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Farmers pressure Doug Ford government to reverse course on housing plan

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Under pressure from farmers, Premier Doug Ford’s government is considering backing off from proposals that would allow more housing to be built on Ontario’s dwindling farmland, CBC News has learned.

Leaders of a range of farming and agricultural groups met with senior government officials last week to raise their concerns about proposed changes to provincial land-use policy that Ford and his ministers have said will spur new home construction.

The contentious proposals are part of the government’s overhaul of Ontario’s land-use guidelines, floated last month by Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark. At the time, Clark called his plan “housing-focused” and said it would create more homes in both urban and rural communities.

On Monday, Clark told the Ontario Federation of Agriculture in a letter obtained by CBC News that he “clearly heard the concerns” and promised “to look at alternatives” to the changes he’d proposed.

Farmers say the proposals as they currently stand have the potential to lead to hundreds of thousands of homes on prime farmland.

Turkey farmer Mark Reusser stands in front of one of his barns.
Mark Reusser is a turkey farmer in the township of Wilmot, southwest of Kitchener. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

“That is an awful lot of urban people moving to the countryside and having to deal with the issues of farming that they’re not used to,” said Mark Reusser, a turkey farmer in Wilmot Township, less than a 10-minute drive from the western edge of Kitchener.

Reusser says farmers are concerned that putting more homes on and adjacent to farms would lead to conflict with new non-farming residents over the odour, dust and noise that comes with raising livestock or growing crops.

“Agriculture works better when it is somewhat distanced from people, especially people who are from an urban setting originally and who are not used to those things,” Reusser said in an interview on his farm.

“We’re also concerned that (building housing) is probably not the best use of farmland,” he said. “It will never be farmland again once there’s a house on it.”

Concerns homes won’t stay in farming families

The most contentious change would allow the owners of agricultural land to carve out up to three housing lots on each farm parcel, a policy known as severance.

Ford and Clark indicated their intent is to make it easier for farmers to build homes for their adult children on their land.

Steve Clark, Ontario's Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing speaks in the Legislature on May 18, 2023.
Steve Clark, Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing speaks in the Legislature on May 18, 2023. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

“The number one complaint that I get when I go to the farms is, ‘I want my kids to stay on the farm,’ and there are certain jurisdictions that won’t allow you to build an additional residence,” Ford told the legislature on Monday.

“It has never been our intention for severed lots to be transferred or sold to non-family/farm owners,” Clark said in his letter Monday. “Any ambiguity regarding our intentions will be clarified, eliminated and resolved.”

People in the agriculture sector say the trouble with the policy as proposed is there’s no way to ensure such homes stay in the farming family. They also say it would have the ripple effects of pushing up the market value of farmland, enticing more farmers to sell off housing lots to profit and shrinking the amount of land available for agriculture.

“I don’t think it’s a really smart plan,” said Zac Cohoon, who grows corn, soybean and wheat on his family farm near Port Perry in Durham Region.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me – when we have urban centres that are well serviced, that can handle public transit, sewage disposal and water – to move [housing] into a rural area,” Cohoon said in an interview.

Cohoon says current planning policies are already “destroying some of the best farmland in Ontario and Canada for housing.”

Putting more homes in agricultural areas would put pressure on farm ecology because of new wells and septic systems, he says.

A field of hay in the foreground with a newly-planted field in the background on a sunny clear-sky day.
The reforms to Ontario’s land-use policy coming from Premier Doug Ford’s government would allow the owners of agricultural land to sever three lots from each parcel of their farmland for housing. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Quarter of Ontario’s farmland could be gone in 25 years

Ontario lost more than 580,000 acres of farmland in the five year period from 2016 to 2021, according to Statistics Canada. If that pace continues, 25 per cent of the province’s existing farmland will be gone in 25 years.

Cohoon says a far better solution is to put housing on marginal land near cities, closer to the services that can handle an increase in population.

“Moving into agricultural land with [housing] lots doesn’t solve the problem. All it does is spread it out,” he said.

The Ford government has set a target for 1.5 million new homes to be built in Ontario by 2032. The proposals that have drawn the ire of farmers are currently out for public feedback. On Monday, Clark said he will extend the consultation period, which was due to end next week, until early August.

The proposals prompted an uncommon show of unity from the major farming organizations in the province. The associations representing beef, chicken, dairy, egg, pork, sheep, turkey and veal producers joined with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario and the National Farmers Union in condemning the planned changes to land-use policy.

Farmer climbs up to the cab of his sprayer on a field of soybean.
Zac Cohoon climbs up to the cab of his sprayer on a field of soybean at his farm near Port Perry, Ont. (Mike Crawley/CBC)

“We do not support policies that will increase residential lot creation in prime agricultural areas or in rural areas that are actively farmed,” said their joint statement, issued on May 19.

“Ontario boasts some of Canada’s richest and most fertile farmland and these policy changes put the sustainability of that land and the food system it provides at great risk.”

While that statement came from the organizations representing farmers, individual farmers like Cohoon and Reusser wanted to speak out too.

“Farmers, like everyone, recognize that there’s a need to find places for people to live,” said Reusser. “It shouldn’t be on farmland, it should be somewhere else. The ability of a country to feed itself is incredibly important.”

Still, Reusser says he’s encouraged by the signs that the Ford government is willing to reconsider its plan.

“I’m looking forward to working with the government … and finding a way to accommodate a place for people to live and protect the business of agriculture at the same time,” he said. “I think that’s a doable thing.”

 

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Netflix’s subscriber growth slows as gains from password-sharing crackdown subside

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Netflix on Thursday reported that its subscriber growth slowed dramatically during the summer, a sign the huge gains from the video-streaming service’s crackdown on freeloading viewers is tapering off.

The 5.1 million subscribers that Netflix added during the July-September period represented a 42% decline from the total gained during the same time last year. Even so, the company’s revenue and profit rose at a faster pace than analysts had projected, according to FactSet Research.

Netflix ended September with 282.7 million worldwide subscribers — far more than any other streaming service.

The Los Gatos, California, company earned $2.36 billion, or $5.40 per share, a 41% increase from the same time last year. Revenue climbed 15% from a year ago to $9.82 billion. Netflix management predicted the company’s revenue will rise at the same 15% year-over-year pace during the October-December period, slightly than better than analysts have been expecting.

The strong financial performance in the past quarter coupled with the upbeat forecast eclipsed any worries about slowing subscriber growth. Netflix’s stock price surged nearly 4% in extended trading after the numbers came out, building upon a more than 40% increase in the company’s shares so far this year.

The past quarter’s subscriber gains were the lowest posted in any three-month period since the beginning of last year. That drop-off indicates Netflix is shifting to a new phase after reaping the benefits from a ban on the once-rampant practice of sharing account passwords that enabled an estimated 100 million people watch its popular service without paying for it.

The crackdown, triggered by a rare loss of subscribers coming out of the pandemic in 2022, helped Netflix add 57 million subscribers from June 2022 through this June — an average of more than 7 million per quarter, while many of its industry rivals have been struggling as households curbed their discretionary spending.

Netflix’s gains also were propelled by a low-priced version of its service that included commercials for the first time in its history. The company still is only getting a small fraction of its revenue from the 2-year-old advertising push, but Netflix is intensifying its focus on that segment of its business to help boost its profits.

In a letter to shareholder, Netflix reiterated previous cautionary notes about its expansion into advertising, though the low-priced option including commercials has become its fastest growing segment.

“We have much more work to do improving our offering for advertisers, which will be a priority over the next few years,” Netflix management wrote in the letter.

As part of its evolution, Netflix has been increasingly supplementing its lineup of scripted TV series and movies with live programming, such as a Labor Day spectacle featuring renowned glutton Joey Chestnut setting a world record for gorging on hot dogs in a showdown with his longtime nemesis Takeru Kobayashi.

Netflix will be trying to attract more viewer during the current quarter with a Nov. 15 fight pitting former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson against Jake Paul, a YouTube sensation turned boxer, and two National Football League games on Christmas Day.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Promise tracker: What the Saskatchewan Party and NDP pledge to do if they win Oct. 28

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REGINA – Saskatchewan’s provincial election is on Oct. 28. Here’s a look at some of the campaign promises made by the two major parties:

Saskatchewan Party

— Continue withholding federal carbon levy payments to Ottawa on natural gas until the end of 2025.

— Reduce personal income tax rates over four years; a family of four would save $3,400.

— Double the Active Families Benefit to $300 per child per year and the benefit for children with disabilities to $400 a year.

— Direct all school divisions to ban “biological boys” from girls’ change rooms in schools.

— Increase the First-Time Homebuyers Tax Credit to $15,000 from $10,000.

— Reintroduce the Home Renovation Tax Credit, allowing homeowners to claim up to $4,000 in renovation costs on their income taxes; seniors could claim up to $5,000.

— Extend coverage for insulin pumps and diabetes supplies to seniors and young adults

— Provide a 50 per cent refundable tax credit — up to $10,000 — to help cover the cost of a first fertility treatment.

— Hire 100 new municipal officers and 70 more officers with the Saskatchewan Marshals Service.

— Amend legislation to provide police with more authority to address intoxication, vandalism and disturbances on public property.

— Platform cost of $1.2 billion, with deficits in the first three years and a small surplus in 2027.

NDP

— Pause the 15-cent-a-litre gas tax for six months, saving an average family about $350.

— Remove the provincial sales tax from children’s clothes and ready-to-eat grocery items like rotisserie chickens and granola bars.

— Pass legislation to limit how often and how much landlords can raise rent.

— Repeal the law that requires parental consent when children under 16 want to change their names or pronouns at school.

— Launch a provincewide school nutrition program.

— Build more schools and reduce classroom sizes.

— Hire 800 front-line health-care workers in areas most in need.

— Launch an accountability commission to investigate cost overruns for government projects.

— Scrap the marshals service.

— Hire 100 Mounties and expand detox services.

— Platform cost of $3.5 billion, with small deficits in the first three years and a small surplus in the fourth year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct .17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Bad weather forecast for B.C. election day as record numbers vote in advance polls

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VANCOUVER – More than a million British Columbians have already cast their provincial election ballots, smashing the advance voting record ahead of what weather forecasters say will be a rain-drenched election day in much of B.C., with snow also predicted for the north.

Elections BC said Thursday that 1,001,331 people had cast ballots in six days of advance voting, easily breaking a record set during the pandemic election four years ago.

More than 28 per cent of all registered electors have voted, potentially putting the province on track for a big final turnout on Saturday.

“It reflects what I believe, which is this election is critically important for the future of our province,” New Democrat Leader David Eby said Thursday at a news conference in Vancouver. “I understand why British Columbians are out in numbers. We haven’t seen questions like this on the ballot in a generation.”

He said voters are faced with the choice of supporting his party’s plans to improve affordability, public health care and education, while the B.C. Conservatives, led by John Rustad, are proposing to cut services and are fielding candidates who support conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic and espouse racist views.

Rustad held no public availabilities on Thursday.

Elections BC said the record advance vote tally includes about 223,000 people who voted on the final day of advance voting Wednesday, the last day of advance polls, shattering the one-day record set on Tuesday by more than 40,000 votes.

The previous record for advance voting in a B.C. election was set in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when about 670,000 people voted early, representing about 19 per cent of registered voters.

Some ridings have now seen turnout of more than 35 per cent, including in NDP Leader David Eby’s Vancouver-Point Grey riding where 36.5 per cent of all electors have voted.

There has also been big turnout in some Vancouver Island ridings, including Oak Bay-Gordon Head, where 39 per cent of electors have voted, and Victoria-Beacon Hill, where Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau is running, with 37.2 per cent.

Advance voter turnout in Rustad’s riding of Nechako Lakes was 30.5 per cent.

Total turnout in 2020 was 54 per cent, down from about 61 per cent in 2017.

Stewart Prest, a political science lecturer at the University of British Columbia, said many factors are at play in the advance voter turnout.

“If you have an early option, if you have an option where there are fewer crowds, fewer lineups that you have to deal with, then that’s going to be a much more desirable option,” said Prest.

“So, having the possibility of voting across multiple advanced voting days is something that more people are looking to as a way to avoid last-minute lineups or heavy weather.”

Voters along the south coast of British Columbia who have not cast their ballots yet will have to contend with heavy rain and high winds from an incoming atmospheric river weather system on election day.

Environment Canada said the weather system will bring prolonged heavy rain to Metro Vancouver, the Sunshine Coast, Fraser Valley, Howe Sound, Whistler and Vancouver Island starting Friday.

Eby said the forecast of an atmospheric weather storm on election day will become a “ballot question” for some voters who are concerned about the approaches the parties have towards addressing climate change.

But he said he is confident people will not let the storm deter them from voting.

“I know British Columbians are tough and they’re not going to let even an atmospheric river stop them from voting,” said Eby.

In northern B.C., heavy snow is in the forecast starting Friday and through to Saturday for areas along the Yukon boundary.

Elections BC said it will focus on ensuring it is prepared for bad weather, said Andrew Watson, senior director of communications.

“We’ve also been working with BC Hydro to make sure that they’re aware of all of our voting place locations so that they can respond quickly if there are any power outages,” he said.

Elections BC also has paper backups for all of its systems in case there is a power outage, forcing them to go through manual procedures, Watson said.

Prest said the dramatic downfall of the Official Opposition BC United Party just before the start of the campaign and voter frustration could also be contributing to the record size of the advance vote.

It’s too early to say if the province is experiencing a “renewed enthusiasm for voting,” he said.

“As a political scientist, I think it would be a good thing to see, but I’m not ready to conclude that’s what we are seeing just yet,” he said, adding, “this is one of the storylines to watch come Saturday.”

Overall turnout in B.C. elections has generally been dwindling compared with the 71.5 per cent turnout for the 1996 vote.

Adam Olsen, Green Party campaign chair, said the advance voting turnout indicates people are much more engaged in the campaign than they were in the weeks leading up to the start of the campaign in September.

“All we know so far is that people are excited to go out and vote early,” he said. “The real question will be does that voter turnout stay up throughout election night?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version said more than 180,000 voters cast their votes on Wednesday.



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