Dear Editor:
It would be so easy for people to ignore the actions of the Doug Ford government and simply get on with their lives. After all, the government knows what it’s doing, doesn’t it? I am afraid not! Since being elected these buffoons have steadily bounced from one disaster to another.
We have had the “beer for a buck” joke. We have had the saga of the premier’s not-so-secret super van with the oh, so comfortable swivel chair affair. We have watched as Ford canned the Ontario Hydro CEO, resulting in a massive payout of taxpayers’ money in compensation. And who can forget the complete embarrassment of the government when it was forced by public opinion to scrap Section 10 of Bill 66.
And now we have the complete shambles of Bill 108 that is so bad people cannot believe a legitimate government could come up with something so ridiculous. This bill is so destructive that it will remove any semblance of environmental protection in our province while creating nothing towards its goal of affordable housing.
The crazy thing is that we already have sufficient land in the province in general, and in the GTA in particular, to construct the right kind of housing to accommodate our increasing population. With no need to destroy wildlife habitat or agricultural land.
This fact, however, does not sit well with the new housing speculators and developers sitting on land they purchased many years ago with the expectation of enormous returns on their investments. These are the guys promoting Bill 108 and influencing our elected officials and will be the eventual beneficiaries of the bill.
Another significant result of the passing of Bill 108 will be the loss of power in municipalities to combat inappropriate development.
It would be very easy to suggest that this government is being corrupted by a lobby of well connected and self-interested individuals, but I don’t think that’s the case. This government’s ideology is such that it is incapable of seeing the bigger picture and is constantly following a course of action that is both ill-conceived and short-sighted.
Close scrutiny of the bill would indicate that the only group to gain by the proposed changes are the speculators. Other than a few non-specific “off the cuff” comments by Doug Ford about affordable housing, there has been no true explanation from the government as to the need for such extreme measures.
Very suspicious to say the least!
Mike Shackleford,
Belwood