June 6, 2005
Statement to the Legislature: Places to Grow Act (Bill 136) - Third Reading
by David Caplan, Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal
PLACES TO GROW ACT, 2005
Mr. Caplan moved third reading of the following bill:
Bill 136, An Act respecting the establishment of growth plan areas and growth plans
Hon. David Caplan (Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal):
I'm indeed very pleased to speak in support of Bill 136, the proposed Places to Grow Act, having now been called for third reading debate. This legislation would allow us, for the first time in Ontario's history, to make rational, balanced decisions about the way we grow in the future, decisions that would strengthen our economy, decisions that would support strong communities, decisions that promote a healthy and sustainable environment.
Speaker, as you and of course all members, are aware, the proposed Places to Grow Act is enabling legislation. If it does receive the approval of this Legislature, it would allow the government to designate specific geographic areas of Ontario as growth plan areas. Within those areas, we would work with local communities, with all of our stakeholders, to develop appropriate growth plans. Those plans would then be used to focus and guide the region's future development.
I must tell you that Ontario municipalities and our associated stakeholders right across the region and the province have been calling for provincial leadership and growth planning for a long time. In fact, many communities have already undertaken their own growth planning and growth management initiatives. While other governments were not prepared or able to respond to the call, the McGuinty government is determined to make Ontario a leader in this area.
Ontario is expected to dramatically grow over the course of the next 25 years. Between now and 2031, our population is projected to increase by more than four million people. Whether that's through natural migratory patterns or birth rates, most of those new people will reside in this area that we call the greater Golden Horseshoe. This part of the province is already experiencing some incredibly significant growth pressures, and we see the results of some of that. Certainly we see large urban communities and jobs created, but we also see gridlock, urban sprawl and declining air quality. To help reduce some of those pressures and to maximize the potential benefits of growth, we need to begin planning more effectively for the growth that will be taking place over the course of the next several decades.
I know that all members would be interested, because we need to stimulate even more growth in northern, eastern and southwestern Ontario. Clearly we need a more flexible and sustainable approach to managing growth that can indeed help us better meet our challenges in every part of the province in order that we have vibrant, revitalized cities and towns.
Back to the greater Golden Horseshoe: We're taking a number of measures to manage growth. We've put in place -- carried forward through this Legislature by my colleague Mr. John Gerretsen, the Minister of Municipal Affairs -- an historic greenbelt plan that protects some 1.8 million acres of valuable farmland and green space right around the greater Golden Horseshoe from urban encroachment. With this plan, we are making it clear where we do not want urban growth to take place. The corollary is Bill 136, the Places to Grow Act, where we would be able to make it equally clear where and how we do want future growth to occur in this area of the province.
The proposed Places to Grow Act is a key piece of our strategy for managing future growth. The growth planning process proposed under this act would encourage broader, more comprehensive planning that links land use planning decisions to future infrastructure needs, and that, of course, is the key to the whole thing. It would give us a new mechanism to deal effectively with those broader planning issues that often transcend both the boundaries and the interests of municipalities. Above all, the proposed Places to Grow Act would ensure that our choices about the future are guided by a long-term vision of the kind of strong, healthy communities that Ontarians have told us they want to see.
I've said before, and I'll say again, that this is groundbreaking legislation. Nothing like this has been attempted in Ontario before. It is a radical departure from past practice. We have received widespread praise from key municipal and environmental stakeholders as well as from leading members of Ontario's business community. I want to take the opportunity to share some of those remarks and some of that praise with members of the assembly today.
Toronto Mayor David Miller wrote to us, on behalf of the council of the city of Toronto, "to reiterate Toronto's support for the development of a growth plan for the greater Golden Horseshoe ... and in particular, to express our support for the introduction of its enabling legislation, Bill 136."
We heard from Conservation Ontario, the organization that represents Ontario's 36 conservation authorities, who told us, "We are pleased to see such a progressive piece of legislation enabling the province to plan in a balanced manner." The proposed act was also praised by the Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society, or PALS, who wrote, "Bill 136 will represent a major milestone toward strong land use planning in Ontario."
Members of this assembly are aware that I released a draft growth plan for the greater Golden Horseshoe earlier this year. This would be the first area for which a growth plan would be developed under the proposed new act. The draft plan is ambitious and outlines three broad strategies. But before I get to those, I want to acknowledge here and now, as I have previously, that this growth plan was not a creation simply of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure Renewal or even a creation of the McGuinty government. Many hands have gone into it, including the former government with the leadership of former minister Chris Hodgson and the government previous to that, through some of the work done by Anne Golden; work done by foundations such as Neptis; work done by academics; and work done way back by the Toronto centre region and previous governments in helping to shape some of the ideas and concepts that are a part of this plan. This draft plan, of which I am so proud, has been the creation of so many different individuals, both within this Legislature and without. It encourages better use of our urban areas by encouraging growth to go where it can best be accommodated, keeping it away from lands that provide our food, our water and our recreation.
Second, the draft plan promotes a broader range of housing choices and employment opportunities. In fact, we also talk about the third element: It supports the maximization of infrastructure investments that support the growth plan, to provide better public transit, faster movement of goods, and clean, safe drinking water. In the greater Golden Horseshoe, this new approach will create more compact and complete communities, a different urban form, the kind of places that offer people more opportunities for work, shopping and recreation, and better access to the services that they demand close to where they live.
Perhaps just as importantly, this approach offers tremendous new economic advantages and business opportunities for Ontario. There are numerous studies that demonstrate that the kind of low-density urban development that leads to urban sprawl increases the costs of our infrastructure and thus reduces the effectiveness of our capital spending. Sprawling development forces workers to commute longer distances on our already clogged highways, which creates tremendous stress and leads to lower productivity. As well, the extra time that delivery trucks spend stuck in gridlock represents an added cost to business and thus an added cost to us all, because we are all consumers. This acts as a drag on our economy.
According to the Toronto Board of Trade, gridlock in the greater Toronto area represents a $2-billion annual loss to the local economy. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce says that delays at our borders are costing the provincial economy some $5 billion per year. According to the Urban Land Institute in the United States, low-density housing costs far more to service -- of course, that makes intuitive sense -- which means that residents in more densely populated communities end up subsidizing the additional miles of pipes and highways that would be required to support these new communities.
Poorly managed growth and urban sprawl also come at a high cost to our public health system. This year alone we have received studies from the Heart and Stroke Foundation and from the Ontario College of Family Physicians that clearly demonstrate the health advantages of compact communities. These studies tell us that people living in car-dependent communities miss out on natural opportunities for physical activity. Moreover, they are prone to health problems, such as obesity and heart disease. Our children, in particular, are at much greater risk.
We need to promote the benefits of creating more exciting, more diverse and more compact communities. For those reasons alone it's well worth doing, but taxpayers can also save money through better growth planning by redirecting money from infrastructure that supports and indeed encourages urban sprawl, toward spending on priority areas that Ontarians have told us about, that Finance Minister Sorbara outlined in the recent budget, such as hospitals, schools and colleges and universities.
To remain competitive, Ontario always has to keep an eye on the major trends south of the border and abroad. Our major competitors, the large urban zones in the United States, are way ahead of us in recognizing that growth planning creates attractive and dynamic communities that people want and will flock to.
The proposed Places to Grow Act is designed to help us achieve these goals. Based on the support that we've received from stakeholders, the design of the legislation is sound. This bill, Bill 136, was praised by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, which commended the government on its plan to develop a comprehensive strategy to accommodate growth in the greater Golden Horseshoe area.
We've also received strong support from the Greater Toronto Homebuilders' Association, who wrote to us to tell us, "We applaud the fact that the Ministry of Public Infrastructure Renewal has taken this initiative, and are committed to its success."
Last week, I had the honour to release Ontario's new five-year infrastructure investment plan, a plan that calls for more than $30 billion in infrastructure investments by the province and its partners. This includes at least $7.5 billion that's earmarked for the greater Golden Horseshoe, and that does not include elementary and secondary education.
But we will not succeed simply by throwing money at our major challenges; we need to plan our future. We need to plan our future growth better, and we need to spend the public's money more intelligently, to make sure that we are building the right facilities in the right places and, most importantly, at the right time.
When we invest in infrastructure, we are investing in our communities. We need to ensure that those investments are helping us to build the kind of society that Ontarians have said they want. The government's community infrastructure investments are important instruments of social change, because by building stronger communities we're able to achieve the social goals that the people of Ontario support.
Over the next few years, communities right across the province will continue to make thousands of individual decisions about land use and development and about economic development activity. Those decisions are permanent. Once the land is paved over, once the houses are built, there's no going back, and our children and our grandchildren will have to live with the consequences.
To that end, if the proposed Places to Grow Act becomes law, it will enable us to develop growth plans that represent our last -- indeed, maybe even our best -- chance to transform Ontario into an even better place to grow, a place that offers better choices, a place that offers a brighter future for us all. These are worthy goals. They're worthy of this Legislature and of our collective work. I'm confident that Bill 136, the Places to Grow Act, will enable us to achieve them.
