TORONTO — If the Ontario government wants to make the permitting of resource development projects go smoothly, there are better ways than Bill 5 to do it, says a northern Ontario environmental group.
“In principle, we do not object to the concept of a ‘one-window’ review process, where various permits required for an operation are reviewed concurrently and in an integrated and interactive fashion,” Brennain Lloyd, the project coordinator with Northwatch wrote in a letter to Premier Doug Ford, Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce and members of the Ontario legislature.
“However, Bill 5 lacks substantive descriptions of how this process would operate, and how environmental, public participation and Indigenous rights would be preserved.”
The contentious bill, called the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, passed in the legislature Wednesday and has received royal assent from Lt.-Gov. Edith Dumont.
Indigenous leaders have also vociferously opposed Bill 5, arguing it steamrolls treaty and constitutional rights and jurisdiction over their lands. The government did amend the bill to include a statement recognizing the province’s “duty to consult” First Nations and the implementation of so-called Indigenous-led economic zones.
The wide-ranging legislation makes sweeping changes to how projects that are deemed to be in the province’s economic interest are managed, including what steps need to be taken for approvals. It amends several existing pieces of legislation, including the Environmental Assessment Act, the Mining Act and others. It also enacts two new pieces of legislation: the Special Economic Zones Act and the Species Conservation Act — that latter of which replaces the Endangered Species Act.
“One of the things that the provincial government — and, certainly, federal players have talked about this as well — is this idea of a one-project-one-assessment (model),” Lloyd said in an interview with Newswatch while the bill was still making its way through the legislature.
“And we think that's a good idea. We agree with that,” she continued.
“We just don't think that you should get to that by cutting out most of the process.”
Lloyd said her organization has been advocating for this for a long time.
“Years ago, we saw mining projects that, when we were reviewing the permits, commenting on the permits, the project would be described in one way for the closure planning permit and in a different way for the for the water discharge permit,” she said.
“Fundamental differences in the project (and) that was because they were being filed a year, a year-and-a-half apart by a different consultant,” Lloyd continued. “So, we think that it's a good idea to do a coordinated assessment and permitting process.”
“If the provincial government is genuinely interested in making the permitting process more efficient, it will develop criteria for entry of a project into the review process, in order to screen out projects which are not feasible or not sufficiently developed to enter the permitting process,” Northwatch wrote in its submission to the Standing Committee on the Interior.
The submission argued that these efficiencies could be achieved by designating mining projects under the Environmental Assessment Act “and coordinating the permitting process through that assessment process,” Northwatch wrote.
“This designation could have the additional benefits to all — the proponent, Indigenous rights holders, government agencies and the public — of including early planning and consultation,” the organization’s submission said. “It could also be harmonized with the federal process.”
“We don't think that you achieve that by simply exempting the need for permits, by simply exempting the need for environmental protections,” Lloyd said.
“You do it by actually coordinating them.”
