November 24, 2022 Hon…

November 24, 2022

Hon. Graydon Smith, Minister

Natural Resources and Forestry

Whitney Block, 99 Wellesley St W,

Toronto ON M7A 1W3

RE: ERO Posting 019-6160 Proposed Updates to the Ontario Wetland Evaluation Systems (OWES)

Dear Minister Smith,

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on the above noted Environmental Registry of Ontario (ERO) posting.

The OWES is a science-based system that outlines process and criteria to determine the relative significance and importance of wetlands. The system was developed in the 1980s in recognition of a need to understand wetlands, and to protect the most significant wetlands, regardless of ownership, through the land use planning process. Recognizing the valuable conservation role that private landowners can play in conservation, the province has supported private stewardship of wetlands through its administration of programs like the Conservation Land Tax Incentive Program.

The existing OWES, in which responsibility for administration of provincially-significant wetland boundaries rests with MNRF, has faced challenges related to the precision of original mapping, its subsequent digitization, and with the resource levels assigned by the province to maintain this system. In some cases, local Municipalities have been challenged in the face of landowner opposition to delineate provincially significant wetlands in planning documents.

The proposed changes remove MNRF from the administrative function, without indicating a clear replacement to support municipalities. It appears that the intent is for municipalities to assume this role. Bruce County and its local Municipalities do not have the resources or capacity to assume this role. Further, distributing this role across 400+ municipalities will be neither efficient nor yield consistent stewardship of provincially-significant wetlands.

The proposed changes define an evaluation as ‘complete’ when it is ‘received by a decision-maker addressing a land use planning and development or resource management matter.’ The evaluation must include a field visit, and landowner permission must be obtained for the field visit to occur. Opportunities to complete evaluation using other data sources are removed. Presence of threatened or endangered species within a wetland is removed as a scoring criteria.

While Wetlands provide essential flood management functions, the biodiversity values associated with wetlands would fall outside of the core mandate of Conservation Authorities. Changes proposed in Bill 23 would preclude their role in stewardship of the OWES.

The proposed changes premise that wetland evaluators have the competence and the professional judgement to definitively evaluate wetlands, but presumably not enough competence to evaluate their complexity – as the current manual notes, “the grouping of wetland areas into a complex should only be done by experienced evaluators [emphasis added].” The concept of connected wetland “complexes” appears to be incompatible with an approach that relies entirely upon individual evaluators.

The only contemplation of wetlands that are not entirely contiguous is within the ‘Wetland Edges Bordering of Lakes and Rivers Section’ which references wetlands within 30 metres ‘interspersed with small pockets of upland forest’ and ‘wetlands along a river of [sic] lake that are separated by 100 feet or less. The content doesn’t fit the title, the units don’t match and regardless the distance is new, arbitrary, and prone to interruption from previous human activities – for example, shoreline alterations, or infrastructure along lakes and rivers.

The proposed changes are described in the Environmental Registry of Ontario as a “removal of duplication and streamlining.” None of the changes appear to streamline the process for protecting vulnerable wetlands from development or for recognizing the increased importance of wetlands that are home to species that may be under increased threat of extirpation or extinction as habitat loss continues.

Rather these changes facilitate the breaking up of wetland complexes into units that can be refined out of significance and ultimately removed from the landscape. The changes streamline the process for removing visible and effective zoning protections for wetlands, eliminating the “duplication” with provincial legislation around species at risk that relies upon (1) identification; and (2) enforcement, resources for both of which are lacking at the provincial level.

The proposed changes seemingly shift responsibility from the MNRF in order “to better recognize the professional opinion of wetland evaluators”; however, there does not appear to be any oversight or peer review function, which is the standard for professional evaluation. Also, aside from the one-time 50-hour certification, the OWES training has no code of ethics for evaluators, and no continuing education component or re-certification requirement. These are all aspects of the MNRF's Ontario Tree Marking program for certifying silvicultural practitioners on Crown Land which is an excellent archetypal example. We strongly recommend that the province put in place a similar program to ensure a high standard of training and accountability for wetland evaluators in Ontario.

Wetlands are an essential part of our natural legacy and provide critical climate change mitigation and adaptation functions. Reducing wetland protections will increase risks to life and property from natural disasters and require more infrastructure that is costly to develop and maintain, saddling the next generation of Ontarians with greater debt.

Bruce County recommends that the province not proceed with the proposed changes to the Ontario Wetland Evaluation System, and that it consult with stakeholders to better address the procedural issues and consider which agency or level of government can most efficiently and effectively administer wetland stewardship.

Sincerely,

Claire Dodds, MCIP, RPP
Director of Planning & Development
County of Bruce

Jack Van Dorp, RPP
Manager of Planning
County of Bruce

cc: Premier of Ontario

Bruce County Lower Tier Municipalities