Yes. I’m not going to sing today.

The Minister of the Environment went on to say, “Such projects as highways, railways and transmission lines ... are going to be subject to streamlined assessments. These will allow us to focus our resources on projects that have a greater potential for environmental impact.”

Honestly, when I hear this, I think, “What could have greater environmental impact than a highway through the greenbelt?” But apparently, according to this government, this is a low-risk project. We can streamline. We can water down the environmental protections to make this happen. Again, I would remind you that this government keeps talking about spending $98 billion on highways and infrastructure. At the same time, they are dismantling any protections for the environment. So I don’t take anything that this Minister of the Environment says at face value, and I don’t think the people of the province of Ontario do anymore at all.

As I said, not only does this schedule continue its assault on environmental protections in the province; it makes it easier, it’s designed to prevent landowners who aren’t in on the Highway 413 scheme—you know, those people, private landowners that aren’t developers and connected donors of the Premier. It’s designed to prevent them from legally challenging the seizure of this land. We know the government is moving quickly to destroy habitats, waterways, I guess Indigenous sites also, but this bill very specifically targets individual landowners along that route. So, what I want to focus on is who would be some of those landowners connected to the loss of farmland in this province?

The people that are most upset and concerned about this schedule are farmers—farmers that farm on the greenbelt, that are along the proposed route of the 413. They know what’s up. They can see the writing on the wall. This government is getting ready to seize their farms, to pave, to build a highway, to perhaps have an ONroute, to put a Walmart or a Staples on land that used to grow vegetables in the province of Ontario. Farmers know what the score is.

There was an Ontario farmer that says “he fears he could lose his family farm if the Doug Ford government goes forward with the proposal to build Highway 413, which would cut through ... a quarter of his land.”

He’s saying that it doesn’t “sound like a huge amount to a lot of people. It’s only 25%, but a lot of the margins for grain growing are really slim.” The 25% he’s prepared to lose will make it impossible for him to grow because it will bisect his property.

Farmers are now fighting back. They have an ad campaign that says, “Farmers against the 413.”

They advocate that “the money earmarked for the highway”—this billions of dollars—“could instead be used to preserve farmland, adopt climate change strategies, and improve rail and public transportation.”

Well, there’s an idea. Rather than pave over our food source, rather than ruin our environment and spend billions to do it, why wouldn’t you use that money to come up with climate change strategy or improve public transportation? There’s an idea.

The David Suzuki Foundation’s Gideon Forman said, “The research we’ve looked at suggests that thousands of acres of prime ... farmland will be paved by this highway.” That estimate is growing.

I think that it’s really important to know that, given the information and the research that’s coming out, these farmers believe that there’s absolutely no good reason for Highway 413 to go forward. It’s a bankrupt notion. It continues to be debunked. It doesn’t save the time in travel that they purport. They talk about a single mom who can get home faster to their family, but I put it to you that that single mom is going to have to be working longer hours to pay her taxes that are going to be the financial impact of this boondoggle that this government is putting forward. So don’t pretend to me that you’re on the side of a single mom trying to get home to her family when none of your policies have shown that that’s anything that’s in your plans or that is in your realm of concern.

I also want to say that I had the pleasure of meeting with farmers in my riding, the Loewith family. They have a farm called the Summit Station Dairy farm. They really spent time with me to explain how important it is not only to protect farmland but to understand that if you bisect farm land, if you make it impossible for large farm equipment to move around, you really are reducing their ability to have productive land.

If you’re ever in the neighbourhood, I highly suggest you visit Summit Station Dairy. They’ve been in business for 75 years. In 1947, Joe Loewith purchased 100 acres, and it was known as “Summit” because it was the highest point along the railway line between the cities of Brantford and Hamilton. They started with 15 cows, and now they have a fully fledged operation, and they, since then, have spent much money in a streamlined and modernized operation.

They also have a really, really lovely storefront where you can buy milk right off the farm. They have strawberry milk, chocolate milk. They’re working on a coffee-flavoured milk. This is the kind of product and this is the kind of thing that we should be proud of, this kind of homegrown, generational family farm that this government is putting at significant risk to build a highway that benefits simply their friends.

While we’ll talk more about highways when we get to the notion of taking tolls or taking phantom tolls off phantom highways, I think we just need to understand that this government will move heaven and earth to get things out of the way. We hear the Minister of Housing say, “We’re going to get all the obstacles out of the way to build housing. Nothing’s going to stop us.” And this bill, this actual schedule in this bill, says yes, nothing’s going to stop them: not farmers who want to preserve their land, not expropriations of land when people don’t want to sell it, not loss of farmland. And I’m here to say what’s also not going to stop them is, again, the environment.

I just want to talk a little bit about a fish, a minnow, because it’s sort of—

Interjection.

This fish, even though it’s little, plays a significant role in the ecosystem. They are very sensitive to changes in environment like those wrought by the climate crisis or urban development. For that reason, they’re seen as indicators of larger problems in a watershed. If they start dying, it’s a sign that other species might soon be in trouble, too.

The Ontario government’s last assessment of the species in 2020 concluded it was at imminent risk of being wiped out in the province. That wasn’t good enough. The government now has taken the time to remove this little fish from the Species at Risk Act because, again, they do not want anything to get in their way of building this Highway 413. In fact, I would say that if they could actually expropriate this little fish’s waterways, they would do that. But instead, what they’re going to do is make sure that it is not protected so that they do not have to take that into consideration when they bulldoze, pave and otherwise destroy the habitat of this little fish. And that’s just one little fish. There are so many species at risk along that route.

It’s shameful to preside in a Legislature where the government will allow our species at risk to die off; that, by their actions, we will see more of the things that we cherish when it comes to our biodiversity and natural spaces—the government doesn’t care. They truly don’t care.