“I looked at it as making sure we have more affordable housing,” Ford said of his initial position. “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.”

The Greenbelt — the world’s largest permanently protected green space –is a 7,200-square-kilometre area that borders the Greater Golden Horseshoe region around Lake Ontario. It was protected from urban development by legislation in 2005.

Ford’s flip-flop came less than a week before the official start of the provincial election campaign and hours after Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne called his Greenbelt-development pledge “wrongheaded”.

“If you open up the Greenbelt and make it into a Swiss cheese map you never get that back,” Wynne said earlier on Tuesday. “You never get that water protection back. You never get that agricultural land protection back.”

Wynne had acknowledged that some areas around the border of the Greenbelt have changed since it was established over a decade ago, but that was part of the original plan for the region, she said. (Source: CTV) 

 

Saturday August 24, 2013

 

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday August 24, 2013

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 24, 2013

Lightfoot added to Greenbelt lineup

Neil Young’s out, but Gordon Lightfoot’s in.

Lightfoot, a Canadian folk-music legend, has been added to the Greenbelt Harvest Picnic lineup, organizers announced late Thursday.

The Orillia, Ont. native rose to fame with such hits as Sundown, If you Could Read My Mind, Early Morning Rain and Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald.

“We are very excited by the addition of Mr. Lightfoot and will be making more announcements in the coming days,” Jean-Paul Gauthier, producer of the Greenbelt Harvest Picnic, said in a press release.

The daylong festival at Christie Lake Conservation Area on Aug. 31 was to be Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s first stop on a four-city North American tour.

But Young pulled out of the third annual show because of an injury to guitarist Frank Sampedro’s hand.

This week, organizers offered a partial refund of $40 to concert goers, reducing ticket prices to $99.50.

Buyers of tickets from consignment locations can pick up their refund beginning Saturday, Aug. 24 at 10 a.m. They must produce photo ID and their tickets to do so.

The concert also features Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Pegi Young and the Survivors, Trixie Whitley, Rocco DeLuca, the Arkells, Harlan Pepper, Basia Bulat, Whitehorse and Harrison Kennedy.  (Source: The Hamilton Spectator)

NEIL YOUNG CARTOON from wes tyrell on Vimeo.