Bill 39 Undermines Public Interest

The Ontario Farmland Trust (OFT) is calling for an independent appraisal be conducted to determine the value of the public interest within the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve.

This comes in response to Bill 39, the Better Municipal Governance Act, 2022, which proposes to repeal of the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act. If the Ontario government proceeds with Bill 39, it would negatively impact some of Ontario’s best farmland, cutting away at one of the most important sectors of the economy.

The Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve includes about 4,700 acres of prime agricultural lands in north Pickering. Pickering’s City Council also opposed Bill 39 and voted unanimously against the Province’s proposal to repeal the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve Act.

“We should be concerned about how repealing this act is going to affect Ontario’s resiliency in the very near future,” Martin Straathof, OFT Executive Director said. “We need to see the government protecting the public interest in these lands.”