Welcome to lemmy.ca, glad you are here!
So I think this place could have more complaining about Doug Ford, high rent, high food prices and inadequate healthcare, talking about deals at No Frills. Also let’s see pictures of flowers, animals, buildings, landmarks and other cool things there is to see in this big province.
There isn’t much posted yet, so even so much as a picture of a pothole in North Bay would be good enough for now. Let’s make this a community r/Ontario could be envious of! Thanks for reading.
At this point there really isn’t much we can do other than wait until the next election and try to drive people to vote for a better premier. What other sort of engagement did you have in mind?
Most of the fight against the province is currently going on at the municipal level.
To use one example. Despite the blatant short term profit seeking legislated in the More Homes Built Faster act it may have the unintended consequence of forcing denser more efficient neighborhoods that aren’t a sinkhole on local budgets. Not Just Bikes over on Youtube has a quick introduction to the issue here. Local governments, notably Brampton and Mississauga would temporarily balance the books with the collection of developer fees creating a subdivision ponzi scheme that worked as long as you still had future land to develop on. This legislation completely breaks that cycle and now everyone in those cities is going to feel the hurt for a bit while property taxes are jacked up to better reflect the real cost of low density sprawl. The new realities, as well as public consultation will shape how development works going forward. It’s easier than you’d think to get involved in that process and can largely be accomplished purely through online feedback. I’ll admit your experience will vary from one local government to another.
Personally I was involved in helping conduct an inventory of historical buildings in my local area also in response to the More Homes Built Faster act. It didn’t get a lot of traction in the news but the act also gutted the Ontario Heritage Act leaving local governments scrambling to document and designate notable historical structures before they’re stripped of protection and left to the mercy of developers.