[All] Fwd: CELA response to Ontario's Environmental Assessment Act changes

Mon Jul 13 17:07:29 EDT 2020

The provincial government has introduced proposals that would dramatically weaken an already seriously limited environmental assessment process. The Canadian Environmental Law Association, of which I am a board member, has just released a preliminary assessment of these proposed changes. Once it is ready for sign-on, I will notify you. You might also consider sending individual letters in showing how these changes would specifically affect your efforts to protect the environment.

John

------------------------------
John Jackson
17 Major Street
Kitchener N2H 4R1
519-744-7503

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> 
> CELA blog: https://cela.ca/ea-is-not-red-tape/ <https://cela.ca/ea-is-not-red-tape/>
> 
> EA is Not Red Tape: The Case against Ontario Bill 197
> July 13, 2020
> Posted by Richard Lindgren
> 
> The Ontario government has continued its relentless attack on the Environmental Assessment Act <https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90e18> (EAA) by recently introducing Bill 197 (COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act, 2020 <https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-42/session-1/bill-197>).
> 
> Schedule 6 of Bill 197 proposes almost 80 pages of amendments to the EAA, which is one of Ontario’s oldest and most important environmental statutes.
> 
> At present, the EAA establishes different types of information-gathering and decision-making processes (i.e. individual EAs, Class EAs, and sectoral screening processes) that include opportunities for public and Indigenous engagement at key stages.
> 
> These EAA processes have been traditionally applied to wide variety of environmentally significant undertakings across Ontario, including landfills, incinerators, hazardous waste facilities, provincial freeways, timber management on Crown lands, electricity projects, and municipal roads and sewage works.
> 
> In essence, the EAA is a prudent “look before you leap” statute since the legislation requires an upfront public examination of the potential ecological, socio-economic, and cultural impacts of proposed undertakings before they proceed. This precautionary approach enables informed decisions on whether such undertakings should be approved (or not), and whether terms or conditions should be imposed to safeguard the public interest.
> 
> Over the past five decades, CELA has been involved in numerous court cases, public hearings and other administrative proceedings under the EAA on behalf of low-income individuals and disadvantaged or vulnerable communities. In our view, while there are opportunities to strengthen and improve the implementation of the EAA, the statute is fundamentally sound and has generally helped to ensure the protection, conservation and wise management of the environment in Ontario.
> 
> Unfortunately, as outlined in CELA’s preliminary analysis <https://cela.ca/prelim-analysis-sched-6-bill-197-proposed-eaact-changes/> of Schedule 6, the Ontario government is now proposing a series of regressive and unacceptable amendments to the EAA program. If enacted, for example, Schedule 6 will:
> remove the automatic application of the EAA to public sector undertakings, and instead the provincial Cabinet will have unfettered discretion to pass a new regulation that lists which projects are (or are not) subject to the Act;
> re-name individual EAs as “Comprehensive” EAs, but the Environment Minister will still be empowered to approve EA Terms of Reference that exclude, or “scope”, key environmental planning matters (i.e. “need” and alternatives) from consideration in the EA process;
> terminate the 10 currently approved Class EAs, and replace them with as-yet unknown “streamlined” regulatory requirements; and
> significantly restrict the grounds upon which Ontarians can request “bump-up” or “elevation” of contentious infrastructure projects from a streamlined EA to a Comprehensive EA.
> These and other problematic changes in Schedule 6 of Bill 197 follow other recent rollbacks that have been passed or proposed in relation to the EAA program, including (but not limited to):
> removing EAA requirements <https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-0961> from forest management planning;
> exempting projects in all provincial parks and conservation reserves <https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-1804> from any EAA requirements;
> streamlining EAA requirements for certain provincial highways and transportation corridors <https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-1882>; and
> modifying EAA requirements for proposed transit projects <https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-0614> in the Greater Toronto Area.
> CELA further notes that despite the length and complexity of Bill 197, Schedule 6 is not proposing any of the legislative changes recommended in recent years by EA practitioners, academics, non-governmental organizations, the Auditor General of Ontario, and the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario.
> 
> In addition, Bill 197 contains other Schedules that set out sweeping changes to a number of other key statutes, including the Drainage Act, Planning Act, and Building Code Act.
> 
> In these circumstances, it appears to CELA that the Ontario government is proceeding on the mistaken premise that the EAA and other environmental laws are simply “red tape” that may delay or stop the province’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
> 
> In our view, there is no merit to such claims. CELA further notes that many of the EAA changes proposed in Bill 197 were first identified in a governmental discussion paper in mid-2019, long before COVID-19 emerged in Ontario.
> 
> CELA therefore concludes that the de-regulation agenda now being fast-tracked by the provincial government is inconsistent with the stated purpose of the EAA (i.e. “betterment” of the people of Ontario), and it will not address the environmental injustices that have been exposed (if not exacerbated) by the COVID-19 pandemic. To demonstrate its commitment to addressing these long-standing inequities, the Ontario government should withdraw Schedule 6 from Bill 197.
> 
> 
> CELA media release: https://cela.ca/ontarios-post-covid-economic-recovery-bill-a-big-miss-for-a-green-and-just-recovery/ <https://cela.ca/ontarios-post-covid-economic-recovery-bill-a-big-miss-for-a-green-and-just-recovery/>
> 
> Ontario’s post-COVID economic recovery bill: a big miss for a green and just recovery
> July 13, 2020 <https://cela.ca/ontarios-post-covid-economic-recovery-bill-a-big-miss-for-a-green-and-just-recovery/>Toronto – In an enormous piece of legislation, tabled this week as  <https://cela.ca/ontarios-post-covid-economic-recovery-bill-a-big-miss-for-a-green-and-just-recovery/>Bill 197 <https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-42/session-1/bill-197>, the Ontario government proposes changes to over eleven laws, many of them directly affecting the health of our communities and environment. While the stated intent of the bill is a pandemic economic recovery, it largely ignores worldwide calls for a green and just recovery.
> Instead, the bill includes a smorgasbord of environmental deregulation. In particular, the bill removes numerous safeguards to ensure procedural fairness for involvement in environmental decisions that affect the public.
> 
> Legal staff at the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) are analyzing the bill and will make detailed comments. “Our initial reaction is disappointment and discouragement, although the bill contains some measures we can support,” stated Theresa McClenaghan, CELA Executive Director and Counsel.
> 
> “While this government admirably recognized the importance of science-based responses to the pandemic, it is out of step with public sentiment by not applying the same science-based approach to its pandemic economic recovery effort and confronting the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss,” McClenaghan added. “For the most part, the proposed changes serve to speed up development at the expense of environmental protection and public participation rights,” she added.
> 
> “Further, the many procedural and public participation rights could have greater impact in low income and vulnerable communities, the same people that are already disproportionately affected by the pandemic and by existing or proposed activities with environmental impacts,” she added.
> 
> “If enacted, Bill 197 has the potential to weaken numerous environmental and public health protections in Ontario through changes to the Environmental Assessment Act, the Planning Act, the Drainage Act, the Building Code Act, and many other laws,” noted CELA Counsel Richard Lindgren.
> 
> “In tabling this omnibus bill the Province has provided no justification for removing multiple legal accountability and public participation mechanisms to achieve a post-COVID economic recovery,” Lindgren added. “Moreover, a common theme across many of these proposed changes is to remove this accountability by placing new and broad discretionary powers in the hands of individual Ministers.”
> 
> CELA’s detailed review of Bill 197 will be posted to our website <https://cela.ca/> soon.
> 
> For more information:
> 
> Additional background on changes proposed to specific laws <https://cela.ca/bill-197-additional-background-on-changes-proposed-to-specific-laws/>
> 
> For interviews, please contact:
> Theresa McClenaghan, Executive Director and Counsel theresa at cela.ca <mailto:theresa at cela.ca> (regarding changes to the Development Charges Act)
> Richard Lindgren, CELA Counsel 613-385-1686 (regarding changes to the Environmental Assessment Act)
> Ramani Nadarajah, CELA Counsel, ramani at cela.ca <mailto:ramani at cela.ca> (regarding changes to the Planning Act, Ministerial Zoning Orders)
> Anastasia Lintner, CELA Counsel, anastasia at cela.ca <mailto:anastasia at cela.ca> (regarding changes to the Drainage Act)
> Kerrie Blaise, CELA Counsel, kerrie at cela.ca <mailto:kerrie at cela.ca> (regarding changes to the Building Code Act)
> CELA preliminary analysis: https://cela.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Preliminary-Analysis-Schedule6-Bill-197-July-10-2020.pdf <https://cela.ca/prelim-analysis-sched-6-bill-197-proposed-eaact-changes/>
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OMAN" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to oman-list+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com <mailto:oman-list+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com>.
> To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/oman-list/60161c01-24fc-1532-9769-4881516cdc34%40miningwatch.ca <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/oman-list/60161c01-24fc-1532-9769-4881516cdc34%40miningwatch.ca?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/all_gren.ca/attachments/20200713/7dc1fab2/attachment-0001.html>