NEWS

Our overriding concern is the undue haste with which this legislation is proceeding, without scrutiny or opportunity for public input at Standing Committee. Regardless of the intent or content of the legislation this is undemocratic and wrong.

Municipalities have a legislated responsibility to protect public health and environmental wellbeing. Restricting their ability to exercise those duties will not protect Ontario or build housing faster.

The proposed changes will only reduce the quality of new housing and communities and expose Ontarian residents to greater environmental risks. We are a democratic society, and this bill would add several measures to make us otherwise.

The most significant legislation from Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives since winning their third straight majority is a sweeping bill that Premier Doug Ford says will protect the economy from tariffs but which critics say will gut environmental protection. 

The PCs are framing the bill as an urgent response to the economic threats posed by U.S. President Donald Trump and his tariffs. Critics are calling that a pretext to loosen oversight of how companies operate in Ontario.

Concerns are coming not just from Ford’s usual opponents — such as First Nations leaders and environmental groups — but also from organizations as varied as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the Toronto Zoo.

Our Annual General Meeting was a success with the approval of ONCA compliant bylaws and the election of a new Board for the coming year.

Our Annual General Meeting was followed by a Town Hall presentation by Sandford Borins, an Emeritus Professor from the University of Toronto. His presentation was ‘Elbows Up – Urban Ontario’

We invited all interested members of community resident organizations to attend the Annual General Meeting and the Town Hall session. Any number of representatives from your organization may attend these events.

Doug Ford says the provincial government will appeal the Ontario Superior Court’s decision to grant an injunction that blocks the removal of several bike lanes in Toronto. “But those bike lanes are coming out one way or another,” Ford said at a press conference in Mississauga Wednesday morning “We’re appealing it, because judges should not determine items like bike lanes.”

On April 17, 2025 the Ford Government quietly tabled the omnibus Bill 5, the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act. While the bill introduces some added authority to restrict foreign ownership/investment in government procurement of things like electricity generation and mining claims/mines, the guts of the bill include
a full-on attack on vulnerable species; and a new authoritarian “override power” of all environmental and other provincial/municipal laws.

Across Ontario, in the face of development pressures and a growing belief that government is doing little to protect high-quality farmland, an increasing number of farmers are looking for ways to take farmland protection into their own hands through the use of farmland easement agreements added to the title of the land as a way to both protect it and ensure it remains agricultural.

Prefabricated construction, where large panels are built in a factory, trucked to the site and snapped into place like an oversized Lego set, has long been touted as a solution to the housing crisis because the speed and repeatability of the process keeps costs down.

We don’t have to wait until all our suburbs are rebuilt to become European-style walkable utopias; it’s possible to get people out of their cars in a matter of months simply by running buses more frequently.