I firmly believe that The Ottawa Greenbelt was a very flawed and short-sighted vision. In its current form it is doing much greater harm to our environment than it is being of any help. It was created to provide a buffer zone of natural landscape between the city of Ottawa and the surrounding countryside. Just as all urban greenbelts around the world are intended to do. But it was much too small to surround a growing metropolis. Compare this greenbelt to The Ontario Greenbelt that surrounds Toronto and you will see a massive difference in their respective scope and vision. The Ontario Greenbelt is recognized and praised for being a proper and successful belt. Ours is seen as a failure. Read this Globe and Mail article about it here.

Kanata was already starting to be developed by Bill Teron in the west end while our greenbelt was being assembled sixty years ago. It was doomed from the start. And now that our suburbs outside of the greenbelt are continuing to grow farther and farther away from the city core, it has created unnecessary vast urban sprawl. This sprawl should have been contained by the greenbelt, but it has done just the opposite.

I am glad that it has helped preserve many wonderful natural areas inside the greenbelt, such as Mer Bleue in the east end and Stony Swamp in the west end, as well as the many recreational paths through it's forested areas that I have enjoyed biking and hiking on for decades. These areas will always be protected from any development. It is the large-scale farming operations that I object to. This is not their natural state. These farms were mostly pristine forests and meadows only two hundred years ago. And if they were still pristine forests, I would be thrilled to have them always protected.

I think that it is ludicrous that they are growing large quantities of corn inside this greenbelt that obviously is mostly sent out to the countryside to feed cattle. These cattle all live out in the countryside, where large farms are meant to be.

The National Capital Commission, or NCC, that is the federal agency that controls this land, has made various weak excuses to justify these large farms. They once claimed their main purpose was "to remind us where food comes from". I expressed my outrage over this ridiculous excuse at one of their public consultations during their last Master Plan Review. They actually paid some attention to me as they quickly changed it on their website at the time to say the new sole purpose for the existence of these farms was to provide us public with a good example of "urban agriculture". They were wrong again since it is obviously an example of rural agriculture within an urban setting. They have now adjusted that dumb excuse on their website with, it is an "example of how to practise viable and diverse agriculture in a near-urban setting". Change "practise" to "unnecessarily force" and I will finally agree with them.

Ottawa is already the world leader in medium sized cities having a rural type of farm in an urban setting with our Central Experimental Farm. This farm has nothing to do with the greenbelt and I am in favour of maintaining most of it, though some changes could be had. Though the thought that 600 trees must be cut down inside of it soon to make space for the new Civic Hospital is outrageous.They should have designed the upcoming new hospital to extend from the old one over Carling Avenue and onto the central farm. There is no reason the new hospital can't be attached to the old one and much of it actually on top of the wide Carling Avenue. This would have made much more sense and would have required much less space on the Farm and not a single large tree cut down. But our politicians seem to be allergic to good sense.

My Greenbelt Video

This video is eight years old but only out of date in a couple of ways. Filomena Tassi is the current Federal Cabinet Minister in charge of The NCC, not Melanie Joly. And there has been much more housing development far outside of the greenbelt, obviously.