I am an environmental…

I am an environmental assessment professional and ecologist with extensive private sector and Ontario government experience. The proposed changes continue down the path of degradation of the once admirable, however brief, environmental regulatory framework that existed in Ontario. I watched from the inside as meaningful public consultation activities were removed from environmental assessment processes. For example there are no longer public meetings for most provincial highway projects. I saw clearly that the avoidance of public consultation meetings and other meaningful consultation processes was a deliberate strategy on the part of the provincial government to force unpopular and arguably unneeded expensive projects on the public.

I bring up the topic of consultation as this proposal's posting promises consultation in the closing paragraph as follows:

"Over the next several months, Ontario will work in consultation with the public and Indigenous communities and organizations to develop supporting regulations to implement the registration-first approach, which we expect will come into force early next year. As new regulations are developed, they will be posted on the Environmental Registry of Ontario."

Will this consultation be meaningful with actual public meetings or just more of registry postings?

I work with youth who frequently express concerns about the future of species including our own. I think they are correct to be concerned and this proposal heightens those concerns. For example the reduction in the size of habitat zone protection means a continuation in the decline of percent natural areas and forest cover in Ontario. This is particularly dangerous in south western Ontario, a part of the province already down to unsustainable levels of natural and forest cover. And this decrease in the size of habitat protections and forest cover brings with it, further degradation of water quality in our watercourses and lakes. My Celtic culture teaches us to make decisions with a view to seven generations ahead, similar to north american indigenous culture teachings. This proposal seems to concede to an apocalyptic view of the future, a view that says grab everything you can now because there is no future. It makes me sad.