The chair of Doug Ford’s Greenbelt Council has resigned over the province’s plans to push forward legislation next week that will limit the ability of
conservation authorities to assess the environmental impact of developments and will force them to issue permits on environmentally sensitive lands across the province, saying this was not policy reform but “high-level bombing and needs to be resisted.”
In a letter sent to Minister of Municipal Affairs Steve Clark on Saturday evening, chair David Crombie said that he was resigning “effective immediately” and said that recent actions taken by the government “have confirmed that we differ fundamentally on policy directions affecting the Greenbelt.”
Earlier this month, Crombie wrote a
letter to Clark on behalf of the government-appointed advisory body, urging him to withdraw Schedule 6 of the budget bill, which deals with amendments to the Conservation Authorities Act.
In an interview Saturday evening, Crombie, also the former mayor of Toronto, said it became clear at the committee hearings last week that the government was moving forward with their proposed changes.
The government keeps saying “that if it is not affecting the Greenbelt, they can do whatever they want everywhere else,” said Crombie. “To say that you are not touching the Greenbelt, means that you don’t understand watershed planning, land use planning, and what conservation authorities have been doing for the past thirty years,” he said.
In a statement posted online, Clark thanked Crombie for his service, and said his appointment was set to expire shortly and the search for a new Chair was actively underway. Clark also said that he has “been steadfast in my commitment to protect the Greenbelt for future generations,” and the legislative changes did not apply to the protected lands.
The province’s 36 authorities, who are responsible for the protection and restoration of land, water and natural habitat in their communities, previously lambasted the proposed legislation saying they were the most “extreme changes” they had seen to date and they would ultimately have a “negative impact” on the environment.
In his letter last month, Crombie also urged the minister to “pause” his use of ministerial zoning orders, or MZOs, which give the minister unilateral power to override local planning rules, and decide how land should be zoned and developed, with no opportunity for municipalities or citizens to appeal.
In this year alone, the minister has issued more than 35 MZOs, in some cases on or near
environmentally sensitive lands that would normally not allow development.
In his letter sent Saturday, Crombie said it was now clear that the government’s direction “cuts out the heart of integrated watershed planning and management; severely cripples the Conservation Authorities in the pursuit of their historic stewardship of environmental issues, and now with the grossly expanded use of Ministerial Zoning Orders (MZO) … essential public discussion and debate will be stifled or shut down.”
“This is not policy and institutional reform. This is high-level bombing and needs to be resisted.”
Crombie said he spoke to the other members of council Saturday afternoon before making his decision, and said it was possible others would follow suit.
Tim Gray, the executive director of Environmental Defence, said that instead of listening to the concerns of the public over the past month, the government appeared to double down on their attack on conservation authorities.
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