Updating the Ministry of Health's Statement of Environmental Values

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has updated the former Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s (MOHLTC) Statement of Environmental Values (SEV).

The SEV is:

• required under the Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) and provides MOH’s commitment to the purposes of the Act;
• must be considered when environmentally significant decisions are made within the ministry; and
• provides the ministry the core principles that it will apply during decision making related to polices, acts, regulations and instruments that might affect the environment.

The EBR requires that the ministry’s SEV explain:

• how the purposes of the EBR will be applied when decisions that might significantly affect the environment are made in the ministry; and

• how consideration of the purposes of the EBR will be integrated with other considerations, including social, economic and scientific considerations, that are part of decision-making in the ministry/

In the Summer of 2019, the MOH and Ministry of Long-Term (MLTC) were created and assumed the EBR obligations of the former MOHLTC.

In addition, in the 2019 Annual Report of the Auditor General, the ministry was one of many ministries that were required to update their SEVs to include the term “climate change”.

The ministry is proposing the following changes to its SEV:

• add a section that commits the MOH to continue to mainstream climate change adaptation into natural resource management;
• update the ministry’s vision and mandated activities;
• add a commitment to review the SEV every five years;
• affirm the important role of Indigenous peoples’ participation in ministry decision-making; and
• revise and update the SEV’s principles based on current management practices and provide clear and practical principles to facilitate SEV consideration.