Co-posting from the SCGC and Just Recovery Simcoe
What We Know:
This Act removes affordable housing funding, rental protections, wetland protections, Conservation Authority powers, limits public participation. Here's an explainer piece on some of the major changes and which parts of the Act are in force. This summary is specific to affordable housing impacts. Many regulations tied to this Act are still out for decision (including Greenbelt land grabs), so keeping pressure up on local MPPs is important.
What Has Changed?
Today Environmental Defence and Democracy Watch announced that they would like the OPP to seek criminal changes based on Ford's Greenbelt deals. Also, many news outlets are picking up the pressure on the impacts of the Act as well as the seeming corruption from the Greenbelt takeouts. Beyond environmentalists, municipalities and civic society warning Ford of these changes, Chiefs of Ontario want Bill 23 repealed and the Greenbelt protected citing they weren't properly consulted. All of this increases the pressure on Ford and his caucus - all good news.
What's Next?
We hosted an online event on Monday with special guests Margaret Atwood and Elder Jeff Monague. Here’s the video recording of parts of that meeting: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N5gPG-gvl01LCOc4fG8Fvqzn0jCO0DQV/view?usp=drivesdk As you will see, we shared some tools that we've been developing that help people plug into these efforts in a way that is sustainable and effective. We outlined a way to determine actions based on your capacity and resources. And although the resources are Greenbelt branded, we think they could be done for other aspects of these changes (affordable housing etc.) as well. Happy to work with any group that wants to adapt the resources for those purposes. Here’s the link to some suggested actions and at the bottom of the page are support documents for most of the actions. https://express.adobe.com/page/h5O8qrDC5wdke/ Bear with us as we continue to fill these out.
Tonight
We are hosting the first of our weekly Wednesday online phone zaps. We aim to start at 7 and wrap up by 7:30pm. You can register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrcOGgqDguGdfdY97lzrT6ChtNfyzn73jZ If you have any questions or ideas, please reach out. 😀
Engage Barrie Organization encourages our members and guests to contribute blog posts on a variety of topics that fall under our "equitable, empowered, engaged" umbrella, in the hopes of sharing a variety of perspectives and experiences. Please be aware that the views and opinions expressed by our blog contributors do not necessarily reflect any official position of Engage Barrie Organization.