Ontario: A Place to Bully?

People in Toronto and across Ontario need federal support to blunt the Ford government’s unilateral approach to transit development. Residents, business owners and other community members have raised concerns about transit and development projects in cities, suburbs and rural areas in many parts of the province. Too many of those concerns have gone unaddressed, because the provincial government has changed or introduced legislation to undermine transit planning or abused the process of ministerial zoning orders.

The Ontario Line project is a potentially disastrous case in point.

People who live and work near the proposed line feel unheard and have little sense of how it could be integrated into the community — because the environmental impact assessment on the project is still unpublished. The assessment is unpublished because the government’s recent legislation, Bill 171 (Building Transit Faster Act), has sped up, divided and weakened the environmental review process. That bill also enables ‘early works’ construction to start months before the assessment is complete, totally undermining respectful and meaningful consultation with the local community. The provincial government's approach is dictatorial and undemocratic. 

The federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change should designate the Ontario Line Project under the Impact Assessment Act.