Schedule 11 of Bill 108…

Schedule 11 of Bill 108 should be withdrawn because it does serious damage to Ontario’s protection policies for heritage buildings and archaeological sites by undermining established assessment and conservation rules that actually work well.

First, introducing “principles” is misguided and will only add delay and confusion. The concern about principles reflects an unwarranted paternalistic attitude by the provincial government towards municipal governments. Any notion of introducing “principles” should be dropped. Municipal planners understand heritage.

The current Conservation Review Board system for appeals works very well. It is a special purpose tribunal with a near-single focus on designation, which has made it the de facto expert on the interpretation and application of the criteria for designation in O. Reg. 9/06. This expertise resides with current CRB members and will be lost should the current appeal system be scrapped in favour of an LPAT appeal process.

In sum, changes contained in Bill 108 will do irreparable harm to conservation policies that are currently working under the Ontario Heritage Act. Bill 108 will allow new developments to bypass and effectively eliminate requirements for heritage impact assessments, archeological assessments and other safeguard measures designed to ensure that a heritage component is considered in planning decisions.

The identification of heritage features worth preserving under the Ontario Heritage Act relies on local experts. People, through their city councillors, know what’s important to be identified, protected, and preserved in their communities. Proposed changes to the Ontario Heritage Act remove this local empowerment and will not result in a better process for protection.

There has been no meaningful consultation on proposed changes to the OHA with the cultural heritage sector and municipalities. Almost all the proposals appear to have come from just one of the affected interest groups — the development industry – with no meaningful consultation with heritage advocates.

Bill 108 enables far too many sweeping regulations: “…prescribing or otherwise providing for anything that is required or permitted under this Act to be prescribed or otherwise provided for in the regulations, including governing anything required or permitted to be done in accordance with the regulations.” This kind of enabling power is simply unacceptable.

For all of these reasons, Schedule 11 of Bill 108 should be withdrawn.