This is the Ford government, so it stands to reason that this was entirely a change that was brought on by developers… And considering this mirrors what was previously done, I’m 99% sure it is. Unfortunately, having the province to go to in order to override a CA is something that both homeowners and municipal governments are going to find useful because of how the CAs have been operating for years… running rough-shod over municipal development plans or property owners plans to enjoy the use of their property. The fact of the matter is that not everyone owns hundreds of acres, so a 30 m setback from any ‘water’ more significant than a puddle may mean that you can’t make changes, improvements or in some cases, repairs to your entire property.
Considering that the original plan was to strip powers away from the CAs to only managing their parks, this seems to be a reasonable situation - it only formalizes the powers the government gave themselves last time when the province had to step in on overriding a CA to allow a warehouse going on a sensitive wetland the CA identified on private industrial-zoned land. It gives them blanket power to do the same thing they’ve already done in that one-off situation (although the mechanism will be different - they won’t just make a law telling the CA to issue a permit). The law does indicate that the ministry still has to consider the same things the CA does, so it’s possible that a Ministry’s ‘overrule’ (or even bypass as the law would allow) can been challenged in court at least.
Great! That’s fantastic news! Oh wait, no it’s not. Fuck you dofo.
But I can buy a can of beer at CircleK at 1059pm!!!
FoRd NaTiOn !!!
It’s refreshing going to a circle k now and feeling like I’m on the east end of Detroit in 1993.
Red light? What red light?
Funny, in the early 90s as a barely teenage little white boy from Canada, me and my friend would take the bus over to Detroit with only some change and our birth certificates, by ourselves, to hang out at the arena to try to snag autographs from hockey players.
One time we went right out of the tunnel and ended up a few miles the wrong way at a gas station with 3" bulletproof plexiglass surrounding the cashier.
Never thought anything of it back then.
A decade later going to an after hours club, we ended up on some highway after missing a turn and saw a sigh for 8 mile and freaked.
As an adult I realise I make bad choices.
Straight from the Conservative playbook: https://www.greenparty.ca/en/blog/2014-12-05/harper’s-assault-our-national-parks
There are area’s where rich people have pooled their money together, created a non-profit organization, dumped their money into it (and got tax breaks as a result), which then bought land around their residence and ‘protected that area as a conservation’ in order to keep their residence free from others building near them.
Perhaps this will deal with those… but I doubt it.
For fuck sakes. Not this shit again. Green belt? More like green bye bye. If only everyone in Ontario donated to Ford’s campaign and attended his daughter’s wedding and given expensive gifts that are legally not bribes because everything was planned in closed meetings or over personal cell phones; we’d all be safe from this nonsense
Every time I drive across this great province I find myself in awe of our nature and views. Last year I saw a peregrine falcon near Bancroft, we have some awesome nature.
I hope we can maintain our wildlife, our bogs and marshes, and our flood plaines as it’s a lot easier to let nature manage flooding and climate than us artificially trying to fix the mistakes that mindlessly plowing then building and moving on causes.
