Ontario’s Greenbelt Plan must prohibit the construction of Highway 413. To stop Highway 413 and other harmful projects, we need to amend the Greenbelt Plan so it explicitly prohibits highway building. Opinion
Ontario’s Greenbelt Plan has a terrible but often overlooked loophole.
The plan says new infrastructure is permitted within protected countryside if it “serves the significant growth and economic development expected in southern Ontario …” To stop 413 and other harmful projects, we need to amend the Greenbelt Plan so it explicitly prohibits highway building. But this means rejecting conventional economics and establishing very different societal norms: some values are more important than growth; nature has inherent dignity and worth; some places are off limits no matter how much money we might make from their sale and development.
If protected areas can be shot through with mega-highways, the whole notion of “protected area” turns to gibberish. The words become devoid of meaning. We need to rewrite the Greenbelt Plan and speak out against 413 to show respect for the truth — to reject the false claim that an expressway can accommodate a butterfly meadow.
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