Developers: 1 Environment: 0

What is it with Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his desire to please the development industry?

We’re in the middle of a pandemic that has people and businesses struggling from day to day and yet Ford’s government has still managed to find the time and energy to dismantle environmental protections and override the municipal planning and public consultation process, all of which benefits — you guessed it — the development industry.

Finance Minister Rod Phillips tucked a couple of dramatic changes to environmental laws in his November budget bill, titled “Protect, Support and Recover from COVID-19 Act.”

Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark is handing out ministerial zoning orders — normally a rarely used tool and for good reason — as though he’s Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

Environment Minister Jeff Yurek is not on track to meet Ontario’s climate-change goals in part because there’s not enough focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector. The government cancelled proposed changes to the building code that could have improved energy efficiency by 20 per cent, an auditor general’s report noted earlier this month.

It all adds up to a province where the environment is under siege and developers are increasingly free to do what they want, whether it serves public interests or not.

David Crombie, chair of the province’s Greenbelt Council, has joined the chorus of groups urging the government to abandon its changes to environmental laws and cease and desist its extraordinary use of ministerial zoning orders, which circumvent local planning rules and public consultation.

The government’s actions, Crombie says, are “contributing to a growing public concern that the end result will be a widening of the path of political influence on behalf of special interests.” Indeed, it’s hard to see it any other way. Schedule 6, one of the changes tucked in the omnibus budget bill, essentially strips away the ability of conservation authorities to provide science-based input — backed by regulatory power over permits — on development applications to protect wetlands, forests and communities from flooding.

It’s a job they’ve being doing since the 1940s in response to severe flooding and other environmental concerns.

Today, 95 per cent of Ontario’s population lives in a watershed area managed by one of the province’s 36 conservation authorities.

And yet, at a time when their work is more important than ever, the Ford government has cut them off at the knees, and bashed them over the head for good measure.

Under the changes, conservation authorities can still provide advice based on science, data and an expert understanding of cumulative impacts, but there’s no reason for developers to listen to them.

Not when they can so easily skip around the authorities for a tribunal decision or head straight to the political level, with contentious permit decisions in the hands of the minister of natural resources and forestry.

What could possibly go wrong there?

The other budget surprise, Schedule 8, exempts the forestry industry from the complying with the Endangered Species Act. And that’s legislation the Ford government has already watered down by including what critics have rightly dubbed a “pay-to-slay” provision for developers.

This is all a continuation of this government’s pro-development agenda — people and the environment be damned.

The premier famously promised developers that when elected he would “open up chunks of the Greenbelt” for development. Public outrage quickly forced him to walk back that vow.

But his government has still advanced the interests of developers and the latest gutting of environmental protections will, as Crombie says, negatively impact “the future of Greenbelt.”

Tucking legislative changes into budget bills is designed to avoid proper scrutiny, debate and public consultation. Doing that on measures which undermine the environment for the sake of developers makes it even worse.

There’s no good future for Ontario in that.

At a time when conservation authorities’ work is more important than ever, the Ford government has cut them off at the knees, and bashed them over the head for good measure