Ontario’s environmental protections are being dismantled

In previous pieces that I call “Under the Cover of COVID,” I outlined how Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s legislative agenda will let private, for-profit nursing homes off the hook for their failure to contain COVID. The Progressive Conservatives are restricting the release of information in any investigation into pandemic deaths in private long-term homes. And, by changing the rules for class action suits, the Orwellian named Smarter and Stronger Justice Act restricts people’s access to legal redress for the loss of loved ones in those homes. This commentary deals with the Tories’ deregulation of environmental safeguards.

A little over a year ago, Ford pushed through the Ontario legislature $300 million in cuts to the Ministry of the Environment, including projects funded by Ontario’s now axed cap and trade program. Killing this carbon pricing system cost us billions of dollars in revenue and cancelling green projects cost us millions more in contract defaults.

Killing cap and trade without consultation with the public meant that Ford also violated the law — specifically the Environmental Bill of Rights which requires governments to publicly post changes to environmental protection regulations and legislation.

Then, with his More Homes More Choice Act (an omnibus bill passed in 2019), Ford gutted protection for endangered species. Among its highlights is a weakening of science-based decision-making, zero consultation with First Nations, and the fabulous notion that species are not endangered in Ontario if they are thriving in Wisconsin — never mind the ecological importance they might serve here.

The same legislation weakened requirements for Environmental Assessments in order to cut (the government says) “red tape” that encumbers development. Where have we heard that before? From Mike Harris, whose own red tape cutting helped brew up the Walkerton water tragedy of May 2000.

Then, in July 2020, Ford weakened requirements for environmental assessments again, in another piece of omnibus legislation — the so-called COVID economic recovery plan (Bill 197). Under the cover of COVID, this law removes many projects from environmental scrutiny and takes decisions for approval out of the hands of local people and puts them more securely in the hands of the provincial government.

Ford has also failed to persuade First Nations that his changes to environmental law will preserve the Honour of the Crown. In other words, Ontario chiefs say the new rules will run roughshod over constitutionally protected Indigenous and treaty rights. They are no substitute for the kind of consultation required of governments to ensure proposed projects do not harm the practice of those rights.

Over 130 First Nations and (separately) a number of environmental groups are suing Ontario for, once again, breaking the law that obliges the government to consult with the public before passing legislation that impacts the environment. And it looks as though the government’s sharp dealing with First Nations will land it in court for judicial review on another matter. Three First Nations north of Lake Superior are suing the province over its plans to allow the harvest of a patch of boreal forest four times the size of P.E.I. The impact on the First Nations’ Aboriginal and Treaty 9 rights could be severe and yet they say the province’s consultations with them were a sham.

Ford might be dealing with COVID in a competent manner, but that other crisis — the climate crisis — is being allowed to plow unchecked through Ontario’s environmental safeguards.