“DOING DEMOCRACY” LEADS TO ANOTHER VICTORY!!

ALLIANCE FOR A LIVEABLE ONTARIO

What a week!

On Monday morning, we won another important battle against urban sprawl and took another step towards building a liveable Ontario!

Paul Calandra, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, announced the government will reverse its decision to force municipalities to expand their boundaries. This forced “urban boundary expansion” needlessly exposed thousands of hectares of precious farmland and wilderness area to sprawl development.

ALO and many other groups have been ringing the alarm bells since the forced expansion was announced:

In February, we released a report showing more than enough land is already set aside to build all the housing we need, making it clear that forced urban boundary expansion had nothing to do with solving the housing crisis.
In August, we asked the Auditor General and Integrity Commissioner to investigate the urban boundary expansions since they may have been the result of indefensible processes similar to those identified with the Greenbelt land removal.
Throughout 2023, ALO member groups and Ontarians have been engaging the public and demanding MPPs reverse this terrible policy.
Why the reversal? The Minister claims he reviewed the process of how the decisions were made to force municipalities to expand their boundaries and didn’t like what he found. But this review only happened because of public and media pressure.

ALLIANCE FOR A LIVEABLE ONTARIO MEETING HIGHLIGHTS:
BUILD A LIVEABLE ONTARIO BY “DOING DEMOCRACY”!

Last Thursday, over 110 ALO members gathered virtually to celebrate the Greenbelt victory and discuss next steps.The evening began with inspiring presentations by David Crombie, Margaret Prophet and Tim Gray about why we won the Greenbelt battle and what’s next.

A key takeaway was that we engaged in democratic actions that inspired people to work together. In other words, we “did democracy.”

Next Steps you can take:

Work with local groups opposing bad land use planning policies
Invite ALO to a local meeting that brings together local unusual stakeholders to discuss working together
Tell others/your members about ALO

Following a great Q&A, the conversation turned to the next steps for the ALO and what you can do right now.

INVITE US TO YOUR COMMUNITY!

LEARN MORE HERE

We want to help you talk to people you usually don’t talk to, connect with stakeholders and networks you usually don’t connect with and inspire people to act.

If you’re interested in bringing together unusual stakeholder groups and discussing how to build a liveable community, we want to help.

Contact us at info@liveableontario.ca.
Thank you for reading this.
Our bottom line: helping build liveable communities and stopping the destructive policies that bring us urban sprawl and worsen the housing crisis.

Thank you.

Franz Hartmann, Coordinator

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