Ontario Premier Doug Ford has backed down and removed a controversial section of Bill 66, a section that threatened to allow development on protected farmland and environmentally-sensitive areas.
Gone is the provision for municipalities to pass bylaws enabling them to ignore the restrictions on development.
Critics drew most attention to the Green Belt around Toronto and the Niagara Peninsula, a 7,20-square-kilometre area set aside by provincial legislation in 2005.
Among those opposing Bill 66 were the Waterloo Region and Cambridge.
Mark Reusser, vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, was one of the organization leaders to lobby the Waterloo Region to oppose the Bill 66 provisions that risked development on farmland.
