Proposed Amendments — A…

Proposed Amendments — A Rejection of Evidentiary Standards and Public Accountability

The proposed amendments to the Ontario Heritage Act under Schedule 7 of Bill 5 are not administrative updates or efficiency improvements—they are a calculated legal architecture designed to remove procedural safeguards, override scientific and cultural due diligence, and allow politically convenient exemptions from the protection of archaeological sites and heritage artifacts.

Authorizing the Lieutenant Governor in Council to exempt properties from archaeological assessments, based solely on whether the exemption “could advance” vaguely defined provincial priorities, is not responsible policy. It is discretionary overreach. The inclusion of immunity provisions and the explicit denial of compensation to those impacted further demonstrates an intent to eliminate accountability while transferring decision-making power from experts and regulatory bodies to political appointees.

There is no legitimate justification—economic or otherwise—for exempting land from archaeological assessments. These assessments are not bureaucratic hurdles; they are evidence-based tools to protect irreplaceable cultural and historical knowledge. To subordinate them to speculative development goals or politically expedient projects is to discard the very foundations of public interest governance.

The expanded inspection and investigative powers proposed may appear to strengthen enforcement, but this is a smokescreen. These provisions are hollow if paired with a mechanism that allows politically motivated exemptions. The government cannot simultaneously claim to be enhancing protection while giving itself the authority to bypass that protection entirely.

This proposal represents a systemic shift—from legislated stewardship to executive discretion, from evidentiary standards to political expediency. It undermines cultural preservation, public oversight, and the integrity of the Ontario Heritage Act itself. The heritage and history of Ontario are not commodities to be managed for short-term political gain. They are public assets that demand transparency, evidence-based regulation, and enduring protection.

This schedule must be rejected in full. Anything less constitutes complicity in the erosion of public trust, democratic process, and the stewardship of Ontario’s collective heritage. Like all of the elements of Bill 5 this is not sound economic policy as it is being touted, it is simply another attempt to dismantle environmental protections, erode rights, and offload critical public infrastructure to serve the narrow interests of the wealthiest —often foreign—investors and speculative markets. There is no legitimate rationale for treating public goods as disposable assets for private profit. This is a deliberate transfer of value and control from the public to unaccountable private hands. It undermines long-term stability, democratic oversight, and the foundational principles of a functional and equitable society. It must be halted.