February 11, 2005
For Immediate Release

LIBERAL GOVERNMENT BREAKS PROMISE OF "PERMANENT" GREENBELT
CONE Disappointed That Boundaries of Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt Can Shift Over Time, Allowing More Sprawl

TORONTO - Late yesterday at Queen's Park, the Liberal Party majority on an all-party legislative committee examining the Greenbelt Act (Bill 135) voted down an opposition amendment that would have made the Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt's boundaries permanent. In so doing, the Liberal government has broken an election promise made in 2003 and repeated when the Greenbelt Act was first introduced in the Legislature in October 2004 that the Greenbelt would be "permanent."

Bill 135 simply states that there will be no amendment to the Greenbelt Plan (to be passed under the act) that reduces the total area of the Greenbelt, which is to include the Niagara Escarpment, the Oak Ridges Moraine, and an additional one million newly protected acres. Over time, lands at the "inner" boundary of the Greenbelt that are the subject of more intense urban development pressure may be taken out of the Greenbelt in exchange for lands elsewhere, likely at the "outer" edges that experience less development pressure. The result could be yet more urban sprawl. It is possible that the entire Greenbelt could slowly "migrate" outward as urban boundaries are allowed to expand at the edges of existing cities in the Golden Horseshoe.

"Never before in the 20-year history of the Niagara Escarpment Plan have lands been removed from the Plan Area," said Bradley Shaw, Executive Director of the Coalition on the Niagara Escarpment (CONE), an umbrella group founded in 1978 and representing 32 environmental and community organizations concerned with protecting the escarpment from inappropriate development. "But in not allowing the amendment to Bill 135, the government is opening the door to chipping away at the edges of the Niagara Escarpment Plan Area, recognized internationally as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve."

The way to make the Greenbelt "permanent," as repeatedly promised by the government, would have been to allow the opposition amendment, which stated that no lands would be able to be removed from the Greenbelt Area.

"This is the first major decision, rather than announcement or consultation, that the government has taken on the environmental front," said Shaw. "The Liberals have painted themselves green, and CONE had held out great hopes for this government's environmental initiatives. This decision seems to demonstrate, however, their true colours shining through. We expected better."

The Greenbelt Act is expected to receive final passage soon after the Ontario Legislature resumes sitting next Tuesday, February 15. The Greenbelt Plan, to be passed as a regulation under the act, is expected to be approved in March. Both the draft act and the draft plan have been the subject of widespread public debate since both were first released last October.