I am writing to strongly…

I am writing to strongly oppose Bill 5: the Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act and its dangerous proposals, including the creation of Special Economic Zones, the weakening of Ontario’s endangered species protections, and the exemption of the Eagle’s Nest mine from an environmental review.

Bill 5 would give the government extreme new powers to ignore laws that protect the public health, Indigenous rights, Ontario's long term economic health, and environment without accountability. This is unacceptable and short sighted.

Specific to 025-0396: the rationale for removing the comprehensive environmental assessment (EA) requirements for the proposed Eagle’s Nest mine project because of the change in project scope is foolish. The fundamental purpose of an EA is to (1) assess the costs and benefits of a specific project relative to social and environmental needs, (2) identify mitigations to reduce risks, and (3) inform adaptive management in relation to those risks and mitigations. EAs are useful because they protect both the public and the proponent from legal, environmental, and financial risks for the specific project in question. Changing a project changes the risks to all parties and is precisely the reason that we have project specific EAs.

Removing this requirement leads to several questions... how will Ontario provide environmental oversight through environmental permissions without an environmental relevant risk assessment? Will the government ensure the project proponent pays a deposit into an environmental remediation fund to protect Indigenous peoples from impacts? Has the government budgeted the costs of legal challenges into its assessment? At best the rationale for this exemption is short sighted political theatre.