Schreiner on Pickering: We can’t afford to keep losing farmland

May 27, 2026

QUEEN'S PARK — Schreiner released the following statement responding to news that Pickering council approved development of prime farmland without completing major studies.

“Ontario can’t afford to keep losing prime farmland.

But Doug Ford is pushing his sprawl agenda onto municipalities because he refuses to legalize gentle density to make it easier to build homes people can afford within existing urban boundaries. 

It’s time to stop letting speculator profits dictate where we build homes and start protecting Ontario’s farmland, the $52 billion agri-food economy and the 875,000 agrifood jobs in Ontario. 

That’s why I teamed up with MPP Bobbi Ann Brady to introduce the Protect Our Food Act. If passed, this bill would create a Foodbelt that would permanently protect our agricultural lands from being paved over. 

Now is the time to protect our farmland, support farmers, and grow more food right here at home because without farmland there are no farms, there is no food, no future.”

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