Currently, wetlands are…

Currently, wetlands are managed through a variety of policies that include over 20 different pieces of legislation administered and/or implemented by five provincial ministries, two federal departments, a provincial agency (Niagara Escarpment Commission), 36 conservation authorities and 444 municipalities. Some of these statutes enable aspects of natural resource or natural heritage conservation and management, which can include wetlands, while others explicitly restrict certain land uses or activities within them.

In addition to the legislation and policy described, several other provincial statutes require consideration of wetlands when making decisions (e.g., Aggregate Resources Act) or influence wetlands in some way (e.g., Drainage Act). Others recognize that wetlands are part of recharge and discharge areas, which are also important for protecting sources of drinking water in Ontario (e.g., wetlands mapped in source protection plans, including local assessment reports prepared under the Clean Water Act). Several federal policies and statutes also contribute to wetland conservation in Ontario (e.g., Fisheries Act, Federal Policy on Wetlands).

The Ontario government previously understood the importance of wetlands and should continue to provide strong leadership to conserve these vital ecosystems. Wetland conservation, akin to the management of other natural resources, requires an integrated approach. A shared commitment among all sectors, including the provincial government, is essential to conserving Ontario’s wetlands. The Ontario government should not eliminate its 40 year commitment to conserving wetlands in one misguided attempt to placate the development community.

The gutting of the OWES manual is completely contrary to everything that the government committed to in the Wetland Conservation Strategy for Ontario. If there are perceived issues with the current version of OWES and the wetland evaluation process, the government could instead work closely with MNRF staff to improve the method by which provincially significant wetlands are reviewed and create efficiency and consistency across the province, while still supporting wetland conservation goals.

It appears that several government programs and procedures (some listed above) will be adversely affected by the proposed changes to the OWES manual.

The MNRF currently maintains a wetland inventory for the province that includes best available information about the location, area and significance of wetlands. This includes high-quality information collected through detailed field work as well as mapping based on air photo interpretation and satellite imagery. While this inventory is a good start, more current and detailed mapping and regular updating are required to better conserve wetlands, not less. If MNRF is no longer involved in wetlands and there is no central repository for wetland data, LIO layer for wetlands will be affected and will no longer be relevant or up to date. Removing access or erasing the existence of a “wetland file” housed with MNRF will result in a loss of over 40+ years of wetland data and program experience. To our knowledge, most historical wetland data is not available digitally. Removing public access to previously collected information and data on wetlands will further diminish the ability for a fair and science-based evaluation or re-evaluation of a wetland to be conducted.

Since the CLTIP and MFTIP programs do not have a development trigger, will there be any ability for these program participants to process any required changes? Removing MNRF access to wetland evaluations would mean that CLTIP administrators would no longer have access to up to date wetland boundaries through Land Information Ontario (LIO) so effective administration of the program would be hindered. It is also our understanding that evaluators could potentially reevaluate wetlands occurring on adjacent properties resulting in a loss of PSW status which could have negative impacts on a number of landowners. It is our opinion that since the province is actively devaluing all wetlands, they should consider allowing all wetlands to be covered by CLTIP and MFTIP instead of only PSW’s.

The review of aggregate applications up to this point in time was already difficult because the government refused to allow wetland files to be updated to current standards. The proposed OWES changes will further compound the issue, so that planning decisions will continue to be based on outdated or incomplete data that doesn’t take into account the true natural heritage values present on a site prior to development. In addition, aggregates staff at the MNRF won’t be able to effectively review aggregate applications if LIO is not up to date or if they are not provided with an accurate reevaluated wetland file.

It is clear that removing MNRF from any review and approval role in wetland evaluations and with OWES will also affect confidence in the quality and accuracy in the evaluations and reevaluations submitted to “decision makers”. MNRF reviewers of OWES evaluations are generally required to have OWES evaluation training. Most evaluators need to conduct several wetland evaluations before they become proficient. In the past, MNRF review or WEDSR’s has assisted trained evaluators in improving their evaluation skills. Without any oversite or review function from someone with more experience in OWES evaluations, it is likely that the evaluations provided will be poor quality and will contain errors. In addition, if MNRF is no longer involved in OWES, there will be no ability to retrain evaluators or provide updates to training and certification. None of the currently certified wetland evaluators have been trained in this “revised” evaluation system. Without MNRF support or a refresher training system, it is likely that evaluators will provide incomplete or incorrect evaluations and reevaluations to “decision makers”. These decision makers may also not have any training in OWES and would not be able to distinguish or identify errors in the WEDSR. Lastly, it is a conflict of interest for someone who is being paid by a developer to evaluate a wetland which will most likely be downgraded, with absolutely no review or appeal process available to any party.

If the intent is to remove duplication from OWES with other policies (which is the given reasoning for removing END and THR species scoring from OWES), then it seems counterintuitive to refer to the Natural Heritage Reference Manual and the Ecoregion Criteria Schedules which are used to designate SWH to determine a score in OWES. Also, if there is the potential that the SWH Ecoregional Criteria schedules may be revised in future, it may not be in the best interest to include these in the wildlife scoring sections of the WEDSR.

Scoring in the proposed OWES manual is now unbalanced with not enough weight being given to important features. Consideration should be given to restructuring the scoring for provincially significant species to remove the compounding decreased score model.

The proposed changes to the OWES manual will undoubtedly have a negative effect on municipalities and their abilities to manage and implement current natural heritage protection policies. Most municipalities are not equipped to review, accept or keep track of wetland evaluations, and changes in mapping. Removing MNRF as the central repository for wetland data and mapping will make it difficult for municipalities to implement several PPS policies. In addition, wetlands often span across several municipal boundaries. If there is no development trigger but a landowner wishes to have a wetland boundary modified or an evaluation or reevaluation conducted, who would this information be submitted to? It is unlikely that the municipality would have the capacity or interest in processing these changes. It is also unclear whether municipal development reviews will trigger wetland evaluations or reevaluations. Municipalities may find it difficult to review and process WEDSR’s without any provincial support. It seems punitive to transfer this responsibility onto them without any transitional training or provincial involvement.

If the changes in the manual go forward as proposed, the title of the manual should be changed to “4th edition” or “Ford edition” as this revised document is no longer appropriate as a 3rd edition manual, and since the evaluations conducted using this new system would not be comparable to those conducted using the previous science-based, peer-reviewed version of the manual.

We strongly urge the government to repeal any changes to the OWES manual, and instead focus on improving internal wetland evaluation review policies and processes. We also encourage the government to direct MNRF staff to work closely with municipalities, provide clear direction and support for planning review while ensuring that natural heritage values like wetlands continue to be protected on the landscape.