The Ontario government is ignoring the public’s right to consultation on environmentally significant decisions as it allows companies to avoid the costs of pollution and damage to species at risk, according to a new set of environmental audits.
The auditor general’s annual report on the environment found that the government has not recovered the clean-up costs for hazardous spills and is giving blanket approval to all work proposals that would harm endangered species.
It also found that the government is likely not meeting its own waste diversion targets because companies are not held accountable for recycling.
“The public would expect a ministry called the Ministry of the Environment to take the lead and be proactive in ensuring that Ontario’s environment is protected for future generations. However, our work indicated that there are many areas where this is not the right place. case, “said Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk said Monday.
The changes made by the environment ministry do not reflect a focus on improving the environment, Lysyk noted, recommending greater government transparency about their motivations.
Environment Minister Dave Piccini said the government would follow the recommendations and continue to take “significant action” on the environment.
The report found that the Environment Ministry and several others “deliberately avoided” consulting the public on environmentally significant decisions, although they are legally bound to do so.
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Four ministries made environmentally significant decisions in the past year without the required consultation, and seven ministries took too long to report environmentally significant decisions in one-third of the cases reviewed by the auditor general’s office.
Even when the information was made public, the ministries did not always provide all the information that people need to give informed feedback, the audit found.
According to the Environmental Bill of Rights, Ontario residents have the enshrined right to public information and consultation on decisions that may affect the environment, similar to French language and labor rights.
#Ontario ignoring the public’s rights to environmental consultation, public information: audit #Onpoli
But the audit said the Environment Ministry has not shown leadership on that law, not even by educating the public about their environmental rights, and some other ministries do not have formal procedures to comply with it.
The audit found that some changes were made by ministries that do not have to follow the Environmental Bill of Rights and, in other cases, environmentally significant changes were made to laws that are not covered by it.
As an example, the audit noted changes made to the Conservation Authorities Law that occurred without consultation because they were included in a budget bill.
In another case, the public was not consulted about the merger of several courts dealing with mining, planning and environmental protection because the Ministry of the Attorney General, which is not prescribed in the Declaration of Environmental Rights, made the changes.
The report also noted the increased powers of the municipal affairs minister to issue zoning orders from the minister, which can circumvent consultations for development projects, as a violation of the Environmental Bill of Rights. An Ontario court found this year that the progressive Conservative government violated the law by making that change without proper public consultation.
The lack of transparency was also highlighted in other environmental audits, one of which found that the province is not providing complete and timely reports on the state of the environment or progress on its environmental goals.
Another audit noted the lack of timely and complete disclosure on the amount and damage of hazardous spills. That audit also recommended that the Ministry of the Environment strengthen its compliance and application protocols on polluters.
The spill audit found that more than 73,000 dangerous spills were reported in the province over the past decade, but the ministry only tried to recover response costs three times, with the government only chasing half the costs in those cases.
An investigation of 30 spills in which the government did not investigate costs estimated the response cost to taxpayers at $ 4.5 million, and the total unrecovered costs are likely to be much higher.
Another audit found that the government has not taken sufficient measures to divert commercial and industrial waste, which threatens to prevent the province from meeting its targets in that area. It leaves questions about “where to put all this waste and how to pay for it,” according to Lysyk.
That audit found that 15 percent of corporate and institutional waste is diverted, compared to 50 percent of residential waste, because many companies and institutions are not required to recycle.
The Environment Ministry was criticized in another audit for failing to protect species at risk by essentially approving all permit applications that would harm those species. That audit found that those permits have increased by 6,000 percent since 2009.
He also found that the environment minister’s species-at-risk advisory committee is now dominated by industry representatives and said more species will be added to the list without substantial action on the issue.
Piccini said the government is improving transparency and said compliance issues on waste diversion and other areas are being addressed by talking to industry players.
“I don’t think we are going to make a significant change … by taking the industry out of this province,” he said.
Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner said the report’s surprising numbers, such as approvals affecting species at risk, speak to the government’s lack of commitment to protecting the environment.
“(Premier) Doug Ford has steered Ontario toward environmental destruction,” he said. “It is a sad day in this province when the auditor general is answering questions about whether the Ministry of the Environment is there to protect the environment.”
This Canadian Press report was first published on November 22, 2021.
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com