Your right to comment on legislation

Re Your environmental rights (not) at work in Ontario, July 25 Under our Environmental Bill of Rights, Ontarians “have the right to know about — and comment on — environmentally significant proposals the Ontario government is considering.”

This is the law. Although change is happening quite rapidly in this area, to my knowledge, only Ontario and New Zealand have a type of environmental legislation with similar participatory rights requiring public consultation.

As the late Gord Downie said regarding Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights, “This is our air and our water; these things belong to us. Every licence to pollute, every environmental impact, must be considered carefully and publicly. These are our environmental rights, rights as important as any others, rights that must be respected.”

On July 18, 2018, the Canadian Environmental Law Association submitted an Environmental Bill of Rights application requesting a review of Premier Doug Ford’s application (EBR Registry Number: 013-3221) to dismantle Ontario’s capand-trade program without consulting the people.

In the 1990s, fine legal minds and civil society set Ontario on a path to protect our environment, and it is something we all must protect. Please, everyone reading this, call your MPP now and demand your right to comment on the dismantling of the cap-and-trade program in Ontario. You have the power to help make sure that Ontario’s climate legislation is based on the facts and that there are, as Melissa Felder wrote, no more “exception notices dismantling all environmental regulation built in Ontario since the start of EBR in 1993.” Cathy Orlando, Canadian director, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Sudbury