Good morning. It is my pleasure to be with you again to present the 2006-07 Environmental Commissioner’s Annual Report to the Legislative Assembly.
This year’s report is entitled “Reconciling Our Priorities” because, in standing back and taking a broader view of the environmental issues related to our plans for growth and development in the province, it becomes evident that we (as the expression goes) are trying to have our cake and eat it too. For that reason, this year I have structured the report a little differently. The report begins with two larger more comprehensive analyses. The first deals with the challenge of creating sustainable communities in Southern Ontario. The second looks at the need for a sustainable planning system for Northern Ontario.
The Southern Ontario sustainability analysis first focuses on the Greater Golden Horseshoe Growth Plan (GGH Plan) and considers how appropriate the projected growth is, relative to the carrying capacity of the landscape ecosystem to accommodate that growth. It concludes that the planning system of the province puts the cart before the horse. Population projections imposed on some communities for economic growth reasons exceed the available local water supply and the natural limits of the rivers to receive and assimilate the treated sewage.
Laudably, the Growth Plan seeks to improve the density of future development and improve transit opportunities in the growth areas. But, the targets are too weak. Where the target densities have already been achieved in past development, we have not seen a substantial move away from an automobile based lifestyle. Without a change in the car-based culture, we are going to see a million more cars trying to use the roads of the Greater Golden Horseshoe, and these will only spawn more congestion, more pollution and the unceasing demand for more roads, which will consume even more of the limited green space remaining on this crowded landscape.
Some of that threatened green space is wetlands. So I looked at wetland protection policies as a measure of the sustainability of the Southern Ontario landscape, and found that all is not well. Provincial policies purport to protect wetlands but in reality the policy system is failing. MNR is supposed to classify important wetlands, designate the ones that are provincially significant and see that these wetlands are identified and protected in municipal official plans. This is simply not happening to the extent required, and important wetlands continue to be drained and bulldozed.
The overall conclusion of this look at Southern Ontario planning and development is that the planning and approval processes that we use were designed for a former simpler time and are no longer adequate. They do not include an a priori discussion of the need for any given project. Nor do they permit a similar public debate about the conflicting consumptive uses of the land versus the natural heritage priorities involved. They are weighted in favour of extractive and destructive uses of the land, and they are deterministic in nature. They start society down a path toward approving a proposed undertaking without sufficiently considering whether Ontario should be on that path in the first place.
With regard to a comprehensive sustainable planning system for Northern Ontario, there simply isn’t one. In Northern Ontario, over 80% of the province is Crown Land, and that land is coming under increasing development pressure from expanded forestry, mining, hydroelectric projects, transmission lines and recreational uses. Yet most of the Crown Land isn’t subject to any kind of planning regime at all. My analysis concludes that the ministries involved in the North, – Natural Resources, Northern Development and Mines, Energy and Environment – all operate in isolation with little effort to co-ordinate or integrate the impacts of their approvals and activities.
It’s important to understand that there are actually three major planning zones in the North. The most southern portion is commonly known as the Area of the Undertaking (AOU). It gets its name from terminology in the Environmental Assessment Act because this area has undergone an environmental assessment review which means that it is legal to conduct industrial forestry in that area. By default, the Crown Forest Sustainability Act is the dominant planning mechanism on this landscape. This is also the area where the Ontario Living Legacy process identified and set aside 12% of the land in ecologically representative parks and conservation reserves.
Immediately north of the AOU is the area described as the Northern Boreal Initiative. I have written about this several times before. Not much has changed. Forestry still can’t be legally practiced there. There still is no area wide planning or review process to assess natural heritage features and lands that should be set aside. The one patch of land within this zone that has a plan, the Whitefeather Forest and Adjacent areas Community-Based Land Use Strategy, still awaits approval and implementation.
North of the Northern Boreal Initiative is a huge tract of land with considerable development pressure from mining and energy initiatives, that simply has no planning framework at all.
We need to plan our use of the land, and the development of its resources, for the socioeconomic needs of northern communities which are under so much stress at the present time. And we also have to appreciate that the vast forests and tundra of Northern Ontario have ecological significance on a continental if not global scale, and we have an obligation to manage and sustain those ecological values.
And, we haven’t got the tools and resources in place to do so. In the report I recommend a good starting point is to consider reforming the Public Lands Act to create a comprehensive piece of legislation that would set out detailed planning requirements and provide protection for ecological values.
Again this year I can report some positive developments in public policy relating to the protection of the environment and natural heritage. I commend the Ministry of Natural Resources for the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act. While not flawless, this legislation moves Ontario back to the forefront of protected areas law in Canada.
The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing is commended for the Planning and Conservation Land Statute Amendment Act, a package of improvements in municipal planning and OMB reform.
The Ministry of the Environment brought forward the Clean Water Act, the last big piece of the drinking water reforms called for by Justice O’Connor in the Walkerton Report. It is a major step forward in protecting drinking water in the province and may also help safeguard the ecological integrity of aquatic systems.
Flowing from the applications we receive from the public, I have again this year highlighted some of particular interest. There was a request to review the need to eliminate the exemption from Environmental Protection Act requirements for road salt applications. I have made a recommendation to develop a province wide road salt management strategy because I think the time is right. Certainly the Ministry of Transportation has implemented some quite remarkable road salt management initiatives and technologies on the 20% of the roads they are responsible for. These need to be expanded across the remaining 80% of the road network, which is serviced by municipalities.
The results of a long awaited review of the aggregate resources program were reported this year. The review confirmed that there are problems in the regulation of the industry, especially with rehabilitation of old pits and quarries, and laid down the bases for reforms to be implemented.
Strangely, the MOE denied an application which asked for a review of the standards governing the quality of sewage biosolids. It is odd that they would refuse to consider having a category of pathogen free sewage sludge like the USEPA does, in light of the difficulty finding suitable utilization sites for sewage biosolids
And, an application regarding the Portlands Energy Centre was received. It highlighted the problems that occur when the MOE approves a new air pollution emitter in a highly urbanized area already burdened with the accumulating effects of neighbouring existing emitters.
Thank You
This 2006/2007 ECO annual report was submitted to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly on December 4, 2007. You can read the report online here, and find out more information, and download the report and associated materials, here.