I am a Licenced Consultant…

I am a Licenced Consultant Archaeologist (LCAs) with nearly 20 years of experience in the industry. One of the goals of the Heritage Framework Transformation (HFT) was to streamline archaeological assessments to facilitate development. In principle, I agree that there are issues with our industry that need to be addressed. However, these initial targeted changes to the Standard and Guidelines for Consultant Archaeologists (S&Gs) appear to have been put forward with minimal consideration of their impacts on the process or on the existing processes that have previously determined how archaeological assessments are completed.

Rushing these changes through without a clear rationale or consultation with stakeholders (i.e., LCA, Indigenous Communities, Developers and other Ministries) will result in increased delays, increased costs, and increased confusion for all stakeholders involved, as issues with these changes are negotiated in real time, resulting in project delays and cost overruns wherever they are encountered. My issues with these changes typically stem from their redundancy and/or unclear rationale, which do not instill confidence in the process used to produce this document. I have highlighted several key issues below to underscore this statement, but I know other LCAs will provide additional examples.

Project qualifying for scoped/limited assessments

There are some aspects of the changes that I have no issue with. Table 1.1 Standards for Determining Exceptions to Section 1.1, Standard 3 for Limited Small-Scale Impacts, reflects the exceptions the Archaeology Program Unit (APU) has used in the past. These standards have been useful when full property assessments are financially prohibitive and well beyond the scope of the wider project, such as when an individual is building a house on a 200-acre property, it allows them to only have to assess the immediate impacts. These sorts of standards are needed to balance development and heritage/archaeology concerns. However, as these are standards previously used by the APU, they are more robust than their counterparts.

The other two sections of Table 1.1. seek to define “Linear Corridors” and “Repeated small-scale impacts” without providing a clear rationale behind the definitions or providing clear instructions on their applications. By the current definition, linear corridors must range from being at least 20 m wide by 1 km long or 1 m wide by 50 m long. It is not clear why such definitions are required rather than outlining the types of work that would qualify (e.g., sanitary/sewer, transportation, transmission facilities, etc.). Even applying a simple ratio rather than a specific measurement would be a significant improvement. Such rigid definitions with unclear purpose will result in assessments being rejected purely on semantics rather than on their merits. Once rejected, the current APU can take months for further reviews to be completed, which can have significant financial and schedule impacts on the corresponding projects. The same applies to the “repeated small-scale impacts”

There are many projects would not satisfy these specific requirements but by all intents and purposes are linear corridors (i.e., sanitary, roadways, hydro corridor, etc.). Should these projects have to change how they are approached just to satisfy the MCM's requirements? Many of the projects that would be expected to qualify are governed by their own concurrent policies to define the project area that needs to be assessed (e.g., sanitary/sewer has the Municipal Class EA/MPA process, transportation has MTO’s Class Environmental Assessment for Provincial Transportation Facilities and Municipal Expressways process, transmission facilities has the Class Environmental Assessment for Transmission Facilities process, etc.). Having MCM weigh in on this and produce their own definition, without consulting these other processes and ensuring it aligns with them, will only add confusion that delays development, likely with financial implications.

Critically, this table also does not outline how these definitions relate to how these project types should be assessed, the proposed impacts of the work, and the expected buffer on these impacts. If a project qualifies for limited assessment under one of these definitions, so what? If for a sanitary sewer, would the MCM expect 10 m buffers, as are expected for “limited small-scale impacts”? Many of these projects are built within their own easements or within right-of-ways, whose legal limits define the assessment area. These would already serve as limits on the assessment, rendering these definitions redundant and unnecessary, and only adding further red tape to the process.

Removal of the Stage 1 Property Inspection

Despite the outline noting the need for limited/partial assessments to support development, it is unclear why the change is to prevent LCAs from conducting property inspections during Stage 1. This effectively removes any significant benefit of completing a standalone Stage 1 assessment, which is often remains useful for either exempting a property that has been clearly previous disturbed in its entirety before it proceeds further or for determining more accurately where further Stage 2 assessment is required and confirming the features of potential are present where reported thereby allow for a clear understanding of the scope and costs a Stage 2 requires.
Moving it to Stage 2 also seems unnecessary, as it is a given that a property survey will provide greater insight into previous disturbances on a property than an inspection can. Now, with only aerial imagery allowed to determine disturbance at Stage 1, what constitutes disturbance will need to be renegotiated between the LCA and the APU, likely resulting in many project delays. Properties that have already been heavily impacted will also need to wait until spring-fall to complete the assessments, as the requirements for Stage 2 fieldwork (i.e., no saturated or frozen soil, no snow cover) are more rigid than those for Stage 1 property inspection (i.e., no snow cover). This often allows Stage 1 property inspections to be completed in the winter months.

General Concerns

There are also many broader proofreading issues in the document that do not inspire confidence in the process that produced it. For example, the S&Gs finally acknowledge the outdated use of Aboriginal instead of Indigenous, yet the glossary definition remains unchanged (despite the highlighting), so Aboriginal remains in use. Moreover, the expectation that these changes will be ready for the 2026 field season and will be implemented immediately shows a significant lack of understanding of the process, as many of the projects impacted will have gone through a request for proposal process and a consulting firm has already been awarded projects based on the previous standards. As of right now, we are being presented with a fait accompli that heavily impacts how we do our work, but we have not had a seat at the table, relegated to providing comments with only the limited hope of being heard. This short comment period on the ERO does not provide sufficient time for meaningful consultation with the people it will affect most.