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TORONTO — Kathleen Wynne says Doug Ford’s plan to open parts of the Greenbelt for development if he’s elected premier would make the map of the protected area look like Swiss cheese.
The Liberal premier says the Progressive Conservative leader’s plan would compromise the integrity of key water systems and agricultural land currently under protection.
Her comments come a day after Ford said he would allow some development in the Greenbelt to ease the housing crisis in the Greater Toronto area.
Wynne says there is still land to build on in the region, so opening up the Greenbelt for development is unnecessary.
Ford has said that for every piece of the Greenbelt opened for development, he would add equivalent land to the protected area to ensure it doesn’t change in size, but he hasn’t said how that would work.
The Greenbelt, a 7,200-square-kilometre area that borders the Greater Golden Horseshoe region around Lake Ontario, was protected from urban development by legislation in 2005.
Wynne said Greenbelt land opened up for development cannot be easily regained.
“If you open up the Greenbelt and make it into a Swiss cheese map you never get that back,” she said. “You never get that water protection back. You never get that agricultural land protection back. It is absolutely wrong-headed. I could not disagree with (Ford) more.”
Ford’s development comments on Monday came after the Liberals pointed to an online video of him — apparently taken in early February when he was a Tory leadership candidate — promising to open up a “big chunk” of the protected area.
