Schreiner calls on Ford to stop ecological disaster

March 24, 2022

QUEEN'S PARK — Mike Schreiner rose in the House today to call on the Premier to impose a moratorium on all new gravel mining approvals and expansions:“Tuesday was World Water Day and most Ontarians would be shocked to know that the gravel mining industry uses around 2 billion liters of water everyday.That's almost double the amount of water that the entire city of Toronto consumes each day.Over 5,000 approved gravel mining sites are licensed to extract 13 times more aggregate than the province's annual consumption. And the industry wants more.

Something does not add up.

There are more than enough gravel mining permits already handed out to feed the Premier’s highway building sprawl agenda. We don’t need more.We can’t eat gravel. And we can’t drink gravel.

That’s why I tabled a motion in the House calling for a moratorium on new gravel mining permits. We need aggregates, but this level of ecological and environmental destruction needs to stop.

I’m calling on the Premier to act by imposing an immediate moratorium on all new gravel mining approvals and expansions until it undertakes an independent review of how much aggregate the province actually needs.”

Please find the full recording of Schreiner’s question here: https://youtu.be/tZOEAJlmKn4

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