TORONTO

Premier Kathleen Wynne says that as Ontario looks to tackle housing supply issues, it won’t reduce the Greenbelt lands.

She says the government is actually committed to expanding the Greenbelt, which is about 800,000 hectares of protected land that borders the Greater Golden Horseshoe area surrounding Lake Ontario.

Wynne says the Greenbelt is “like the lungs of this highly populated part of the province.”

But Wynne says Finance Minister Charles Sousa is looking at a range of supply and demand issues because housing affordability is a “huge issue.”

Sousa has said he plans to include measures in the spring budget to address the red-hot housing market in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, while taking into account different circumstances in the rest of the province.

The average price of a detached home in Toronto broke the $1.5-million mark for the first time last month.