One of all too species at risk in Ontario due to continued habitat loss
“Highway 413 will not be built by 2025, or at all, as long as the federal government does its job by denying permits to destroy federally protected species at risk and their habitats, by preventing construction close to waterways and by acting quickly to once again designate Highway 413 for a full Impact Assessment under the updated Impact Assessment Act.”
Statement from Phil Pothen, Land Use and Land Development program manager for the citizen activist organization, Environmental Defence
Posted May 1st, 2023 on Niagara At Large
A Brief Foreword from Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper – Here we go again and again and again. If Doug Ford and his governing Tories can’t find one way of destroying what Ford once called “chunks” of our Greenbelt lands, he will find another.
Last year, pressure from Ontario citizens, provincial opposition parties and a damning report from the province’s Auditor General put the brakes on one Ford government scheme to carve away pieces of these precious food-growing and habitat lands for wildlife to Ford-friendly developers.
Yet Ford and friends can’t seem to take a hint that there are many out here, including people in rural communities like West Lincoln and Pelham, who don’t want to see the Greenbelt breached.
So in spite of public protest, they push on with a plan to destroy a large swath of Greenbelt around in Greater Toronto Area build a ‘Highway 413’ which they know will attract low-density sprawl along its shoulders once it is up and running.
For those in Niagara who don’t think this issue is relevant to us, there are still politicians in our area who talk about resurrecting an almost three decade old plan to construct a multi-lane “mid-peninsula highway” through green lands in the heart of our region.
So the Highway 413 issue should be of concern to all of us.
Now here is the Statement from the citizen activist group Environmental Defence –
Toronto, Ontario – In November 2022, Ontario Premier Doug Ford claimed that sprawl construction would be in progress on the Greenbelt by the end of 2023.
Developers tried to evict tenants to make way for construction and survey trucks were on the ground in the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. Ontarians all know how that turned out.
Amid multiple investigations, federal intervention and public outrage at the attacks on the Greenbelt for the benefit of a few sprawl developers, the provincial government had to back down and restore Greenbelt protection.
The same pattern is playing out with 413. The Ontario government is working overtime to convince people that this latest plan to cut into the Greenbelt is a done deal.
But Highway 413 will not be built by 2025, or at all, as long as the federal government does its job by denying permits to destroy federally protected species at risk and their habitats, by preventing construction close to waterways and by acting quickly to once again designate 413 for a full Impact Assessment under the updated Impact Assessment Act.
It’s not difficult to see why Premier Ford chose (this April 30th) for his press conference.
(This April 30th’s proposed updates to the Impact Assessment Act, which were tabled by the federal government as part of its budget implementation law – very clearly restore the power of the federal Minister of Environment, and the federal Cabinet to ensure the impacts of Highway 413 are thoroughly examined – by once again designating 413 for Impact Assessment.
The recently signed Memorandum of Understanding between Ontario and Canada plainly preserves the federal government’s right and obligation to impose a new federal assessment as soon as these amendments are passed. The people of Ontario have every reason to expect that Minister Guibeault and the federal government caucus will do exactly that.
ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.
To view a news release the Ontario Government released this April 30th on Premier Doug Ford’s press concerned on Highway 413, click on – https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1004508/ontario-building-highway-413
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