May 25, 2019 Sharifa Wyndham…

May 25, 2019

Sharifa Wyndham-Nguyen
Client Services and Permissions Branch
135 St. Clair Avenue West, 1st Floor
Toronto, ON M4V 1P5

Re: Discussion Paper: Modernizing Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Program
ERO: 013-5101

The Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers (OGVG) are pleased to provide comments regarding Discussion Paper: Modernizing Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Program (ERO: 013-5101). OGVG represents approximately 200 farmers responsible for over 3,000 acres of greenhouse tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers across the province. With farmgate sales of $946 million in 2018, a contribution of $1.6 billion to the economy and a consistent track record of growth, the sector is a valuable economic driver for the province. Our members strive to grow fresh, high quality food year-round and contribute to meeting healthy eating and food security goals across the province.

Modernizing Environmental Assessments
As a sector that utilizes the Environmental Assessment (EA) program and depends on critical infrastructure projects from municipalities undertaking EAs, we have firsthand experience working through the burdensome and complex process. We share much of the sentiment regarding the current EA process described in the discussion paper. Simply put, the time for EA approvals takes far too long due to redundancy, an inconsistent approach, lack of accountability, and unnecessary bureaucracy and duplication between Provincial and Federal Ministries, Municipal Approvals, and the EA process itself. This system fails to appreciate the benefits that Ontario business provides and has created an environment not conducive to business success.
We are eager to explore the opportunity to modernize the EA Program. We hope this change will provide an increased level of service and accountability, reduce red-tape, improve application clarity, and enable clear approval timelines.
So far, some early actions to modernize EAs have occurred. Exempting certain low-risk projects from EAs and shifting certain medium-risk projects into the low-risk category should have direct benefits to those applicants, as well as indirect benefits as resources are made available to other applications. We encourage you to consider expanding these changes to exempt or re-categorize greenhouse development to magnify those benefits.

A Vision for a Modern Environmental Assessment Program

(1) Align Risk with EA Process
We agree that projects that pose a significant environmental risk should be required to complete a comprehensive EA that is tailored to that project’s level of risk. To achieve this, Ontario should provide a clearly defined list of projects requiring EAs depending on type, size, and location of the project. This is especially important to the private sector for decision making purposes. Such a list would help clarify expectations of the applicant and will help identify low-risk projects that should be exempt from EAs. We also believe that a streamlined assessment process should made available to similar projects with known impacts and risks, such as greenhouse development, since the EA outcomes tend to be similar.

(2) Remove duplication
Although some efforts have already been made to reduce duplication, further harmonization should make the EA process more efficient. The greatest opportunity to remove duplication between municipal, provincial and federal processes, is a one-window online portal for all application requirements. Such a system would:
• act as a central repository for key information
• assist in current and future applications
• notify applicants of what documentation is required or missing for each process
• automatically populate fields that require redundant information

(3) Efficiencies to shorten timelines
As previously described, a one-window online portal for EA applications can provide many benefits to the public and private sector by enabling efficient and streamlined applications to shorten applications from start to finish. Many steps in an EA application are taken sequentially, while a one-window online portal could allow an applicant to submit documents for all steps concurrently to save time and resources and reduce study and review times. The EA process would also benefit from clearer guidance by providing fillable forms that collect complete and accurate documentation by notifying applicants of deficiencies prior to submission.
In addition to the benefits of a one-window online portal for EA applications, further efficiencies can be achieved by adopting sector-based Terms of Reference (ToR). Projects within the same sector can be expected to have similar risks, impacts and application materials, such that a sector-based ToR would expedite the early stages of an EA application. Applicants should maintain the option to draft their own unique ToR or amend sector ToR, as necessary.
Lastly, to shorten timelines, low- and medium-risk EA categories should be subject to shorter review timelines compared to their high-risk counterparts. Additionally, to keep Ontario open for business, EA applications that support new business development should be held to expedient timelines.

(4) Digital Online Submissions
A successful one-window online portal is one that takes of advantage of the fundamental nature of digital submissions. As previously described, having access to online EA submissions as an applicant or stakeholder would have numerous benefits such as cost- and time-savings, improve application clarity and easy of access, and the opportunity to improve stakeholder engagement and consultations.
There are many online tools that would be appropriate to improve the EA application, which should be piloted and consulted on prior to implementation. Some examples include: the ability to save draft applications as they are being completed, secure online profiles for ease of access and application privacy, allow applications to be editable once they are submitted (prior to review), provide fillable online forms to improve application clarity and thoroughness and ensure no documents are missing, and allow continued access of paper submissions if preferred. As with any online system, there will be a need for continuous improvement to achieve the goals outlined in the discussion paper.

We thank you for this opportunity to comment on ERO: 013-5101 Modernizing Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Program. While there are numerous fundamental issues with Ontario’s current EA system, many have already been identified and are being addressed through this modernization process. We look forward to working with the government to develop a streamline EA process that expedites or exempts low-risk applications, maintains an accountable review timeline, and enable efficient applications with fewer redundancies through a one-window online platform. We look forward to the next steps in this process. Please reach out to us if you have any questions or would like to discuss our comments further.