“Toronto and its suburbs have been freebasing gasoline and diesel for so long that weaning them off their automobile addiction will be the work of generations. Still, the work has to start somewhere. When forests and fields are carved up and paved over, there’s no getting them back.” — editorial, Ottawa Citizen, February 7, 2005
Protecting over 1.8 million acres of land stretching from the Niagara Peninsula in the south, the Bruce Peninsula to the north, and Northumberland County to the east, the Greenbelt was hailed by many environmentalists, community activists, and editorial pages when it was fully legislated into existence in February 2005. But it also faced plenty of opposition, primarily from developers and farmers — some of whom are playing a role in the current controversies surrounding its future.
The provincial government recognized the need for protection of the future Greenbelt areas as far back as 1973, when it approved the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act, which was designed to “provide for the maintenance of the Niagara Escarpment and to ensure only such development occurs as is compatible with that natural environment.” In 2001, the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan protected 469,500 acres of land.
Agenda segment, November 12, 2015: The Greenbelt — 10 years later
The Greenbelt was on the list of environmentally related aims mentioned in the first throne speech of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government in November 2003. The following month, the Greenbelt Protection Act provided a rough outline for where land would be protected. Needing time to develop a long-term urban-sprawl control plan, the government imposed a one-year development freeze on the land under consideration. A task force headed by Burlington mayor Rob MacIsaac would conduct research and consultations.
Minister of Municipal Affairs John Gerretsen gained the power to halt proceedings at the Ontario Municipal Board if any of these lands were at issue. “It is absolutely imperative if we want to do anything about sprawl, gridlock, if we want to do anything about improving the quality of life for people, particularly in the GTA,” Gerretsen told the Toronto Star. “It is absolutely essential we develop a greenbelt area that ties in between the Oak Ridges Moraine and the Niagara Escarpment. It is about the environment and the quality of life that people want to enjoy in this area…we cannot allow the sprawl of the last 15 to 20 years to continue.”
Over the next year, some groups voiced criticism. Organizations representing builders and developers claimed that, while the Greenbelt was a nice idea, it would force homes prices to rise as supply was squeezed in the affected areas. Owners of gravel pits and quarries feared they would be forced to move elsewhere. Wineries in Niagara had varying views — larger operators called for exemptions to allow them to build larger tourism-friendly facilities, while smaller vintners asked for a higher percentage of Ontario grapes to be used in blended wines and other environment-offset benefits. On the opposition benches, the Progressive Conservatives believed the Liberal record had been tainted by a broken election promise to prevent the construction of 6,600 homes on the Oak Ridges Moraine; the NDP felt there were too many loopholes that would allow for exceptions to the development freeze.
Agenda segment, February 19, 2015: Gord Miller — gauging the Greenbelt
The Greenbelt added to anxieties that farmers already felt about their future. The main concern was the lack of financial compensation for protected lands, along with the inability to sell their properties for maximum profit of the kind developers tended to offer. “That’s their whole retirement plan, the equity that they have in that land,” Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett observed in January 2005. “If those policies have an economic impact on the farm community, they have to be compensated for that. The farm community shouldn’t be expected to bear the whole cost of something that’s being done in the public interest.”
Anger over the potential effects of the Greenbelt added to the list of farmer grievances, which included other provincial environmental legislation and the handling of bailouts to tobacco growers. In early 2005, such factors inspired a series of highway blockades spearheaded by the Lanark Landowners Association and its president, future controversial MPP Randy Hillier.
TVO.org Explainer: What is the Greenbelt?
Another prominent critic was John Tory, who’d replaced Ernie Eves as Progressive Conservative leader in September 2004. Toeing the party line, Tory claimed the Greenbelt was a poorly designed policy that covered up broken promises. He felt the plan was based on faulty science and would hurt farmers and small towns. “Protecting green space is good, but doing it in a way that ends up causing harm to a lot pf people from Niagara to Northumberland, possibly for generations to come, is bad,” Tory declared during a January 2005 press conference. He said the initial map, which divided some properties, was “voodoo science.” (Tory may well have been trying to appeal to his potential rural base, as he would run in an upcoming byelection in Eves’s old seat of Dufferin–Peel–Wellington–Grey, winning in March 2005.)
Then-Conservative leader John Tory criticized the province’s Greenbelt legislation at a news conference in Toronto on January 25, 2005. (Frank Gunn/CP)
During committee hearings held at the beginning of February 2005, Greenbelt opponents voiced their concerns. They demanded the government release the scientific data it had used to formulate its plans and the justifications used to determine the Greenbelt’s boundaries, especially those that split properties in half. “You can’t just sit at Queen’s Park with a green magic marker and say that you’re going to colour this land agricultural forever,” said PC MPP Tim Hudak. Developers argued that millions of taxpayer dollars had already gone into infrastructure that might no longer be required on protected land.
Opponents also used methods seemingly designed to confuse the public. A group calling itself the Greenbelt Coalition (there was a pro-protection group called the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance) and using a web address similar to the one for the official government Greenbelt site claimed that 94 per cent of Ontarians wanted more studies into the criteria for choosing land to protect. “It’s like Astroturf — fake grassroots,” Pembina Institute spokesperson Mark Winfield told the Toronto Star.
The Greenbelt Act was introduced during a rare February sitting of the legislature. It passed on February 24, despite concerns that a final boundary map was still in progress. While the PCs opposed the bill, most NDP MPPs supported it. Among that party’s abstainers was Niagara Centre MPP Peter Kormos, who felt it should address compensation for farmers. “I believe in principle in the Greenbelt proposal,” Kormos noted. “But it’s naive to think we’re going to protect farmland if no farmer is interested in farming it.”
Photo from the March 1, 2005, issue of the Globe Mail showing McGuinty celebrating the release of the final Greenbelt map.
The revised map was unveiled to the public at a press conference at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg on February 28. Environmentalists were pleased that another 34 square kilometres of land had been added in Hamilton, Vaughan, and Waterloo Region to protect headwater areas. Around two dozen farmers protested at the event, despite McGuinty’s declaration that “the real issue of viability of farming in Ontario today is not going to be addressed by paving over thousands of acres of farmland.” However, he continued to insist that the farmers would not be compensated. In total, 1.8 million acres of farmland would be protected.
There was little time to celebrate. Almost immediately, press reports surfaced that the government had failed to disclose a May 2004 Liberal fundraising dinner held at the home of Minister of Finance Greg Sorbara’s brother.
Enter Silvio De Gasperis, a Vaughan-based developer and founder of TACC Developments. Though he had fundraised for the Liberals, he had also testified for the industry earlier in the year about its concerns over the Greenbelt. He owned several properties in Pickering that were slated to be protected as part of the Duffins-Rouge Agricultural Preserve and had long lobbied to be exempt from Greenbelt regulations. With the Greenbelt Act now reality, De Gasperis released a letter addressed to McGuinty in which he complained that, while the government had promised to let MacIsaac’s task force settle the boundaries, the premier’s office had drawn them up.
Agenda segment, January 7, 2021: The Greenbelt controversy
Over the next two weeks, the PCs attempted to build a scandal. Runciman attacked the government daily. On May 7, De Gasperis released a letter from himself to Gerretsen in which he thanked the minister for a meeting in May 2004 and for exempting land he owned in Vaughan from the initial boundaries. During that day’s question period, Gerretsen, who had initially claimed to have never met with any developers, admitted he had chatted with De Gasperis for half an hour, although he said they had discussed De Gasperis’s Pickering lands.
McGuinty responded that De Gasperis has unsuccessfully lobbied legislators for years to be exempted from the Greenbelt. “There’s no secret Mr. De Gasperis is unhappy and will remain very, very unhappy,” McGuinty told reporters. McGuinty also clarified that, while the task force had made broad boundary recommendations, the government had set the final ones. De Gasperis, for his part, claimed he would potentially lose up to $240 million in revenue on land that was about to become part of the Greenbelt.
The winter session ended on March 9 with Runciman demanding the resignations of Gerretsen and Sorbara. Outside the legislature, around 500 farmers held their second protest in two weeks regarding various rural issues, including the Greenbelt. But the protests had zero effect, and both cabinet ministers kept their jobs.
Agenda segment, November 9, 2022: Weighing in on Doug Ford’s new housing plan
De Gasperis eventually launched legal challenges against the province over his Pickering lands, claiming they were less environmentally sensitive than nearby property that was open for development. He lost his case in 2007 and was ordered to pay the province over $700,000 in legal costs. The Superior Court judges ruled the case was "a vexatious and egregious example of abuse of the process.” The De Gasperis family remains involved in Greenbelt-related land issues. A recent investigation by The Narwhal and the Toronto Star “located 24 properties in the preserve owned by companies listing Silvio De Gasperis as a director. Purchased mostly in 2003 — with one lot added in 2004 and two in 2016 — for a combined $8.6 million, the lands add up to more than 1,300 acres. All are slated to be removed from the Greenbelt.”
In its first annual report, issued in 2006, the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation summed up the hopes that the Greenbelt’s supporters had for its future. “We have a chance to realize a new vision for ourselves,” foundation chair Sandy Houston observed. “To imagine how a highly urban region can sustain a successful agricultural sector, maintain vibrant rural communities, and preserve our beautiful landscape. We have an opportunity to strengthen and redefine the relationship between our urban centres and rural communities, between city dwellers and natural areas, which if achieved will augment the quality of life for all of us.”
Sources: Friends of the Greenbelt Annual Report 2005-2006; the March 1, 2005, edition of the Brantford Expositor; the March 1, 2005, March 2, 2005, March 3, 2005, March 8, 2005, March 9, 2005, and March 10, 2005, editions of the Globe and Mail; the February 1, 2005, edition of the Guelph Mercury; the January 26, 2005, edition of the National Post; the February 7, 2005, and March 11, 2005, editions of the Ottawa Citizen; the January 12, 2005, February 3, 2005, and March 10, 2005, editions of the Owen Sound Sun-Times; and the December 17, 2003, December 20, 2003, January 26, 2005, February 7, 2005, February 19, 2005, February 25, 2005, and September 28, 2007, editions of the Toronto Star.
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