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The tabling of Bill 212, the Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, by Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria is extremely concerning for many reasons. Here’s just one: Highway 413 is no longer required to go through a rigorous environmental assessment. Instead, Bill 212 proposes a quick and superficial evaluation called the environmental assessment report.
Highway 413, should it proceed, will be devastating for our environment. It will plow through farmland, forest and Greenbelt. It will destroy wetlands and further endanger species that are already struggling due to habitat loss and climate change. These ecosystems and the species that live in them provide services like flood control, water filtration and carbon storage, all for free. In return, we must protect and look after them. They are our life support.
Fortunately, there is a perfectly cheaper, immediate and less destructive solution to our traffic problems, and that is to buy access to Highway 407 for truck traffic. There is a longer-term solution, too, and that is to invest in public transit.
We must continue to remind Minister Sarkaria and Premier Doug Ford that their first duty is to the people of Ontario and to our well-being. We deserve long-term, environmentally sustainable solutions that will serve us now and into the future. If Minister Sarkaria and Premier Ford are unwilling to act responsibly, then we must turn to the federal government, which has jurisdiction under the Species at Risk Act and ask them to act on our behalf.
Victoria Creese
Stouffville
