GORD MILLER FULL
In the case of the Bradford Bypass the EAA exemption means that full public notification and consultation will not occur on many aspects until the project is well under way, if at all. In that case Earthroots (an environment group I chair) and others had to sue the government in Divisional Court to get a ruling that they had indeed violated the Environmental Bill of Rights.
More recently it ignored the public notification and consultation requirements for major changes enacted by a bill that degraded forestry management among other legislative changes. And it disbanded the Office of the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario whose primary role was to assure that such public participation occurs. Something highlighted by the recent Auditor General’s report. The Ford government has shown a propensity to avoid hearing what the public has to say. The other major matter that this government action threatens is the public’s right to consultation and participation in significant environmental decisions. This violates one of the fundamental tenants of sensible environmental planning: you don’t break ground on a project until you have done the work to know what the environmental consequences will be. As a result, construction of portions of the road are scheduled to commence before various impact studies are completed or approvals are considered or issued. They include endangered species habitat, fisheries impacts, and water quality and stormwater management in the already stressed Lake Simcoe watershed.ĭespite these issues the government has exempted the highway from Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Act (EAA). Many outstanding concerns about this project have not been fully and properly addressed. The Bradford Bypass is a 16-kilometre, four-to-six-lane freeway that would cross 28 waterways in the headwaters of Lake Simcoe, and would bisect one of the Greenbelt’s largest and most important wetlands, the Holland Marsh. Matters have come to a head in the government’s abandoning of all prudence, wisdom and caution in a mad rush to begin construction of the Bradford Bypass highway before the June provincial election. Frequent insults to our planning system-including a blizzard of Let-‘er-rip Minister’s Zoning Orders-have been accumulating recently. The system has served us well and made Ontario successful and wealthy while avoiding major environmental failures.īut this system has been under attack by this government for some time. This system was meticulously built up-begun by Progressive Conservative governments-to assure the orderly growth of our economy and our infrastructure while minimizing environmental damage and maintaining a social licence for development. The time has come to put the brakes on the Ford government’s rampant dismantling of the environmental laws, policies and approvals that have protected Ontario for 50 years.
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