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Category: Conservation Matters

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Ontario’s Disappearing Farmland

Mike Schreiner, leader of the Ontario Greens, was interviewed recently by Doreen Nicoll on her Substack feed, Small Change. Listen to it here.

The topic was the Ford government’s threat to Ontario’s farmland. Schreiner painted a stark and powerful picture of the damage being done by the Ford administration to our food security.

We thought it worth highlighting a few points and statistics from the interview. (This is our interpretation of the message rather than direct quotes from the interview.)

mike-schreiner

  • While Ford pontificates about standing up to Donald Trump, he’s doing nothing to protect our food security from threats from the US. Quite the opposite, in fact.
  • The US provides two-thirds of Canada’s vegetable imports and a third of our fruit. If this were to be used as a weapon, our major grocery stores have about a three-day reserve.
  • Our agriculture industry is a huge part of Ontario’s economy, both in terms of dollars and jobs. Yet while Ford fixates on the auto sector, he’s undermining our ability to feed ourselves.
  • Only 0.4% of Ontario is prime farmland. Yet since 1990, we’ve lost 2.8 million acres—18 percent—of our farmland. We continue to bleed it at a rate of around 320 acres a day. Once paved, it’s gone forever.
  • Ford seems to think that his pie-in-the-sky target of 1.5 million new homes by 2031 is synonymous with expensive, low-density sprawl that chews up farmland at an alarming rate, does nothing to address affordability, and puts a huge burden on municipalites by requiring new infrastructure: roads, sewers, fossil gas lines, fire stations, etc.
  • That infrastructure already exists in towns and cities that are being hollowed out by e-commerce, with shops and restaurants boarded up and buildings left empty and in disrepair. Why not prioritize the revitalization of our urban centres and leave farmland to the farmers?
  • The disaster that is Bill 5 gives Ford and his cabinet the exclusive and incontestible right to take us in the opposite direction from where we should be heading. In just one example, Ford’s proposed highway 413 would pave over 2000 acres of farmland, 400 acres of Greenbelt, and endanger over 100 waterways.

Ontario (and Canada as a whole) needs both energy and food security. Energy security from cheap and plentiful renewables rather than importing technology and refined uranium from the US. And food security by preserving our farmland and supporting our homegrown agricultural sector.

For more information, listen to the interview and check out Bill 21, Protect Our Food Act, 2025, a private member’s bill by Independent Haldimand—Norfolk MPP Bobbi Ann Brady and Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner.

Imagine…

It’s not just the provincial government that’s the problem. Under the Trump-imposed NATO defence spending target, Mark Carney has suggested that it would require an additional $45 to $50 billion a year to comply. Even at the lower figure, that’s $1121 for every person in Canada.

Pro-rating that to Hamilton’s current population would result in a boost to the City budget of $638,510,525 a year. That’s more than a quarter (26.6%) of the $2.4 billion tax-supported budget for 2025.

It would be a fascinating exercise to contemplate what additional services could be provided for that amount of additional funding.

The Kill Bill 5 rally at City Hall

The Kill Bill 5 rally at Hamilton City Hall was a great success! It touched on multiple areas that will inevitably be impacted, should Bill 5 not be repealed, including climate change, Indigenous self-governance, the housing crisis, labour and human rights, and the very essence of our democracy.

  • Courtney Skye: Protect the Tract
  • Sandy Shaw & Robin Lennox: MPPs, Ontario NDP
  • Marit Stiles: Leader, Ontario NDP
  • Mike Schreiner: Leader, Green Party of Ontario
  • Craig Cassar: Hamilton City Councillor, Ward 15
  • Katie Krelove: Wilderness Committee, Ontario Campaigner
  • Anthony Marco: President, Hamilton & District Labour Council (HDLC)
  • Mike Wood: ACORN Hamilton

There was a sense of excitement at the coalition that’s starting to emerge around Bill 5, from activist groups to municipal and provincial politicians. We at Hamilton 350 are planning to convene some planning meetings to set goals and objectives for the rest of the year. We welcome input and participation from everyone in this process, members of allied organizations and individuals alike. Keep your eye on this space and on our Instagram account for more details. 

Check out media coverage from the Hamilton Spectator, CBC Hamilton, and CHCH News.

Videos from our YouTube channel

We regret that we don’t have a video of the powerful and uplifting speech given by Mike Schreiner, leader of the Green Party of Ontario.

Photos from the rally

Developers fretting over potential hit to projected profits

Developers are clearly worried that Hamilton’s firm urban boundary is going to affect their projected profit windfalls. See the story Developers want Hamilton mayor to help fast-track urban-expansion project in The Hamilton Spectator, 20 December 2024.

As “Nancy”, one of the commenters in the article, puts it:

“Land speculators who are attempting to force the expansion of Hamilton’s Urban boundary onto Prime farmland would profit enormously from expansion if their land holdings get converted from rural to urban zoning thru an MZO. Hamilton taxpayers and would be home buyers would be the losers.

“Hamilton currently has a 3.8 billion dollar gap in infrastructure spending. Our roads, bridges, water mains, sewers, rec centers are all crumbling because we do not have the money or tax base to pay for our already sprawling infrastructure.

“The way out of this mess is to build middle density housing in existing neighbourhoods all across the city, which is what will be achieved through recent city-wide zoning changes. Adding more tax paying residents to existing neighbourhoods not only boosts the tax base but promotes renewal of existing, aging infrastructure without the need to build more roads, sewers Etc and add to that 3.8 billion dollar deficit.”

Remember also that this kind of development is precisely what the Ford Conservatives had in mind when they rammed Bill 165 (the absurdly named “Keeping Energy Costs Down” Act) through against the recommendation of the OEB. Rather than seizing the opportunity to look to the future and supply new subdivisions with cleaner, cheaper energy through heat pumps, Enbridge would be subsidized to install soon-to-be obsolete fossil gas pipelines at the expense of all Enbridge customers, with developers providing gas furnaces in new builds.

Municipal Protected Areas Project

Dear councillors,

I have reviewed item 11.3 of the December 5 agenda of the Planning Committee. This Municipal Protected Areas Project is a good news item, in my view, and I urge you to support it.

It is disappointing that staff only consider it as a “medium priority” instead of high priority, but the simplicity of what they need to do means it can easily be accomplished quickly without disturbing other staff work. Just providing what Ontario Nature is requesting will mean that their important work will advance with minimum effort by Hamilton staff.

And it is very important that work proceed as quickly as possible. It may make the city eligible for federal land protection dollars. More importantly it will help us advance the high priority work of updating our natural heritage assessment which is necessary to evaluate unprotected wetlands, waterways, forests and other natural features. It is well understood that will lead to enlargement of the city’s identified significant natural heritage features and their protection. The staff report acknowledges the shortcomings of our current assessment.

This is crucial to the implementation of Hamilton’s climate efforts in multiple ways. At the heart of the global climate crisis is the alleged ‘right’ to convert publicly important lands and waters to private dollars while degrading the public benefits. I believe we are now well past the point where this must stop. That conversion inevitably results in the release of more carbon into the atmosphere from the soils, former wetlands and lost vegetation, as well as the elimination of carbon sinks that are crucial to the removal of carbon pollution from the atmosphere to moderate the greenhouse effect.

It will also exacerbate the impacts of climate extremes of heat and precipitation and impose additional costs on the city and its residents. Rural landscapes and vegetation act to cool the extreme temperatures. They also minimize stormwater runoff and resulting flooding. Fortunately our city staff understand this problem and are attempting to minimize it with specific stormwater fees that recognize and reward the positive ways that property owners reduce stormwater runoff.

The Municipal Protected Areas Project originates in Canada’s commitments at the COP 15 Montreal agreement to minimize the loss of biodiversity. It that too, it aligns with council’s efforts to put in place a Biodiversity Action Plan. And it is in keeping with and implementing the Montreal Biodiversity Pledge committed to by the City of Hamilton.

I was disappointed that a majority of council rejected delaying the Transportation Master Plan for the Airport Employment Growth District. But I note that planning staff have acknowledged that natural heritage assessment must occur next. The Municipal Protected Areas Project also seems to align with this promise. That is underlined by the unfortunate flooding that has already occurred in the wake of the Amazon warehouse development that has imposed a massive structural and pavement impervious area, while at the same time eliminating natural features that would have absorbed some of the impacts of extreme rainfall events.

Thank you for considering my views.

Sincerely,
Don McLean

We may have won the battle but the war’s not over

Doug Ford has finally decided that the heat’s too much and has backtracked over the Greenbelt debacle. For the latest information, see the CBC, the Globe and Mail, and the Hamilton Spectator. And for a more insightful analysis, see The Conversation, which points out that the Greenbelt giveaway had nothing to do with creating affordable housing and suggests more sensible and realistic solutions.

What does this mean for Hamilton?

In Hamilton, about 2000 acres of foodlands, forests, and wetlands should be safe from destruction. But it leaves another 5400 acres still exposed because of the Ford government’s forced expansion of Hamilton’s urban area despite overwhelming opposition from City Council and the public. A City-run survey in 2020 completed by more than 18,000 people chose “no boundary expansion” by over 90 percent.

So the effort to protect our irreplaceable foodlands, forests, and wetlands has only been partly achieved. And we are still facing massive sprawl development that will greatly increase climate-wrecking greenhouse gas emissions while eliminating the very areas that can cushion us from climatic consequences.

The boundary expansion benefits the same development sector—and in many cases the exact same developers—as were poised to reap billions in the cutting up of the Greenbelt. The motivation of this government will always be profit over people, but now they’ve been shown to be vulnerable. So let’s build on this and fight the next battle in the knowledge that yes, we can win!

The Ford government has a selective memory

From the Ontario Headwaters Institute:

“Just a few weeks ago, we shared with the public and reminded the government that its “Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan” was still a draft, languishing for what is now 4 years and 9 months on the Environmental Registry of Ontario without a decision notice. 1,155 signatories to our petition agreed that the government should finalize the plan. Now, in its myopic desire to kill the Greenbelt, the government has “discovered” the need for a 10-year review of said Greenbelt.

“Funny. It has never done a thorough review of the Provincial Policy Statement, as required, even though it has amended it 3 times. Funny, it launched the 10-year review of the Lake Simcoe Protection Act more than a year late, and has still not even responded to submissions more than 3 years later. On the Greenbelt, it seems to have completely forgotten its 2020/2021 consultation on Growing the Size of the Greenbelt, ERO 019-3136.

“For our part, more than 120 organizations and individuals supported our 25-page submission on that, urging the government to embrace a once-in-a-generation opportunity to safeguard our regional resilience by substantially extending the Greenbelt into the broader area of the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Specific recommendations, found in OHI Submission ERO 019 – 3136 April 19, included expansion into The Paris-Galt Moraine, the Natural Heritage and Agricultural Systems across the Greater Golden Horseshoe, land and waters in the Bluebelt proposal, and, other key headwater areas. Not a word has been heard since 2021.”

Andrew McCammon
Executive Director

What should we do with the Greenbelt?

This item was extracted from an email sent to Hamilton 350 by one of our members.

If I could, I would tell [the City] to develop the land with restorative farming, which aims to replenish the soil by rotating crops and allowing the sharp hooved animals free range or better yet, to develop the lands with native plants: paw paw trees, choke cherry bushes, oaks, sugar maples, tulip trees, etc.

Let’s keep urban development in existing already-serviced urban boundaries, where high density housing can be built at lower costs, providing multiple units at a low price. Within the erstwhile urban boundaries, sewers, water mains, electrical lines, roads, schools, libraries, stores, churches, transit, etc. already serve underdeveloped and empty lots. 

We’ve no need to hand developers land on a silver platter so they may make the big bucks.

Let’s keep our Greenbelt GREEN.

Greenbelt Winners and Losers

Who got paid off? That’s a key unanswered question in the Auditor-General’s damning report on how the provincial Conservative government carved up the Greenbelt. She tells us the land speculators will get over $8 billion in a process that strongly suggests corruption.

Three prominent Conservatives are identified by the AG – Premier Ford, Housing Minister Steve Clark, and the chief of staff they appointed to pick whose lands got removed from the formerly protected Greenbelt. The AG tells us the latter got handed a package at a builders’ dinner last fall that listed 92 percent of the lands subsequently chosen for removal.

What did he or Ford or Clark get in return? They ignored or neutered the established process. They didn’t consult with municipalities, conservation authorities, Indigenous nations, or financial experts. They trashed their party’s promise to not touch the Greenbelt, with all the political fallout that entails. And that decision delivered an enormous windfall to a handful of already extremely rich people.

Who cashed in? Was it one of these, two of them, all three, and/or some others who somehow managed the process out of sight of the AG? Or are we to naively believe that those who got handed over $8 billion didn’t provide a significant payoff?

Will this be revealed or continue to be covered up? Will our alleged democracy deliver justice?

Because there are also big losers – you and me and the rest of the non-billionaires. What are our losses, besides having a government that clearly does not represent our interests and can’t be trusted?

Do you eat? We lose thousands of acres of the best agricultural land in Canada precisely when climate change has made the weather for growing food increasingly unreliable and food prices are jumping. And when heat, drought, wildfires and floods are also smashing up the foodlands we rely on in other parts of the world.

Do you breathe? We lose the air cleaning and oxygen from productive green fields plus the forests and wetlands being carved out of the Greenbelt whose public benefit is to be destroyed for private profit.

Are you feeling the heat? We lose the cooling effects of all these lands and waters on the rural and adjacent urban areas.

Is your community trying to reduce carbon emissions by more efficient use of lands? The sprawl development eagerly eyed by the billionaire developers will make that much worse and much harder to accomplish.

Do you struggle to get around in the time you have? The planned suburban housing will be car dependent, piling thousands more vehicles onto already congested roads.

Do you pay property taxes? You’ll pay more to provide the roads, sewers, water pipes, fire stations, and all the other services to new sprawl development.

Do you worry about climate change? All of the above will make it worse faster, filling pockets of the wealthy while they blame you for not personally doing enough. This scandalous giveaway reconfirms that our Ontario government is an intentional climate destroyer.

And will this build affordable housing? Not a chance. As always anything built on rural foodland and green spaces will be the most expensive. The billionaire speculators didn’t buy these lands to help you or your kids. Housing will continue to be converted from a place to live to an “investment opportunity.”

Who is benefiting? Is it the public or the billionaire corporations?

Hamiltonians get to challenge the Greenbelt removals Thursday, September 14 at the Ancaster Memorial Arts Centre.

Ford is showing us who he is really serving

The Greenbelt has been carved up; the Conservation Authorities gutted; wetlands opened for paving; municipal governments financially hamstrung; and massive boundary expansions imposed onto Hamilton and Halton foodlands. There have been over 80 rallies across the province.

The tide of anger at Premier Doug Ford is understandable but probably misdirected. It mistakenly assumes that voters rule, not corporations.

The protests have little effect, since the Premier and his Progressive Conservatives clearly reject basic democratic principles. They have even overturned majority rule in city councils with their ‘strong mayor’ legislation. Now what?

First, follow the money. Virtually everything the Conservatives have forced through in the last three months has had one obvious objective – slashing growth fees and environmental rules to benefit billionaire land speculators and greenfield development corporations. These are obviously the real ‘governors’ in Ontario.

With no democratic options left for the public, shaming and blocking these puppet masters is an appropriate path forward. Direct action to defend farmland and wetlands is probably the only way left to prevent the further destruction of our environment and climate.

The huge political influence of big developers has been obvious in Hamilton for decades. They have consistently been the overwhelming source of campaign donations. But residents said enough and stood up to this in 2021. More than 16,000 replied to a city-run survey and over 90 per cent chose the option of no boundary expansion – at least 87 per cent in every ward.

City council then voted 13-3 for that option. Two of the three sprawl supporters didn’t even dare run again in last October’s elections, and the third was soundly defeated despite having been a councillor for nearly three decades. No one was elected on a platform of expanding the urban area onto more farmland.

But that was just the appearance of democracy. The big developers simply turned to their PC puppets in Queen’s Park who imposed a 5400 acre expansion onto local foodlands and wetlands plus 1900 acres of the formerly permanently protected Greenbelt.

Both city voters and councillors were treated as irrelevant. Officially the excuse is cities aren’t mentioned in the constitution so are deemed ‘children of the province’. Hamilton has more residents than each of two Canadian provinces; Toronto more than five.

Conservatives work overtime to make voting irrelevant, especially for city councils. Two decades ago there were 59 elected officials in Hamilton – about one per 8,300 residents. Forced amalgamation by a PC government slashed that to sixteen, and with 100,000 more people we now have one representative per 36,000 residents.

Higher populations per councillor requires more money to get elected so more dependence on rich donors. It also means much more work per councillor, and therefore much less time to respond to resident concerns.

Even then their decisions are overrun by the province whose legislation now comes in omnibus bills to avoid debate – Bill 23 changed nine separate previous acts and ran to hundreds of pages. Nor is democracy inside Queen’s Park, not even a hint that an MPP could vote against the party dictatorship. It is so locked up that media don’t even bother to report on the views of individual members.

None of what the PC government has done was included in their June election platform. Indeed their tactics then were say as little as possible about their plans, keep Ford under wraps, and direct their nominees to avoid all-candidate meetings. The low turnout was quite intentional! And combined with a broken electoral system just 18 per cent of eligible voters imposed a majority PC government.