Watch: how to save Ontario’s ‘precarious’ Greenbelt from development pressure
An all-star panel of experts offers insights about sustainable growth and how to keep Southern Ontario’s protected gem safe, even as proposals to build highways and kickstart development threaten to chip it away
The Ford government is proposing two highway projects that would cut through the Greenbelt.
Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal
This article is more than 2 years old
Ontario’s Greenbelt is facing an uncertain moment.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis have made the protection of natural places more important than ever, especially in sprawl-intensive southern Ontario. At the same time, the forests and farmland of the Greenbelt may be chipped away by plans to build highways and open up pockets for development.
“The Greenbelt cannot just be lines on a map,” Conservation Halton CEO Hassaan Basit said at a Thursday panel discussion hosted by The Narwhal about the future of the protected space.
“It cannot continue to be something that’s precarious… that’s chipped away.”
So how can the Greater Toronto Area grow sustainably, and how should governments be stewarding the Greenbelt to keep it safe — or even make it bigger?
Basit and two other expert panellists, former provincial planner Victor Doyle and Wildlife Conservation Society Canada president and senior scientist Justina Ray, came together with The Narwhal’s Ontario bureau for a webinar to help us find answers. Watch it below or read a Twitter play-by-play of the discussion.
Like a kid in a candy store
When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story.
In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.
Our journalism is powered by people just like you. We never take corporate ad dollars, or put this public-interest information behind a paywall. Will you join the pod of Narwhals that make a difference by helping us uncover some of the most important stories of our time?
When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story.
In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.
Our journalism is powered by people just like you. We never take corporate ad dollars, or put this public-interest information behind a paywall. Will you join the pod of Narwhals that make a difference by helping us uncover some of the most important stories of our time?
Our newsletter subscribers are the first to find out when we break a major investigation. Want in? Sign up for free to get the inside scoop on The Narwhal’s reporting on the natural world.
Our newsletter subscribers are the first to find out when we break a major investigation. Want in? Sign up for free to get the inside scoop on The Narwhal’s reporting on the natural world.
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