As a licensed Professional…

As a licensed Professional archaeologist in Ontario I have grave concerns about the changes proposed here. Archaeology, and cultural heritage as a whole (a $75-100 million/year industry) will be gutted by these changes and the "solutions" proposed (i.e., completely eliminating the requirement for archaeological assessments while cracking down and hiring investigators for compliance) do not address the fundamental problems with the current system which have led the development lobby to push the government for these changes. For years, the MCM has been chronically underfunded and understaffed by the Ford government, all under the guise of creating a delay/backlog so that these changes could be proposed. These changes also completely contravene the Crown's Duty to Consult affected Indigenous Nations, whose cultural history will effectively be wiped out and erased all so that the Conservative's developer friends can pave over culturally important sites, to build sub-par homes that no one can afford, instead of focusing on intensifying development within urban boundaries.
It also does not make any sense to state that these changes will not apply to "significant" archaeological sites for several reasons: 1) how do you know if a site is present if you don't have to complete a survey to find said site, 2) what constitutes "significance"? Significance varies by cultural group, region, site type etc. Reforms of the OHA and MCM's Standards are certainly required, but these proposed changes are NOT it, and they should NOT be passed