In October of last year, I accidentally ended up volunteering for the Green Party. Yes, you read that right: it happened by accident. I don’t consider myself a party faithful kind of person. I believe in people of integrity and in the greater good for all persons, beasts, and habitats.
I had swung by the party office hoping to have a chat with the candidate vying for a provincial seat vacated by an elected New Democratic Party official who had recently stepped down. I had met GP candidate Aislinn Clancy socially in the summer and our paths had crossed a few times since then. She would always greet me warmly when I saw her. And we had a nice long chat one day too at my doorstep when she first started her campaign—a great point of connection and an opportunity for both of us to be heard. Apparently, she is also a fan of our music, that occasionally gets played on local radio.
The reason I had gone there to begin with was that I had been interested to hear where the Green Party stood on some key issues that were of concern for me. A big one for me is the loss of land, and by association, its biodiversity due to urban sprawl—fields turning into subdivisions.
You can see it everywhere in and around southern Ontario. They start by building roundabouts in the middle of nowhere. And then the For Sale realty signs go up in farmers’ fields, some of which still have crops on them. Swaths and swaths, acres and acres of land. Poof! Gone! These buyers would scoop up the arable land that should be used for crop farming or left as grassland habitat for birds and other animals, or forest. Developers’ hunger for it seems insatiable; like crack cocaine, they can’t wait for their next fix, doing it all over again somewhere else. I’m sure they won’t stop until every little bit of land has been sold and built on. Rural land is cheaper, so they are getting more for their buck, without needing to prove that development in that area was required and necessary (which is what previous legislation stipulated). Whenever I see the signs saying, “An application has been submitted to change the zoning of these lands”, I wonder are they ever NOT approved? What a crock!
And you can see the last holdouts: the small-scale farmers whose tiny parcel of land is now surrounded on three sides by a Walmart, and cookie-cutter greige houses with no sidewalks, no trees, and erected in almost the same amount of time it takes to pitch a tent in high winds. (I always find it ironic that these communities are often named after the things they destroy to build the subdivision in the first place, with names like Oak Grove, Pine Estates, Village-on-the-Pond.) You know the developers are just hoping these farmers will give up at some point and sell the last little remnant they’ve got. Not to mention, the added pressure from the recently-moved-in people complaining because there’s a smell of manure coming from the fields. Well, duh!
While we were all concerned about the sale of The Greenbelt by our provincial Premier, and then his subsequent about-face on that same deal, the Ontario Legislature quietly passed into law Bill 97, which I hadn’t heard of, called The Helping Homeowners, Protecting Tenants Act. It was first presented on April 6, 2023, and approved two months and two days later. While I admit there is some legal-speak that I don’t quite understand, it looks to me that changes to the Planning Act make development on farmland now “optional,”[1] and give the Minister power to determine a land’s use before the required permits, licences and approvals have been received,[2] and that a landowner might be forced to agree to certain proposed land uses.[3] This should be scary to all of us.
Everyone knows that there is a housing crisis, but do we need to build residential communities on farmland? The answer is no.
Kevin Eby, a Registered Professional Planner and Professional Land Economist, in a study submitted in February 2023 to the Alliance For A Liveable Ontario, suggests that the province’s targets of 1.5 million units by 2031 is an arbitrary figure, and that the GGH’s contribution of 1.01 million units was already being exceeded with 1,364,590 land units available in already Built-up Areas (BUA) before the initial land needs assessment.[4] which means, to meet the target, they didn’t need to use any additional land outside of the BUA.
Eby concluded that the Land Needs Assessment also overestimated the need for single-family dwellings (based on old modeling) and underestimated the need for apartments.[5] In essence, we don’t even need the number of single-family dwellings that the assessment suggested. So, why are we still building houses in the middle of nowhere? In places where we used to have farms, fields, and forests?
If housing affordability is the real issue beyond just political speak, then we need to build the right kinds of dwellings in the right kinds of places. Dwellings built in rural areas are only affordable to higher income persons, because of the need for personal transportation. Urban sprawl does not solve the affordability issue or the housing crisis. It only feeds our greed.
If we lose our farmland, we won’t ever get it back. Did you know that? That land can never again be agricultural land once we’ve paved it over. The world is already seeing massive declines in topsoil, and arable land. Half of our topsoil has been lost since the so-called Industrial Revolution[6], while 95% of all food produced requires it.[7]
Fifty-two percent of Canada’s topsoil is in Ontario, while only five percent of Ontario’s land is arable (suitable to grow on).[8] And we nonchalantly choose to bulldoze what little we have left of our own arable land. Land that could feed the many, is resorted to housing the few.
All of this will lead to further global food insecurity and higher prices for us at the store since our food will need to travel even further distances. To me, this seems like going backwards in our hope of saving this planet.
Which takes me back to the beginning of my story. I went to the Green Party office to talk about some of these issues. And now that I know there has been recent legislation that will in essence put our farmland and food security in jeopardy, it looks like I will have something specific to write to her office about. I also know that my Green Party Member of Parliament does have a plan for housing in our city. There was a town hall meeting on the subject yesterday, which I unfortunately was unable to attend. I am curious and optimistic that she and her government have a better plan.
I know it will be hard to undo what has now been put into law, but you can only hope. And you can only hope that somewhere out there your voice matters. And maybe stumbling yourself into volunteering for someone you hope will do a better job is one way toward making it do just that.
[1] Syed, Fatima. “Can Good Things Still Grow In Ontario? Development Push Adds Pressure To Shrinking Farmland” in the Narwhal; June 20, 2023. https://thenarwhal.ca/ontario-farmland-development/#:~:text=But%2C%20less%20than%20five%20per,its%20farmland%20in%20100%20years.
[2] “Bill 97, Schedule 6 Planning Act; 7. A new subsection 47 (4.0.1) is added to provide that the Minister may, in an order made under clause 47 (1) (a), provide that policy statements, provincial plans and official plans do not apply in respect of a licence, permit, approval, permission or other matter required before a use permitted by the order may be established.”
[3] “8. A new section 49.2 is added to give the Minister the power to make an order requiring an owner of land to enter into an agreement with the Minister or a municipality in matters where the Provincial Land and Development Facilitator or the Deputy Facilitator has been directed by the Minister to advise, make recommendations or perform any other functions with respect to the land.”
[4]Eby, Kevin. “Review Of Existing Housing Unit Capacity Identified In Municipal Land Needs Assessments Prepared For Upper- And Single-Tier Municipalities In The Greater Golden Horseshoe”, February 2023, in
[5] ibid., iv
[6] Skoropa, Al. “Loss of Topsoil: A Global Issue” in: https://www.ez-screen.com/loss-of-topsoil#:~:text=Consider%20this%3A%20half%20of%20the,sedimentation%20in%20streams%20and%20rivers.
[7] Ibid.
[8] https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-43/session-1/bill-62#:~:text=Over%20half%20(52%20per%20cent,located%20next%20to%20large%20cities. Ironically, these figures are on the government website in support of Bill 62 2023 which is essentially about developing on farmland.