Revoking the Municipal Class…

Revoking the Municipal Class Environmental Assessment (MCEA) would have more negative consequences than positive outcomes.

The Municipal Class Environmental Assessment (MCEA) is a proponent-driven process. While there are requirements that proponents need to fulfill, the process is already flexible and customizable so that it can be adjusted depending on the complexity of the project. Here are a few ways that the drawbacks of entirely revoking the MCEA outweigh the benefits:

1) Evaluation of Alternatives: One of the key components of the MCEA process is identifying and evaluating alternative solutions to a problem. Proponents need to do this anyway in order to plan infrastructure projects, but by being required to follow the MCEA process for non-exempt projects their decision-making is consistently-structured and comprehensively and transparently documented. Revoking the MCEA process would not do much to alleviate this burden of project planning, as it would need to occur regardless if the project is being planned properly.

2) Integration with other Planning Processes: The MCEA process is already designed to reduce duplication of work and redundancy with other planning processes, such as applications under the Planning Act. Revoking the MCEA entirely would have minimal benefits for projects that already need to fulfil similar requirements under the Planning Act. If further streamlining of the MCEA process is desirable, then the province should consider improving the "Integration with the Planning Act" option in the MCEA process, through consultation with municipalities who have used this option effectively.

3) Public Consultation: The MCEA process requires project proponents to engage with the public and to consider their feedback. This ensures that projects are designed in a way that meets the needs of the community. If the MCEA is revoked, public consultation may be less frequent, less consistently applied, and of poorer quality, which could lead to projects that do not meet the needs or desires of the community.

4) Consultation with Indigenous communities: The MCEA process requires project proponents to engage with Indigenous communities and to consider their feedback. This ensures that projects are designed in a way that does not potentially negatively impact Aboriginal or treaty rights. If the MCEA is revoked, the province will have greater difficulty determining if they are fulfilling the Crown's Duty to Consult.

5) Consultation with Review Agencies: The MCEA process requires project proponents to engage with review agencies and to consider their feedback. For some more major infrastructure projects, technical feedback from provincial ministries is essential to good planning. For example, major road expansions integrate comments from MECP's air quality technical support staff, and expansions to wastewater treatment systems integrate comments from MECP's surface water technical staff in determining assimilative capacity study requirements and effluent limits. If this agency consultation is not required through the MCEA process, then it may not be done at the project planning stage because there is no redundant legislation that requires it. As a result, more projects will proceed through detailed design without having solicited feedback from provincial approval authorities. When these projects approach MECP at pre-submission consultation for Environmental Compliance Approvals, there will be a greater burden on MECP Permissions staff to review project planning work for the first time, without a Class EA process having been completed. Furthermore, MECP Permissions staff may determine that designed projects may not have planned adequately, which may require municipal applicants to go back and redo planning work, which is inefficient. For example, MECP Permission staff may determine that the Assimilative Capacity Study for a wastewater treatment plant expansion was inadequate, even after the project has gone through detailed design at the ECA application stage. In summary, revoking the MCEA would only shift the burden of provincial consultation from the Planning stage to the Approvals stage, which would not reduce the burden and may result in greater inefficiencies in project planning & design.

The points above demonstrate some ways that revoking the MCEA would have more negative outcomes than benefits for proponents, the province, the public, and Indigenous communities. Rather than revoking the MCEA entirely, the province could consider further streamlining the existing process so that more projects can be conditionally exempted while retaining this important process for more complex infrastructure projects that rely on the consultation requirements established in the MCEA process.

Thank you for considering my comments.