Statement by Phil Pothen, Ontario Environment program manager
Toronto | Traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat – Today’s throne speech was another astounding example of the Ontario government attempting to re-package the same set of counter-productive, environmentally destructive policy concessions to well-connected “friends” as a response to the crisis of the day.
First we were told they were a response to the COVID pandemic. Then they were presented as a response to the housing shortage: the result is that housing starts are in free-fall, worse than anywhere else in Canada. Now, we’re being told that further weakening flood protections, conservation laws and endangered species safeguards—while subsidizing sprawl, blocking density and spending vast sums of public money on highway projects—will somehow protect us against U.S. aggression.
The truth is, U.S. economic force and the need for Canada’s urgent decoupling weaken the already shaky case for more sprawl, new fossil gas plants and weaker environmental, health and safety protections.
Ontario’s radically different—and uncertain—circumstances strengthen the case for a public policy U-turn. Ontario needs law reforms that shift construction and municipal plans away from sprawl to mid-rise, infill family-sized homes that will be reliably viable to build in tough, uncertain times.
Ontario must focus on made-in-Ontario renewable electricity, instead of relying on U.S. fracked gas and fossil gas plants or costly, slow-to-build nuclear power plants. The commitment to champion pipelines in all directions is laughable, and will do nothing to protect Ontario from U.S. aggression.
Ontario needs rules that prioritize our food security by protecting what remains of Canada’s best farmland, rather than it for sprawl subdivisions and Amazon warehouses. Ontario must invest in improvements to public transit service and infrastructure that deliver quick results and lower costs for families, rather than expensive, slow-moving highway schemes.
ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.
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For more information or to request an interview, please contact:
Carolyn Townend, Environmental Defence
media@environmentaldefence.ca
