FAILURE OF LAND USE PLANNING IN ONTARIO

For the past 150 years, the province of Ontario has been the primary driver of Canada’s collective wealth. However, since the early 1990’s, with the passing of five Acts in quick succession, an unacknowledged shift began. Through these and subsequent Acts, Ontario’s resource and land-use ministries have placed increasing importance on “sustainability,” an ill-defined term with, as this paper will show, few metrics. As the policies introduced by the Acts took hold, accompanying legislation, meant to further improve environmental conditions (Appendix VII), was passed. Once the attendant regulations and rule-making were in place, the province began to experience a steady economic decline, first in its rural regions, and now, it can be argued, in its cities.