Groups rally across province against Ford government's Bill 23

Critics say if Bill 23 becomes law it would leave only one of the Bay of Quinte region's 100 wetlands under protection.

A crowd of protestors rallied in front of Bay of Quinte MPP Todd Smith's office early Thursday afternoon to voice their opposition towards Bill 23.

Titled the More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022, Bill 23 is outlined by the Ford government as being part of a long-term strategy to increase housing supply and provide attainable housing options. It seeks to remove 7,400 acres from the Greenbelt Area, replacing it with 7,400 acres of Urban River Valley areas and an additional 2,000 acres from the Paris Galt Moraine Lands.

The Bill would also seek to reduce the role of conservation authorities, subjecting them to new limits on what they are permitted to comment on, primarily flooding and other natural hazards.

“This bill, if it goes ahead, is not going to build affordable housing… we need to be infilling. There's a lot of vacant land within municipalities that can be developed for affordable housing,” said Lori Borthwick, a member of the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists and president of the Bay of Quinte Green Party of Ontario. “This is an actual gift to developers of high end housing being built on our remaining wetlands, farmlands and green spaces.”

The bill would also see changes to the Ontario Wetland Evaluation System (OWES) which is the official procedure to determine the wetlands that are significant and their boundaries. The OWES uses four categories to assess wetlands, biological, social, hydrological and special features. Under Bill 23 the OWES would add new guidance related to re-evaluation of wetlands and updates to mapping of evaluated wetland boundaries, make changes to better recognize the professional opinion of wetland evaluators and the role of local decision makers and other housekeeping edits to ensure consistency.

“According to Quinte Conservation there are 100 provincially significant wetlands right now,” said Amy Bodman, president of the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists. “Under the new OWES rating we will have one.”

“Our wetlands are really an important part of our natural infrastructure,” continued Bodman. “They protect our shorelines, and they recharge our aquifers in our groundwater. Not only that, they also remove contaminants from it.”

November 24th marked the closure of the comment periods for the main legislative changes of the Bill. However, the comment period for proposed changes to the Greenbelt Plan and Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan ends on December 4, 2022.

“I'm hoping advocates strongly at the table that this is gonna be something hard to sell in our area, because we have a lot of people that are pretty upset about it,” said Borthwick. “We need biodiversity. We want to protect 30 per cent of lands by 2030 and we're going the opposite direction.”