Statement of Environmental Values for the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks

The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) is proposing a new Statement of Environmental Values (SEV) in order to:

• fulfill a commitment in the Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan with the addition of a new section on climate change
• ensure the SEV remains up to date with the addition of a five-year review period
• update the ministry name, vision, and mandate to reflect the ministry’s expanded responsibilities for parks and conservation reserves, conservation authorities and species at risk and their habitat
• make minor administrative changes to align SEV language with language in the EBR, improving language throughout, and updating the prescribed ministries and MECP website links
• make additional language changes in some sections to be more consistent with Environment Plan language
• update language from “Aboriginal” to “Indigenous” to reflect current terminology used in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, by the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs (Ontario), and by Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada.

The Environmental Bill of Rights, 1993 (EBR) establishes processes to ensure the public is informed, engaged and consulted on matters of environmental significance, as well as to provide for government accountability in environmental decision-making.

The Environmental Bill of Rights requires each prescribed ministry to develop and publish a Statement of Environmental Values which it must consider when making decisions that might significantly affect the environment. The EBR requires that the ministry’s SEV explain:

• how the purposes of the EBR are to be applied when decisions that might significantly affect the environment are made in the ministry
• how consideration of the purposes of the Act should be integrated with other considerations, including social, economic and scientific considerations, that are part of decision-making in the ministry

The EBR provides that the Minister may amend the SEV from time to time.