Just before the 2022 provincial election, Doug Ford said five words Ontarians hadn’t heard often during his first term.“I believe in climate change,” he told reporters in May, days after a deadly derecho storm left hundreds of thousands of homes without power. “And we’re doing everything to prevent it by building electric vehicles, having investment into the battery plants.” The premier’s second term has yet to see any increase in electric vehicle production, while promised investments haven’t resulted in operational battery plants so far. Instead, the Progressive Conservatives’ current tenure has been defined by battles over land use, as the government opens up protected land and weakens environmental oversight to ease development, while conservationists, cities and citizens push back against losing farmland, wetlands and wildlife habitat. Despite intense opposition, the government made its omnibus land use bill, the More Homes Built Faster Act or Bill 23, law in late November. That was followed by regulation making its Greenbelt changes official in mid-December: it outlines how 15 separate parcels of land totalling 7,400 acres, including part of the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Reserve, will be removed from the Greenbelt.
Source: How Doug Ford is changing Ontario’s environmental laws | The Narwhal
