This week the Ford government proposed sweeping changes to housing regulations and planning to try and speed up housing development, but some of the proposals have sparked concern that the government is moving to gut environmental protections around development.

The proposed legislation includes changes to the province’s 36 conservation authorities, which currently manage environmental concerns around future developments. They would no longer be able to consider factors like pollution and conservation of land when weighing a proposal. The province also wants to look at building homes on some of the protected lands they hold.

Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner slammed the plan after it was released.

“Narrowing the scope of conservation authorities puts people’s property at risk,” Schreiner told reporters. “The bottom line is people, we shouldn’t be building houses in floodplains. That’s kind of obvious. I mean, look what’s happening in the east, Atlantic Canada right now. Look what’s been happening in British Columbia, with people losing property. Conservation Authority rules were brought in for a reason and undermining those protections puts people’s houses, homes at risk.”

On Friday, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority Board passed a resolution to formally ask the province to scrap the parts of its bill which seek to limit the jurisdiction of conservation authorities, and to strengthen the definitions of watercourses and wetlands instead of narrowing them.

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