Critics call on Ford government to begin mandatory Greenbelt review

A mandatory review of the Greenbelt that was to have started earlier this year has yet to begin, and critics are demanding “substantive guardrails” around the Ford government’s assessment of the protected lands. 

The two-million acre, ecologically sensitive zone around the Greater Golden Horseshoe area was to have undergone a mandatory review starting in February.

But thus far, the Ford government has not launched the wide-ranging consultation or appointed members of a key advisory group which is crucial to delivering the review. The original legislation that created the Greenbelt has a clause requiring a government review once every decade.

Environmentalists and opposition critics are calling on the government to break its months-long silence on its plans for the review and to definitively say that no lands will be removed from the protected area through the review.

“Premier Ford promised in crystal clear language that his government won't make any changes to protection for any current Greenbelt land in the future,” said Phil Pothen of Environmental Defence.

“Any process that included any of those things would very clearly be a breach of the premier's promise and would reignite the Greenbelt scandal," Pothen said.

The Greenbelt was created in 2005 to protect farm land and some of the most ecologically sensitive areas of the Golden Horseshoe region. The law that created it provides environmental protection and specifies where development should not occur.

The Greenbelt has been the subject of scandal for the Ford government since 2022, when it announced it would swap 15 pieces of land from the protected area and open them up for development. Reports from the auditor general and integrity commissioner found that the process to select lands was rushed and favoured certain developers.

The property owners with land removed from the Greenbelt stood to see their land value rise by $8.3 billion, the auditor general found in her investigation.

Ford reversed course after public outcry, and the RCMP continues to investigate the matter.

Pothen said that the scandal has shaken public trust in the Ford government’s ability to conduct the review. For that reason, the terms need to be clear, he said.

“What we really are concerned with, most of all, is that substantive guardrails be placed on the Greenbelt review explicitly, right from the outset, refusing to consider any … removals or any downgrading of protections,” Pothen said.

Municipal Affairs Minister Rob Flack’s office did not respond to a request for comment, marking the second time this year his office refused to answer questions from CBC News about the Greenbelt review.

NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns said the government doesn’t want to talk about the mandatory review because it raises the spectre of the scandal and the ongoing RCMP probe.