Ontario must assess the…

Ontario must assess the impacts of mines and smelters before they are built!

Submission on a proposed list of projects which will be subject to the comprehensive environmental assessment requirements in Part II.3 of the Environmental Assessment Act (EAA) and will be designated in a regulation as Part II.3 projects - Environmental Registry of Ontario number 019-2377

by Ontarians for a Just Accountable Mineral Strategy, commissioned by MiningWatch Canada, and endorsed by Northwatch, Friends of the Attawapiskat River, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, Greenpeace Canada, and Kebaowek First Nation

Executive summary

Before new or expanding mines, mills and smelters get their permits and are built in Ontario, we need to know their impacts. The process to do this is known as environmental assessment (EA). On July 8, 2020, Government of Ontario proposed sweeping changes to the Environmental Assessment Act (EAA) as part of the omnibus COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act, Bill 197. One of these changes is to develop a list of high-risk projects that will be subject to EA.

Ontario has never required new or expanding mines, mills, smelters, and refineries to undergo an assessment of their impacts on the environment, the economy, or society. Out of 31 mines and mills currently operating in Ontario, only four have gone through an EA, and only one of those was by the province; the other three were reviewed by the federal government. With one exception, mines and smelters in Sudbury, Timmins, and Kirkland Lake have never completed an EA.

We are hopeful that mines and smelters will finally appear on a new Ontario list of projects that pose the most risk to us all and we welcome this opportunity to comment. This report recommends that Ontario base its project list – at the very least – on the Quebec and British Columbia lists of high-risk mines, mills and extractive metallurgy facilities. Quebec and B.C. are, with Ontario, the largest mining jurisdictions in Canada, and like Ontario, have a dependency on global investment to develop and expand the mineral sector, and have large unfunded liabilities for abandoned mines. Ontario’s unfunded liability may be as high as $7.6 billion.

As increasing concerns from communities and Indigenous Peoples about environmental and social impacts are causing delays for extractive projects, investors – and the general public – are demanding better evaluation of the impacts of mines and smelters before they are built or undertake major expansions. Both Quebec and B.C. have responded to this pressure with project lists that include most mines and smelters.

Ontario is the only jurisdiction in Canada that does not do EA on mining developments. For decades, it has been relying on piecemeal reviews of mines by the federal government, only applying provincial reviews to mining infrastructure like roads and transmission lines. The new federal Impact Assessment Act does not provide for environmental assessment of smelters or refineries, and will only assess the largest metal and diamond mines, in part purposely to let the provinces and territories fill the gap with their own processes.

Although some Ontario mining permits do require streamlined EAs as part of the permitting process, the Auditor-General of Ontario said in 2016 that this process allows too much proponent control of the process, cumulative impacts are not assessed, the public is inadequately informed, there is no independent review, and social, cultural, and economic factors are not addressed.

Mines, smelters and refineries, and major expansions of these projects have an awesome cost in terms of their impacts on Ontario’s economy, on Indigenous Peoples, on communities, and on the natural environment. They need to be on the Project List for comprehensive environmental assessments.