Stiles: We won’t stop until all Greenbelt lands are returned

QUEEN’S PARK – Leader of the Official Opposition NDP Marit Stiles is taking meaningful steps to reverse Doug Ford and the Conservatives’ disastrous policy to bulldoze the Greenbelt. Stiles announced that on the first day when the Legislature returns next week, the NDP will table the Greenbelt Restoration Act.

“Ontarians have made it abundantly clear that they want the Greenbelt to be left alone. And experts, including the government’s own Housing Task Force, has said over and over – Ontario has enough land available for housing, ready to go, without needing to pave over the Greenbelt,” said Stiles.

"As Opposition Leader, I promise to use every legislative tool to return those lands to the Greenbelt. And next week, our bill will do exactly that.”

The Ontario NDP’s Greenbelt Restoration Act will reverse the Ford government’s changes to the Greenbelt. Specifically, it will:

• Repeal the Ford Conservatives’ 2022 Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Repeal Act and restore provisions in the DRAP Act 2005.
• Amend the 2001 Oak Ridges Conservation Act so lands the Ford Conservatives removed from the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan by regulation are a part of the Oak Ridges Moraine Area and the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan.
• Amend the Greenbelt Act, 2005 to protect the lands that the Ford government removed by regulation in 2022.

“Doug Ford knows, the Conservatives know, and Ontarians sure know that none of this is about housing. Ford wants to pour concrete over important ecological farmlands, which serves no one but a few land speculators.

“The Ontario NDP means business. We want, as do Ontarians, for the Greenbelt to be protected. We’re not going to back down until all Greenbelt lands are returned,” said Stiles.