Archaeological sites…

Archaeological sites represent non-renewable resources that have long been recognized in the development process through various pieces of legislation. These sites are material testimony of the history of our province and the lives of its Indigenous and non-Indigenous occupants. The current proposed legislation appears to suggest that planning for these sites and their mitigation will be inconsistently applied based on vague assessments of the importance of particular development projects, with little justification in terms of rational. This effort to improve "efficiency" will be highly damaging and does little to address the underlying reasons for "project delays," given that one of the most significant sources of delay is not the archaeological assessment and mitigation process, but the current performance of the Ontario Public Service staff responsible for administration of archaeological practice.