{"id":6269,"date":"2014-04-16T13:18:40","date_gmt":"2014-04-16T17:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=6269"},"modified":"2014-04-16T13:18:40","modified_gmt":"2014-04-16T17:18:40","slug":"time-for-residents-to-get-involved-in-review-process-say-environmentalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/time-for-residents-to-get-involved-in-review-process-say-environmentalists\/","title":{"rendered":"Time for residents to get involved in review process, say environmentalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mark Pavilons<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for concerned citizens to make a lot of noise and elevate the discussion on the environmental plans that protect lands in Ontario.<\/p>\n

The lack of monitoring and any real data on environmental protection in this province is its main failing, according to Gord Miller, Ontario\u2019s Environmental Commissioner. <\/p>\n

Miller was the keynote speaker last Wednesday at a public forum hosted by Concerned Citizens for King Township at the Kingbridge Centre. London Publishing, owner of The Auroran and King Weekly Sentinel, was the exclusive media sponsor of the event.
\nA capacity crowd gathered to hear from Ontario\u2019s top environmental cheerleader, who provided an overview of our shortcomings, while offering insights on what the future holds.<\/p>\n

The event was put together by CCKT to inform residents about the importance of the 2015 reviews of major pieces of legislation \u2013 the Oak Ridges Moraine Plan, the Niagara Escarpment Plan, and Greenbelt Plan.<\/p>\n

Once the envy of the world regarding environmental policy, Ontario\u2019s focus has declined and public service cuts in the ministries that handle environmental issues have led to lackluster enforcement and no follow-through monitoring, said Miller.<\/p>\n

The province currently lacks the professional capacity of experts \u2013 those important \u201cboots on the ground\u201d \u2013 to ensure our environmental plans are working. Miller stressed that it\u2019s our tax dollars that fund environmental protection so taxpayers should demand they be invested where it counts. <\/p>\n

The once powerful Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR)\u2008and Ministry of the Environment (MOE) have been \u201cgutted\u201d\u2008and their combined budgets today account for less than one cent out of every tax dollar. Even increasing their budgets twofold would see changes and not affect the big tax picture.
\nHe said he is not adverse to tax increases if they can be directed to the environment.<\/p>\n

Miller also told the audience to never underestimate the \u201cnoise\u201d\u2008made by people to their elected officials. With impending municipal and, potentially, provincial elections this year, it\u2019s vital to \u201cexplain it to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

An officer of the Legislative Assembly, Miller\u2019s role is to critically evaluate government decisions and the provincial planning system as it relates to the environment.<\/p>\n

Broad rules have been set out in a number of key pieces of legislation \u2013 the forerunner of them all, the Niagara Escarpment Act, the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan (ORMCP), Greenbelt Plan, and now the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan.<\/p>\n

While somewhat controversial at the outset, today these plans have been embraced as our guiding lights, but unfortunately have lacked performance monitoring indicators.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s difficult to say whether they\u2019ve been successful or not, without that on-the-ground data. With no real metrics, this has inherent problems, Miller pointed out.<\/p>\n

Regarding the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe the Ministry of Infrastructure did not develop indicators and the plan has undergone two substantial amendments and changes, with no evaluation, no metrics and no real measurements.<\/p>\n

One of the problems is government ministries tend to create plans, and draft discussion papers but never finalize anything.<\/p>\n

The only plan that works is the Niagara Escarpment Plan, created in the 1970s with its own monitoring system.<\/p>\n

While the ORMCP tries to ensure ecological integrity, it too lacks a monitoring network.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s great to set high standards, Miller noted, but it all falls apart when there\u2019s no monitoring mechanism in place.<\/p>\n

The Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation was doing it, but the province cuts its funding and the foundation folded.<\/p>\n

What we have in Ontario is a \u201cplanning hodgepodge\u201d and Miller came out swinging in a recent report to Queen\u2019s Park. He said he was \u201castounded\u201d at the failure to develop monitoring and evaluation for the Greenbelt and ORMCP and it was \u201cdisconcerting\u201d\u2008that the Growth Plan was amended \u201cin the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem lies with responsibilities fragmented between ministries. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing is the lead ministry for land use planning and has adopted a \u201cone window policy\u201d\u2008but this has proven to be ineffective. Miller explained that previously, both MOE\u2008and MNR were lead commenting agencies on all development applications in this province and they had field staff to provide on-site expertise. Both ministries have suffered staff cuts over the years and currently \u201cno one in government is looking at the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

But our hands aren\u2019t tied as concerned citizens.<\/p>\n

Miller said we need to take a step back, push for, and help create, a transparent monitoring and evaluation framework for all land use plans. It is the government\u2019s responsibility and there needs to be a long-term commitment to environmental monitoring. The government doesn\u2019t always get things right so in order to make proper decisions, they need full knowledge of the situation and the consequences.<\/p>\n

When asked about the role of the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), Miller said it was created at a time when municipalities were ill equipped to make complicated decisions, but that\u2019s no longer the case today.<\/p>\n

Developers aren\u2019t necessarily the villains in all of this, they are merely playing the game as the rules are laid out. If sloppy decisions are made, they take advantage of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t allow bad decisions to be made,\u201d\u2008he said.<\/p>\n

Miller said we need to raise the discussion standards and have substantive talks that will see these pieces of legislation continue to have teeth.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time for concerned citizens to make a lot of noise and elevate the discussion on the environmental plans that protect lands in Ontario.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/2014-04-17-25.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1D7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 21:46:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}