February 10, 2006
Remarks to the Liveable Peel Conference
by David Caplan, Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal
Check Against Delivery,
Thank you Emil (Kolb, Regional Chair) for that kind introduction.
I am delighted to be here at the Liveable Peel Conference with so many of the people who will help shape the future of this dynamic region.
All of you, in your special ways are party to a series of exciting changes taking place in our province.
Over the next generation, the area we call the Greater Golden Horseshoe…which spans the area around Lake Ontario from Peterborough, to Barrie, to Niagara…is expected to grow by 3.7 million new people.
And many of them will settle here in Peel, located in the very heart of the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
Peel has already experienced phenomenal growth over the past few decadesliterally transforming itself from a sleepy farming community into a vibrant region that is now the second largest municipality in the province.
Many of you, myself included, have witnessed this astounding growth with awe and lately with some concern.
In particular…poor air quality…traffic congestion…loss of green space and agricultural lands…and the challenge of keeping up with the necessary infrastructure investments.
With growth comes opportunity, but also costs.
Our challenge is very simple: maximize our opportunities and reduce our costs.
As this region continues to grow from one million residents to an expected 1.6 million over the next generation, the opportunities are enormous…
But so are the concerns…more traffic congestion…longer commutes to and from work…limited public transit…and communities where every adult must use a car…for every interaction outside the home.
All of this leads to environmental degradation, loss of agricultural land and open space and worst of all serious damage to human health.
There’s no question we have to change. The question is not if we will change. It is how.
I have no doubt that Peel will more than meet the challenge.
Already, Peel is working ambitiously towards intensifying its downtown coresprotecting rural and agricultural landsproviding community and social servicesand investing in the critical infrastructure that will make Peel not only liveable, but enviable.
There is clearly a bright future ahead for Peel, but your task and mine is to aspire to even greater heights.
Peel’s vision is one that is shared by the McGuinty government: strong communities, a clean and healthy environment, a prosperous economy and an outstanding quality of life.
To aspire to anything less would be a disservice to our future generations.
But a vision is nothing more than a chimera without the will and, of course, the tools and resources to make it real.
One of the most critical steps towards realizing a liveable Peel and a liveable Greater Golden Horseshoe was taken with the recent establishment of the Greenbelt…
…A 1.8 million acre swath of environmentally sensitive lands protected from development
…Or, as I prefer to describe it, a proud legacy we will leave to our children.
In its most simple terms, the Greenbelt outlines where we cannot grow.
The unanswered corollary then is where and more importantly how we should grow.
That question was answered in June with the passage of the Places to Grow Act…
a piece of legislation that I had the enormous honour and privilege of ushering through the legislative process.
This legislation enables the government to designate growth areas in Ontario and develop long-term plans that outline how and where these areas should grow.
The importance of the growth planning initiative undertaken by the Ontario Growth Secretariat of my ministry can’t be understated.
It puts the province back in the regional planning business, which is something that stakeholders and citizens – including many of the people in this room – have been requesting for years…
…because it’s precisely the lack of a coordinated region-wide vision for growth.that has been a key contributor to urban sprawl.
Our initial focus is a growth plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe…one of the fastest growing regions in North America.
We released the proposed growth plan this past November.
This is something many of you already know since some of the most constructive consultations on the plan have taken place here in Peel.
Your expertise has been critical to the development of the plan…and your comments and feedback have helped make it better.
We are now in the final stages of completing the plan and are looking forward to releasing it later this Spring.
The growth plan is one instrument for shaping the kind of development we want in this region.
Strategic infrastructure investments are another…
Throughout our extensive consultations, we heard consistently and universally that a plan was only as good as its implementation.
Others put it a bit more bluntly…Show me the money.
We listened and we are responding.
That’s why in May this past year I released ReNew Ontario, the McGuinty government’s 5-year infrastructure investment plan.
ReNew Ontario will see more than $30 billion invested in the province’s critical infrastructure$11 billion for public transit, highways and borders $10 billion for schools, colleges and universities…and $5 billion for hospitals.
$7.5 billion alone is earmarked for the Greater Golden Horseshoe
…And, in Peel, we have committed over $750 million to more than 50 projects. They range from dozens of schools to highways to hospitals.
Public transit is especially crucial to limiting sprawl, reducing our dependency on cars and building compact communities.
Our economic prosperity is tied to our ability to move people efficiently to work, school or play.
Across the Greater Golden Horseshoe, we are making the largest investment in public transit in a decade$4.1 billion over the next five years…including GO Transit and high occupancy vehicle lanes on provincial highways.
An immediate government priority is to establish a seamless ticketing system across the GTA
…a new integrated fare card will be introduced in early 2007. We expect it to be fully implemented by 2010.
And there’s more to come.
Soon my colleague Harinder Takhar, the Minister of Transportation, who has been a champion of Peel at the cabinet table, will be making an important announcement on the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority.
It will have a major impact on this region and I expect his announcement will literally knock your socks off.
Modern, efficient infrastructure is absolutely essential for a modern, liveable society.
It is the prerequisite for economic success…and for the quality of life we want
for ourselves and our children.
Turning our ambitious plans into reality is a collective effort…one that requires creative and innovative thinking…and one that is based on the spirit of cooperation…involving municipal partners, stakeholders and ministries across the breadth of provincial government.
My colleague John Gerretsen, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, is hard at work on reforming the Planning Act and the Ontario Municipal Board.
Those proposals, if passed, would provide clear rules and a more transparent process for the public, local councils and others involved in planning our communities.
And Dwight Duncan, the Minister of Finance, is spearheading the Brownfields Financial Tax Incentive Program…which will allow municipalities to provide property tax assistance for landowners as an incentive to clean up derelict lands.
Less brownfields means more green fields. It’s as simple as that.
Another cabinet colleague Laurel Broten, the Minister of the Environment, is working to streamline the environmental assessment process for waste management facilities, transit and transportation projects, and clean energy facilities.
Each individual initiative is contributing to realizing our collective vision of stronger…more vibrant communities.
We have ambitious plans. But there is no shortage of new tools to help implement them.
From planning and policy to steel and concrete…this is the fun part…where shovels go into the ground and new facilities are built.
It is also the expensive part.
But big investments will produce big results…the results people say are most important to them…better health…better education…and greater prosperity.
Financing those investments will require tapping alternative pools of capital, managing infrastructure projects better and leveraging the expertise and experience of the private sector.
In other words…developing innovative and creative ways of planning, financing and building infrastructure.
Within my own Ministry, the Ontario Strategic Infrastructure Financing Authority provides low cost, long-term loans to municipalities to build infrastructure.
To date, OSIFA has committed to provide $2.2 billion in loans for more than 1,100 local infrastructure projects.
And in November, we launched Infrastructure Ontario.
Arms-length from the government, this crown agency will oversee the delivery of some of the province’s most complex and large-scale infrastructure projects…including the redevelopment of the Mississauga Trillium and Mississauga Credit Valley Hospitals.
Comprehensive…coordinated…coherent...
these are the main elements in our strategy to create the future we all want to see…a future that includes strong communities and a healthy environment.
Growth planning on the scale I’ve been talking about is relatively new around the world…and unprecedented in Ontario.
We may be late into the game…but we are positioning ourselves to be in the forefront of the field.
And Peel is a leader in long-term growth planning at the local level, as this conference exemplifies.
We are counting on you to help build the kind of Ontario we want to live in. Not just a liveable province, but a wonderful one.
Ladies and gentlemen, the future can be shaped by accident or by design.
I know you will agree with me when I say that what we have now is too precious to leave to chance.
We owe it to ourselves and to our children to ensure Ontario remains the most envied jurisdiction in the world.
And to do that, we need to continue working together to realize our shared vision.
The McGuinty government is committed to creating the kind of communities Ontarians want and protecting the environment we all need.
Strong, healthy, prosperous communities are carefully planned to respond to all the needs of a growing population and economy…carefully planned to ensure a quality of life second to none in this world.
Like you, we want Peel to fully realize the enormous opportunity that awaits it through well-planned growth.
I’d like to thank you for your attention and especially thank you for your commitment to creating a liveable Peel.
I wish you all an exciting and invigorating conference.
