LEEDS AND GRENVILLE WASTE MANAGEMENT MASTER PLAN STEERING COMMITTEE
STORRINGTON COMMITTEE AGAINST TRASH
KINGSTON ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION PROJECT
ECO-COUNCIL OF THE PETERBOROUGH AREA
CATARAQUI REGION CONSERVATION AUTHORITY
CONTENTS
Thursday 8 August 1996
Environmental Assessment and Consultation Improvement Act, 1996, Bill 76, Mrs Elliott / Loi de 1996 améliorant le processus d'évaluation environnementale et de consultation publique, projet de loi 76, Mme Elliott
Senes Consultants Ltd
Mr Victor Morris, vice-president
Leeds and Grenville Waste Management Master Plan Steering Committee
Mr Bill Thake, chair
Storrington Committee Against Trash
Mr Doug Fletcher
Mrs Janet Fletcher
Ms Sandra Lawn
Kingston Environmental Action Project
Mr Eric Walton, agency coordinator
Mr Richard Lindgren, counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association
Eco-Council of the Peterborough Area
Ms Jean Greig, chair
Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority
Mr Stewart Fyfe, chair
Mr Bill Warwick, general manager
Mr Kealey Cummings
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair / Président: Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L)
Mrs JanetEcker (Durham West / -Ouest PC)
*Mr JohnGerretsen (Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L)
Mr MichaelGravelle (Port Arthur L)
Mrs HelenJohns (Huron PC)
*Mr LeoJordan (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
Mr GerardKennedy (York South / -Sud L)
Mr FloydLaughren (Nickel Belt ND)
*Mrs JuliaMunro (Durham-York PC)
Mr DanNewman (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)
*Mr RichardPatten (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
*Mr TrevorPettit (Hamilton Mountain PC)
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand PC)
Mr BruceSmith (Middlesex PC)
Mr BudWildman (Algoma ND)
*In attendance /présents
Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:
Mrs E.J. DouglasRollins (Quinte PC) for Mrs Ecker
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall L) for Mr Gravelle
Mr DougGalt (Northumberland PC) for Mrs Johns
Mr JimBrown (Scarborough West / -Ouest) for Mr Jordan (afternoon)
Mr DaltonMcGuinty (Ottawa South / -Sud L) for Mr Kennedy
Mr R. GaryStewart (Peterborough PC) for Mr Newman
Mrs LillianRoss (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC) for Mr Preston
Mr EdDoyle (Wentworth East / -Est) for Mr Smith
Ms MarilynChurley (Riverdale ND) for Mr Wildman
Clerk / Greffière: Ms Lynn Mellor
Staff / Personnel: Mr Ted Glenn, research officer, Legislative Research Service
ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AND CONSULTATION IMPROVEMENT ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 AMÉLIORANT LE PROCESSUS D'ÉVALUATION ENVIRONNEMENTALE ET DE CONSULTATION PUBLIQUE
Consideration of Bill 76, An Act to improve environmental protection, increase accountability and enshrine public consultation in the Environmental Assessment Act / Projet de loi 76, Loi visant à améliorer la protection de l'environnement, à accroître l'obligation de rendre des comptes et à intégrer la consultation publique à la Loi sur les évaluations environnementales.
SENES CONSULTANTS LTD
The Chair (Mr Richard Patten): Good morning to all the committee members, and new members Doug and Leo. This is the third day of hearings. It's good to be in Kingston, and strange to see so many sailboats still docked at the harbour.
We'll proceed this morning with our first witness, from Senes Consultants, Mr Victor Morris. Our procedure is that one half-hour is your allotted time, and any time remaining following your presentation is divided equally between the three parties. This morning we begin with the NDP after your presentation, and I'll let the parties know how much time they have. Welcome, and thank you for taking the time to present to us.
Mr Victor Morris: I appreciate this opportunity to submit to the committee my thoughts with respect to what I consider this very important legislation. I've been involved with the EA act since its inception and in proceedings leading to its creation. I'm supportive of the intent of the act and the stated intent of Bill 76 for the need to "improve environmental protection, increase accountability and enshrine public consultation."
Taking landfill as an example, I know what an old dump was like versus what a properly designed landfill site should be like. If you'd bear with me, I'll briefly review why I'm saying what I'm going to say.
My experience includes working for local municipalities in siting and designing landfills. The first one was the city of London, the selection-approval for the W-12A landfill site in the township of Westminster, so it was outside the city. This required separate EA and OMB hearings, with extensive duplication of evidence. This was corrected by the consolidation of hearings, and I believe that other improvements that started then were better public consultation and consideration of compensation for adjacent property owners.
For the town of Paris, an EA for a landfill approved without a hearing, in 1994-95; there was good direct involvement of the public and local support for the process.
Then we're doing four landfill searches in northern Ontario and they're conducted under the sectoral EA proposal for waste management planning which was developed by the ministry. I think that was a good first step in developing a streamlined process. It seems to be working very well up there. It addresses local conditions and you get the public involved early, and it seems to be working well.
For a citizens' group, I worked at Meaford-St Vincent, where they were opposing an application for a landfill site. That application had taken several years to develop, nine or 10 years, and then it was rejected on the basis of process. I believe this emphasizes the need for the suggested terms of reference at the beginning.
I was involved in environmental assessment for an energy-from-waste facility in Victoria Hospital, London. I was impressed there by the consolidated boards approach, where they dealt with critical issues in, I consider, a very efficient manner.
I've been involved in larger-scale projects with the region of Peel, development of a master plan and landfill search. Here, one of the major lessons was that there was a council decision which, as their consultants, we advised them might lead to problems with the EA process later, but we couldn't get a decision to that effect and they proceeded and spent millions of dollars before the thing finally came up when the EA was submitted. I believe the process should be able to deal with these earlier on.
The Solid Waste Interim Steering Committee was formed to develop a comprehensive waste management system for the greater Toronto area, and the municipalities were directly involved. I felt there was good cooperation there and they were working together as a team, but that was stopped with a change in provincial government.
Then we had the Interim Waste Authority work, a landfill search in Peel region. They prepared a draft approach for public review at the beginning, but there's a traditional problem in getting the public involved early in the process, and I think that was one of the problems.
Then we've been working on the Metropolitan Toronto Adams mine site, which Metro has, for economic reasons, decided not to pursue, but which will be continuing as a private sector involvement. It gives some experience in dealing with the private sector development and the case for looking at specific proposals rather than looking at every alternative.
Basically, I believe that despite recent efforts by the board to improve the process, the EA process has lost its original objectives of protecting the environment while allowing necessary public service works to proceed in a reasonably predictive and cost-effective manner. In the Canadian Environmental Assessment Process Citizens' Guide, there's a statement that I think puts it in a nutshell: "The level of effort required to carry out an environmental assessment should match the scale of the likely adverse environmental effects of the project." In other words, every project doesn't have to go through every detail of a process, as long as you're addressing the ones that matter to the environment.
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This is emphasized in what we've done in Ontario with the class EA system. I think that's an excellent approach. It's been developed by all levels of participants and government in the province and defines what you need to do for pretty routine projects. You don't have to go through a full system. That's efficient, in my opinion, and it seems to be working well.
Based on this experience, I believe there are three major areas for improvement: We need more certainty in the process and that should associate efficiency and less protracted upsets. I believe it's tough on the public to drag these things out and have all sorts of upsets through 10 years of operation. For example, the Meaford board, when they rejected that application on the basis of process, stated that it would have been preferable to have had good guidelines at the beginning of the process so that everyone knew where they were going and what they had to do. I understand there was a problem there, that the process was still developing, but it could have been better defined at the beginning. It would have saved a lot of trouble and a lot of expense.
As I mentioned earlier, Peel didn't get the decisions on the process early enough from the ministry, despite requests for guidance at that point. I mentioned the IWA did prepare draft terms of reference, but had difficulty getting enough public attention. That's a traditional problem. When a municipality starts a landfill search, how do you get the people interested until they are faced with a site right next door? But I believe, in this province anyway, the people are far more sophisticated than they used to be. If proper notice is given and so on, people will get involved, especially if they know they can't wait till the end before they show some interest. That, in my mind, means getting the elected people very actively involved early in the process.
In summary, I believe initial firm terms of reference, taken seriously, are critical to improving the process.
Second, alternatives to be looked at must be clarified. To what degree do all possible alternatives have to be examined? There's a public benefit, certainly, in looking at reasonable alternatives. We should do that. But as part of an initial site selection, landfill sizing must look at waste quantities -- which isn't always as easy as it seems -- the 3Rs component and disposal options and what's required to meet the objectives of, for example, provincial 3Rs regulations.
Just using an example, energy from waste has been resurrected, and in some communities we can say right off the bat that if they're going to confine it to a small, local area, there's no point in studying an expensive energy-from-waste alternative. There are -- I'm thinking of mass burning here as the example -- other energy-from-waste alternatives that are coming on the market that are more suitable to small communities, but it may be decided, just as these northern communities did, that that wasn't for them. They couldn't handle it, and nobody would argue with that. But it might be considered as an alternative in a larger municipality.
I know the board has stressed that you don't have to find the best landfill site, but in the course of legal debate and so on, that always seems to come up: "You've looked at this, but isn't there a better one up here somewhere?" As long as you're finding one that's environmentally acceptable and have had a reasonable review of the process -- again, it's easy to quote the northern ones, but there you're faced with thousands of square miles of study area, and with the agreement of the public we're able to sit down and confine that to what I consider a logical approach: We take the main highways so that the trucks are using those and study areas first, say a kilometre on each side of these main highways, rather than looking at the whole area with all the associated costs. If you can't find a suitable site in that area, then you can expand it, but someone could say, "There's a better site 100 miles away."
I believe if you have a specific proposal to restore a pit, for example, that could be defined in the terms of reference and challenged. If it's agreeable that that is a viable alternative, then it should be allowed to go ahead without examining every other landfill option in the potential service area.
The types of issues to be considered by the board must be defined better. I believe strongly that we've got into public debate on technical issues which should be settled by regulatory authorities. In other words, the proponent has presumably hired a competent consultant who will give them advice on designs and so on for the technical aspects, and the regulatory authorities should have the capability to say whether that is technically feasible or not. We don't have to spend months debating that with lawyers and losing the technical issues, really, and all sorts of other things. The board can still examine, if necessary, social compensation and relocation factors and so on, things that are directly impacting the people and not subject to decision by regulatory authorities.
Specifically with respect to Bill 76, I've just noted here the items that I felt most strongly about.
The first one is harmonization, section 3.1. I believe this integration or harmonization is very critical, especially if you have the federal government involved as well as the provincial government. It has to mean a commitment by these people. In other words, we've run across areas where we've consulted with other levels of government and they've said, "We don't think we have a problem," and then later on they come up and decide they have a problem. With the guidelines and so on, they would have to be accountable. They're given the chance; they have to respond to what the project is or shut up. You can't keep coming back and forth on this thing.
That may require adequate resources and consistent policies by these groups. I know we're into budget-cutting and so on, and I don't think we have to expand our regulatory authorities tremendously. We've got a lot of good, competent people, and in certain specific areas they can hire the best in the world and get a decision on whether it's acceptable. It will be cheaper than going through what we've been going through in the way of the EA process -- on technical matters.
The terms of reference, subsection 6(1): I believe this is a good idea for both proponents and interested parties, to address the basic issues up front, as I said. It should avoid delays, confusion and possible rejection of a nine- or 10-year process on the basis of some process item that really didn't have a big impact on the environment. They're essential to meeting the objectives of Bill 76. If we don't have these draft terms of reference, I don't believe the rest of the bill will result in any improvement.
However, I believe we need some elaboration, either through regulation or guidelines, on the requirements as may be prescribed. That's to assure both the proponents and the public to what they're getting into. I don't believe it is difficult, based on everyone's experience to date, to produce those. They can be produced by the Ministry of Environment or proponent groups for submission and approval by the minister. I was thinking particularly of the Northern Ontario Municipal Association where their approach to, say, a landfill site may be different, and rightfully different, from what you have to do in the southern Ontario, highly populated areas.
They should be applicable to both the public and private sectors. We have to address that there can be differences, but you can still match the two so that you're covering everything you want from an environmental point of view.
The level of detail required is mentioned, and that can be illustrated by these examples. I believe that would help to sell the bill if people really understood what caveats and provisions are in there before going ahead.
Deadlines: According to the guidelines that have been published, I believe they're quite tight, but they're reasonable as proposed if you get this harmonization and concerted effort. It should stress the importance of the process, in other words that it's not going to drag out, that you have certain deadlines to meet and we can all meet them if we put our minds to it.
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Obligation to consult: At least minimum procedures should be outlined for the EA and for the terms of reference. I believe that is important to assure people. Most responsible proponents have a good front-end system anyway because they know it's necessary, things like adequate notice in the service area so that everyone gets a chance to be aware of it and respond, get involved. As mentioned before, I believe the elected reps are key. They're elected to represent their people; they should be heavily involved in this front-end notice business. Then you could probably go as far as forming, in most cases, a liaison review committee of people who have been identified as interested and the local politicians.
Preparation of the EA itself: As for the terms of reference, I believe examples should be provided which cover both public and private sector proponents.
In the submission of the EA, again outline minimum procedures for notifications. I don't think that's a hard thing to do. These would be at least minimum and would give this assurance to people working in the business.
Remedying deficiencies, subsection 7(5): I was a bit unsure actually of this seven-day requirement. It could be that something is identified that requires a study that, despite the initial terms of reference, takes longer than seven days, hopefully in most cases not, but there should perhaps be a provision for extending that seven days if there's a good reason for it. But that should be the minister's decision.
Mediation: Again, that's a minor item really, but the proponent would have to pay for this. It may involve a full board hearing. Some assessment should be made of what it's going to cost proponents so they can be informed and make a decision whether they want to proceed or not.
The scope of the hearing is probably my most important concern and I think I've touched on it already. I worry about this clause which says that the board can still hear argument. I've talked to some lawyer friends and I get different opinions here: that the argument might only be an identification of an issue without presenting full evidence and so on; and others say, "Once you leave that open, we'll drive a truck through it and continue the past process."
In the bottom line I believe there is ample opportunity in the preceding steps, if the bill is implemented, to avoid the unexpected. People can't just say, "I'll wait until the hearing and then bring up all these things"; they have to bring them up at the front end. I believe they should be required to submit issues to the minister in writing early in the process steps, and it would be preferable to delete this provision that the board can then open the whole process up again. I must say I wrestled with that, but I do believe it's too open to misuse.
Decision of the board not invalid: I had a little difficulty with this one. Why is this clause necessary? In other words, if the board must make a decision on the evidence as presented, given that the terms of reference have been agreed on and which presumably cover issues that have already been decided, why do you need this provision?
Proposed change to an undertaking: This should be defined as a significant change. I know we need a definition of "significant," but if it's submitted to the minister and he considers it significant, then it would be appropriate. Just saying a change -- it could be a fairly minor change and then we've lost all we've gained in terms of saving time and effort.
The grandfathering clause: I think municipalities or proponents should be allowed to decide if the project, although not actually submitted at the time of the passing of the bill, is far enough along that they want to continue under the old process. That's just a choice of the people.
Finally, the class EA: As I said before, I believe strongly in this for routine-type projects. This would legalize the process. I think again we've built up guidelines. The Municipal Engineers Association has prepared good guidelines that they're working with, and something like this should be used as a reference in addressing the requirements of the class EA -- that would be your terms of reference -- and the whole class EA process can be broadened to include more standard, routine-type projects.
It's apparent, if the bill goes through, it places a great responsibility on the minister, and ministers change. I believe, so that we don't keep going through this every time there's a change of minister, that we have to build up through the ministry staff a sound basis on these factors, types of terms of reference and so on, so that there is a routine to follow, and it may be improved as we go along but it can't be radically changed.
As I mentioned before, I believe the responsibility of a regulatory approval staff for technical issues should be restored and they should be made accountable for technical matters. In the early days, in the 1950s and 1960s, we had the Ontario Water Resources Commission, and they cleaned up this province. I know it's not perfect, but compared to the dying Lake Erie we had and so on they did a tremendous job and were recognized throughout the world as a first-class regulatory authority. They did things and they got them done. I shudder to think, if we'd had the recent EA process, they'd still be having hearings and debating whether or not to build a sewage treatment plant here. In the meantime the damage to the environment would be terrible.
I stress that example at the end. We get before a board with hydro-geological issues and it seems to take months and millions of dollars of debate before three good people who have been appointed. I think we lose technical decisions in the skill of the lawyers and the lack of expertise of people hearing the case. So, technical issues: Hire the best in the world; it'll be a lot cheaper, and that can back up the regulatory authorities.
Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): You raise a number of issues that I wish we had time to discuss more fully, but we don't. I want to ask you in particular a couple of questions, one around the terms of reference, which is a key element of this whole process. As you know, that's critical because it becomes the structure for the entire EA. There's no provision within this draft bill for the public or municipalities to be involved in those very important upfront negotiations. There is a provision, apparently, that it can be -- it doesn't have to be under the law -- posted on the registry for public comment for 30 days after the fact; no provision, though, that the public or a municipality be involved in that. In light of your comment about not wanting the minister to add on other issues later, would you say it is important for the public and interested persons, whoever that may be -- that's a whole other question -- to be involved on the front end of that?
Mr Morris: Definitely. I thought I had covered that, actually, because I believe it should be made clear to everyone what we're talking about with early public involvement. That includes the terms of reference because, as you say, that's fundamental to the whole thing.
As I said before, good proponents would do that anyway if they're smart, because it just removes a lot of problems. I've found that where we can sit down with the public early in the process it's far more meaningful. You won't get everyone to agree with you, but at least they'll learn to respect an opinion and you can respect their opinion and try to respond to the concerns. So yes, and I think there should at least be some minimum guidelines, as I said, on full advertising and giving people a chance to step forward. I know is's not easy to get them at that stage but, as I said, I think they're far more sophisticated now and I think we will get better response.
Ms Churley: Okay. I wanted to ask you a quick question on class EA. Unfortunately there's nothing, say, defining the threshold of which groups of undertakings should come under a class EA, and as you know, it's not as rigorous a process, and because it's not defined, theoretically anything could come under class EA.
Mr Morris: That's why I referred to these guidelines that have been developed.
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Ms Churley: So you would suggest that the government define within the bill as clearly as possible the more minor kinds of undertakings which should come under EA so it can't be abused, which is quite possible the way it's written now.
Mr Morris: Sure. That's like the terms of reference. If they refer back to these guidelines that have been developed over several years, and in my opinion a lot of good effort has gone into it, you can say, "Here are examples of what's going to be under a class EA and here are the draft terms of reference."
Mr Trevor Pettit (Hamilton Mountain): Thank you, Mr Morris, for your presentation. You obviously have not only a vast knowledge of, but a lot of personal, hands-on experience with EAs.
Mr Morris: I should have said that I'm talking as a taxpayer here rather than a consultant.
Mr Pettit: I understand that, but you do have a lot of hands-on experience, and you mentioned earlier on in your presentation the lack of certainty to the process. My question to you would be, do you feel that with the new bill, with the introduction of the terms of reference and time lines, that will provide more certainty to the process?
Mr Morris: Yes, I do, provided you give people a little more understanding of what these terms of reference are going to be like. They shouldn't become a mini-EA, where you spend two years developing the terms of reference. I don't think that's necessary. I think it can be done efficiently and that's essential: Set it up front.
Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): I certainly appreciate the information that you provided us with this morning. At the top of page 3, where you're talking about the importance of public input in the terms of reference, you also mention of course that proponents would assume that responsibility. I believe you alluded to the notion of some kind of threshold of public involvement at that level. The issue I see there is the fact that a threshold becomes both the minimum and the maximum at the same time. Would you comment on that problem, and do you see that in outlining any kind of threshold there are times when a particular proponent might have a different set of public involvement, according to the project?
Mr Morris: Yes, that can happen. That's why at least a minimum; I think a minimum is pretty common, and it should be part of the terms of reference so that people understand what's going to be in there. Then it may be expanded if there's good reason to expand it. But the minimums that I mentioned, I think we're used to doing that: proper notification within the study area, involving local people and trying to find the interested parties. Then at least everyone knows they're faced with that cost, that they're going to do at least that. Then they may suggest in their terms of reference, "I want to go a step beyond that," but at least they have to do the initial part.
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): Thank you, Mr Morris. You've obviously had a lot of experience in working with municipalities and citizen groups and developers over the years. Do you have any comment as to whether or not you feel, from your experience, that the government shouldn't be more actively involved in not only setting the rules and regulations as to how sites are approved but in actually developing the sites themselves?
Mr Morris: I happen to believe that in many cases you could get a better solution from opening it up to the private sector if it comes over with something. That may mean encouraging several municipalities to get together. In other words, there's more trauma often in having small landfill sites in each municipality than in combining their efforts, and that may be suggested to them by a private sector. I'm not a great believer in over-regulation. I do believe in what's happening parallel to this process on the development of landfill guidelines. There's a lot of work to be done on that yet, but at least it gives the proponents an idea of what the regulatory authorities are going to require. In other words, "If you're going to build a landfill site under these circumstances, you'll need a liner, you'll need this." That can save a lot of debate and grief, but I wouldn't go to handing everything over to government to do and build.
Mr Gerretsen: I don't know how many studies are currently going on in the province of Ontario, but I know that at one time there were over 50 of them going on, and there may be more now. As you know, in the Kingston area here they've been working on a waste management study for well over 10 years now and I'm not sure whether they're any further ahead to coming up with a conclusion than when we started it in 1985.
Mr Morris: Well, I've got two things there. When we worked on the SWISC process, I was quite impressed that for the greater Toronto area we had the chairman of each of the regions sitting at our meetings, participating and cooperating, so that I had great dreams of this giving a solution for the greater Toronto area.
On the other hand, with the IWA, one of the problems I found, and I'd worked in the region of Peel before for the municipality, we were far better received and able to communicate with the people for some reason than when we were perceived to be imposed on them by the province. It was just tougher to do. So I think you need this grass-roots involvement, but it can mean a combination of effort with different municipalities.
The Chair: Mr Morris, time passes quickly in these hearings. I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for sharing your views and taking out the time to be with us.
LEEDS AND GRENVILLE WASTE MANAGEMENT MASTER PLAN STEERING COMMITTEE
The Chair: Next we have the Leeds-Grenville Waste Management Steering Committee. Mr Thake, welcome to the hearings and state your name for the purpose of Hansard and begin your presentation.
Mr Bill Thake: Welcome to eastern Ontario. My name is Bill Thake. I'm reeve of the village of Westport. I've held that position for the last 27 years; it's so long, I kind of forget. I'm also a member of the council -- for eight years before that. I've been warden of the united counties twice, in 1974 and 1992, and I've chaired our Leeds and Grenville Waste Management Master Plan Steering Committee since 1993.
Just to fill in a bit where Leeds and Grenville are, for those who are not familiar with the southeastern part of Ontario -- I know Mr Gerretsen and Mr Jordan quite well are -- the united counties are located in southeastern Ontario. We border on the north shore of the St Lawrence River and we're bordered by Frontenac county to the west, the region of Ottawa-Carleton and Lanark county to the north, and Dundas county to the east. Our area is roughly 339,000 hectares. We have a population of 89,943. It might be 89,944 -- we might have had a birth or two overnight. We consist of 25 municipalities, being one city, three towns, five villages and 16 townships. The city of Brockville, the towns of Gananoque and Prescott are separate from the united counties for municipal purposes.
The background of our Leeds and Grenville study: If you refer to the handout, there's "Ontario Finally Finds a Perfect Dump Site," the Toronto Star of January 14, 1995, and "Phantom Dump a Quiet Success" from the Ottawa Citizen's publication of December 30, 1994.
In the beginning, in 1989, the united counties decided to undertake the waste management study. The MOEE agreed to finance 50% of the study costs. The study was to define the most appropriate waste management system to meet the needs of the united counties and the separated towns and city for roughly a 20-year period. Late in 1989 a public liaison committee, or the PLC, was formed to facilitate public input into the preparation. M.M. Dillon Ltd was retained by the counties in February 1990 to assist in the preparation of the WMMP.
Currently, 24 of the 25 municipalities participate in this study. Originally, 23 were in it because the Grenville-Dundas study was under way and Edwardsburgh township on our east boundary was included in that study. But when it was realigned to county boundaries it resulted in Edwardsburgh coming back into ours in August 1991. As well, South Elmsley township, which borders on Lanark, was involved in that particular land waste management study, but they joined the united counties in December 1991. The town of Gananoque withdrew from our studies in April 1995.
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Conforming to the MOEE changes, the original terms of reference were developed by the MOEE. In 1991 the ministry changed their direction and our study had to be restructured. This resulted in additional time and consulting fees to prepare a waste management diversion system plan that was required and a landfill site selection methodology report. It means we had to go back into the study and redo parts of it over again.
Submissions: In December 1994, the preferred land site which we identify as ED-19 was identified. In the summer of 1996 detailed investigations on the site were completed. At the end of August we hope that the draft EA and EPA documents will be ready for public and agency review, and I'm led to believe they will be. A six-month review period for the public and the government agencies has been planned. Submission of application for landfill site approval is anticipated in 1997. The costs of our study as of June 30, 1996: $2.15 million. MOEE has contributed $666,000. As you can see, we've been a victim of the cuts as well, the 50% costs. If you divide that by two, $666,000 is a long way from 50% of $2.15 million.
Just some comments on the EA process: The study is carried out to meet the requirements of the existing EA Act, and we fully support legislation intended to protect the environment and ensure public accessibility to the process. In our study so far we have found that the public accessibility to the process from day one is very formidable because, as you know, fear of the unknown is the worst fear there is and if you keep people in from day one and they know what's happening it certainly makes the process a lot easier. If you read the newspaper articles, you'll see the results.
We are confident that we have identified an appropriate site for landfilling, with extensive public consultation since the beginning of the study. As a result of that, the host municipalities and the residents living near the site are in general acceptance of the proposed site -- very little problems. We are reasonably confident that no one will call for a hearing, but if a hearing is necessary we are concerned that the costs will be unmanageable for the ratepayers, with the cuts that are being passed down to municipalities.
The steering committee had undertaken the study anticipating financial support from the MOEE for the detailed investigations, a hearing if necessary, and construction of the new site. This funding program was cancelled. The steering committee has to decide whether or not to seek approval to operate the landfill site solely by county ratepayers. When I say "county," I take in the separated municipalities -- very difficult to sell your colleagues on counties' council who currently have disposal capacities in their own landfill sites, to have to put the money into a hearing if one should develop. If they know that the hearing is imminent, it would be impossible I think to get the funding from the finance committee of the united counties to conduct that hearing.
Now a few comments on Bill 76. Our study committee generally supports the proposed amendments of the existing Environmental Assessment Act, based on our understanding that they will (1) add certainty to the process, (2) decrease costs, and (3) shorten the time required to complete a study. By the time you complete the study under the way it is now, in the case of certain municipalities, the capacity in their present landfill sites has been used up, they're on an emergency operation certificate and waiting for things to happen.
We support the intent of the proposed amendments to strengthen the environmental protection, retain the broad definition of the environment, focus on environmental impacts and not on the process, ensure that public accessibility is there, and end an era of costly and unmanageable EAs.
We support the idea of getting the minister's approval at an early stage for study terms of reference which would be binding on all parties. However, we are concerned that proposed subsection 9(6) does not go nearly far enough. It's not good enough that the board "shall consider" the approved terms of reference. The board's decision must be consistent with the terms of reference as approved by the minister. This would add certainty to the EA process.
We support mandatory review schedules. We hope they will remain as strict as currently proposed.
We support the idea of the minister issuing policy guidelines under the proposed section 27.1. Specifically, there is no point in reinventing the wheel for every municipal study. The minister should issue a policy that clearly states the ministry's expectations for the municipal waste management planning which focuses on the 3Rs. Diversion targets, availability of incineration as an option under the right circumstances and recognition of the need for landfill should be addressed in the minister's policy guidelines. Municipalities would then be able to quickly and efficiently create a system plan, as Leeds and Grenville have done, out of which a series of individual projects and initiatives could come forward for approval.
Our major concerns: Most municipalities are currently involved in waste management planning processes. Many, like ours, are nearing completion. The issue of a transition to the new rules has not been properly dealt with in proposed section 12.4. Additional guidance on how transitions will apply to projects under way is needed.
Conclusion: We would like to take advantage of new EA provisions; however, we should not have to nor can we afford to spend more money to loop back into the process. Our study is too far advanced for that. To ask my peers on council for their support would be senseless. To ask Leeds and Grenville ratepayers to accept additional costs would be unacceptable.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is my main submission. I went through the highlights of this because, as a politician myself, I hate to have a document placed before me and then have it read to me. So I certainly am open for questions and would do my best to try to answer.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I appreciated the description of your constituency and I'm glad to hear of the growth dynamic in your population. We begin with the government side this morning.
Mr Doug Galt (Northumberland): Thank you, Mr Thake, for a very interesting presentation and presenting your personal experiences as you worked your way through this. This is probably one of the easier, more simplified ones that you're describing that you've gone through and accomplished, although you may not necessarily feel that way; the people in the area are accepting it. But you've ended up with $2.15 million, I think was the figure that you told us. I guess I sit here and wonder if that $2.15 million could have been better spent in a proper engineered landfill site, in other words, a protection of the environment, rather than going through an awful lot of this exercise. My real question coming to you relates to, with this new bill, do you have any feeling of what it might have cost with Bill 76 in place rather than the old procedure?
Mr Thake: The first part that I think you're referring to cost us roughly $1 million, so I would say that the saving would be a large portion of that $1 million.
Mr Galt: How about environmental protection, as you look at Bill 76 and going through that exercise versus the exercise you went through? Will the environment suffer at all or will it be improved, in your opinion?
Mr Thake: I think it'll be as good, if not improved, in my opinion, sir.
Mr Galt: Actually, I did come across a statement in here someplace where you thought probably it would be improved.
Mr Thake: That's correct.
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Mr Galt: Rather than any loss, it would actually be a gain there. Does anyone else on the government side have questions?
Mr Ed Doyle (Wentworth East): Yes, I have a question. Thank you, Mr Thake, for coming today. You mentioned the terms of reference. Would your project, do you feel, have been helped considerably if there had been more public involvement at the beginning, early on in the process?
Mr Thake: We had public involvement pretty well in it right from the beginning, sir. It's just that the terms of reference, if they're laid down and approved by the minister, give you a more concrete nucleus from which to work rather than to come up with a set and then see if they're approved or not. We had MOEE resource people with us from day one until the cuts happened, just a wee bit over a year ago, and then we lost those resource people who used to attend all of our meetings, both public and committee meetings.
Mr Doyle: So you had public involvement early on in the process.
Mr Thake: Right from the start, sir.
Mr W. Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): Thank you, Mr Thake, for coming in and taking time to make this presentation. As you know, it's very relevant to my riding, representing Lanark-Renfrew. My question to you is on the use of good agricultural land for a waste disposal site. What is the feeling of your people on that issue? We're running into some conflict in our riding as to whether good agricultural land should be used for that purpose, or should we be using abandoned pits and lining them properly, including standards, if they are made available.
Mr Thake: That was one of the disciplines that was applied to finding ED-19. One of the criteria was good agricultural land. The location of ED-19 in Edwardsburgh township down in the very southeast corner of the counties means that my own municipality would have to travel roughly almost 80 miles each way to take their garbage to that site. But it was certainly considered in the disciplines and it carried a very heavy weight in the different sites and that's why the site that we picked is a site on the Edwardsburgh land bank, which has a very good clay bottom, roughly 18 feet to 30 feet of clay, which makes a natural liner.
But no, my own personal opinion is that good agricultural land should not be used for a landfill site. I think we have lots of marginal land in the province of Ontario, such as you have said, in abandoned pits etc. With the proper type of lining, with the technology we have today to ensure there's no environmental catastrophe from the leachate in the later years coming from that, I think that they could be used and perhaps after that filled and they would certainly look a lot better than the abandoned pits and quarries that we have in our landscape today.
The Chair: I now move to the Liberal Party.
Mr Gerretsen: Welcome, Reeve Thake. It's always nice to have a municipal leader before this committee, particularly somebody who has served as long as you have. I'm sure, given the fact that the parliamentary assistant and seven prominent members of the government party are here today, they will look after the half a million dollars that you were promised towards your study costs. I guess you're about a half a million short and I'm sure that they'll take it back to their caucus and see that the cheque is in the mail by the end of the month.
Mr E.J. Douglas Rollins (Quinte): You speak for yourself.
Ms Churley: Good luck.
Mr Gerretsen: I'm very interested in the notion as to where landfills ought to be located. It always seems to me that the best site for landfills is good agricultural land, with good clay soil and what have you, and those are also usually the areas where you've got a fair amount of the population living. It seems to me, why don't we turn it around? This is something I've been promoting and picking up on something that Dr Galt mentioned, and that is that we all suffer from the NIMBY syndrome. Nobody wants the landfill in their back yard.
What is wrong with going to a piece of marginal land, as you're saying, where almost nobody lives, and engineer a site? Because apparently, by doing it, you've been fairly successful in at least getting the neighbourhood on side. Do you have any comments on that? Do you think we're going about this totally the wrong way? By looking for the best type of land, we're probably also finding the greatest number of people who live in that area and, as a result, the NIMBY syndrome might set in?
Mr Thake: That could happen, sir. As I say, we were very lucky because we do not have that many residents in the area that has been chosen by incorporating all the disciplines that the consultant came up with. I think one of the main things is education on how a current landfill site works, how it's engineered, and more or less works the same as a large factory or industrial complex, as compared to the old type of landfill site with papers and seagulls and everything blowing and flying all over and dump trucks going in half-loaded and leaving garbage along the sides of the road.
I think the educational part to educate the people in the areas that should be picked is a very important aspect because most people, when you say landfill site, regardless of how we want to say it, refer to it as a dump, and the old dump comes back to mind. I think we'd all have to agree that nobody wants the old dump in their backyard. But with the education and the enlightening of how a modern landfill site works with recycling and composting and what have you, really it's the same as an industrial complex. It really isn't like an old dump.
Mr Gerretsen: Do you have any opinion at all on whether or not the government ought to be more directly involved in the construction and management of landfill sites, or do you feel that's a county responsibility?
Mr Thake: To be perfectly honest and speaking frankly as myself and as a municipal politician, I feel the county could run it far better because, as you're aware, anything run by either the provincial or federal government ends up costing eight or 10 times more than what the local people can operate it for.
The Chair: I move to the NDP.
Ms Churley: Thank you for your presentation. I'm wondering, just on a different track for a moment, how are you doing in your county on waste diversion?
Mr Thake: Very well. We've met our target, which was 50%, and we're actually above that target now by using recycling and composting.
Ms Churley: This government is phasing out the funding for municipalities for the blue box program. Have you planned or do you know how you're going to deal with continuing with that successful diversion -- congratulations, by the way -- when that funding runs out? Have you made plans? Is it going to be a problem?
Mr Thake: There are really, personally again, two ways to look at that: one, the blue box incorporation and the purchase of the collection vehicles etc. Most of them have been obtained under funding from the government in the past so that the actual cost is just the extra charge of perhaps a recycling day when you pick it up and the handling of the recyclables. I think it's more or less an economic tradeoff as to what it's going to cost you to go through an EA for your landfill site once it's filled versus recycling and increasing the life and usefulness of the site after it's operational or one that is operational now. I think you have to weigh those two things one against the other.
Ms Churley: Wouldn't you say -- and I ask those questions because we all know, and you certainly know from your position, how complex trying to site a landfill can be, and in many cases much more complex and difficult than yours -- that protection of the environment and going through an EA process is more than just about the right lining for the right hole, that at the end of the day we're looking at yes, dealing with the waste, but also using up our valuable resources, and that it's far more complex than just trying to find the right lining, understanding that we want to cut as much red tape as possible and to do it as efficiently as possible, that the bottom line at the end of the day is finding the best solution for the environment and for the people who live around the site? Would you not say that all of those components are an important part of an EA?
Mr Thake: They certainly are, ma'am, but most of those are included in the disciplines that are incorporated in the EA up to presentation to the minister for the authorization to proceed and get your certificate of approval. If you incorporate those disciplines such as transportation, changes in lifestyle, social impacts and all that, if you include them from the start and include them in the public process, I think you will find we have covered all those and I think it depends on the terms of reference you use as a nucleus for your consultant to work from.
Ms Churley: Exactly. I guess I asked that question in response to Dr Galt's question to you about process and wouldn't it be better to focus on just the right lining for the hole in the ground, that it's all-important.
My last question, then, would be in terms of the terms of reference, and I'm asking this to everybody because I think it's important. You seem to imply that the faster you have the public involved the better capable you are of having a speedy process. Would you recommend to the government that public participation, in terms of dealing with the terms of reference, be written into the act so that the public are definitely, under the law, included in the negotiations around the terms of reference, because right now they're not.
Mr Thake: There again I have to have more or less two answers. I certainly think the public should be involved to an extent, but not to the extent where they can change the rulings that are found by the consultants by employing the disciplines, by foolish argument -- let's put it that way. If they have a good reason, then I think the committee should hear them and I think they should be in there, but if it's somebody who lives 45 miles away and feels that seagulls are going to fly over their property coming back from that, something trivial like that has to be taken very, very lightly. And these things happen.
Ms Churley: I think we would all agree that we should find a way to deal with frivolous demands, although I suppose the person living there does not feel it's frivolous. You would support, then, public involvement from the very beginning of the process, with the caveat that --
Mr Thake: As I said, I would to a certain extent, ma'am; yes, to a certain extent.
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Ms Churley: The other question I have, very quickly, is, given that the government review period is actually the place where most of the delays are, do you have concerns that the kinds of cuts that are happening -- the 752 layoffs to date, $200 million cut from the budget, with more to come we think -- will have an impact? Are you worried about that, that it will have an impact on government review time? If they have to do it within a contained time period, then I guess if there aren't enough experts there to deal with it in that timely fashion the best decisions might not be made. What would you recommend to the government around staffing to make sure that it's done properly?
Mr Thake: I would certainly recommend that the staff that they are able to maintain be the top-quality staff, and I'm quite sure -- with no detriment meant to any of the elected members, I have been in several offices of different departments in the Ontario government and I'm quite sure there were more people in those offices than were required. Perhaps instead of losing stuff going from one desk to the other they'll be able to concentrate on it and we will really save the time that way.
Ms Churley: Get more efficient.
The Chair: Sorry, your time is up. Mr Thake, thank you kindly for joining us today. We appreciate your presentation.
STORRINGTON COMMITTEE AGAINST TRASH
The Chair: Our next presenters are the Storrington Committee Against Trash, Janet Fletcher and Douglas Fletcher. Welcome this morning to our hearings.
Mr Doug Fletcher: We appreciate the opportunity to present our concerns with respect to proposed changes to the Environmental Assessment Act. Although we have concerns about many of the changes being proposed, we wish to focus our submission on what we feel are three very important issues: (1) public participation and consultation, (2) intervenor and participant funding, and (3) powers of the minister.
The following is a summary of our group's experience in the environmental assessment process. To understand our experience you must put yourselves in our place as ordinary people, living ordinary lives, faced with a proposal that has the potential to adversely impact the environment and drinking water supplies as well as devalue our property. We believe that once you put yourself in our shoes, you will understand the need to include the public in a truly equal and meaningful way in the development of such proposals.
My wife and I spent three years searching for the perfect piece of property on which to build our dream home. In 1984, we found it in Storrington township on the beautiful Rideau Canal. Before we purchased the property, we were warned by other residents that there was a dump within a kilometre of the property and it was leaking contaminants into the environment. Since we had no knowledge about dumps or their associated problems, we did what most ordinary people would do. We checked with the authorities whose mandate was to protect our environment: the local Ontario Ministry of Environment office. We were told that there were no problems at this dump and that in fact the dump was nearly full and would close within a year.
Putting our faith in the words of a government official, something we have since discovered is at best naïve, we purchased the property believing we were protected from any impacts that might occur. Two other neighbours who subsequently moved into the area followed the same process and received the same answers. Unknown to all of us but not unknown to the ministry was the fact that the dump did have problems and that Tricil Ltd, the original owners of the dump, were planning to expand the site. We felt we were misled.
Public participation in the process was short-circuited by the fact that the original application was filed under the Environmental Protection Act and thus no public consultation or consideration of social impacts were required. The application was subsequently redesignated under the Environmental Assessment Act by the Minister of the Environment and the proponent was then required to involve the neighbourhood and the neighbouring residents to consider the social impacts. We had no input on the criteria designed for the assessment because the minister did not require Tricil to restart the process. We were not going to be afforded a full environmental assessment process.
Pollution in a landfill site begins with the first bag of garbage. It's essential that the best possible site be selected for this enterprise in order to reduce or eliminate impacts. Without the public's involvement, all impacts of the proposal cannot be adequately addressed.
In 1988, we received a postcard from Tricil inviting us to attend a public workshop to review the proposal for the dump expansion. The proponent complained that involvement of the public would create unnecessary delays and that due to an emergency situation -- which they and the municipalities using the site had created -- this proposal must be pushed through with all possible haste. Until this time, the proponent had no intention of informing the neighbourhood residents of the planned expansion which would have doubled the size of the dump and would have compounded the existing impacts on the surrounding community and the environment. The proponent was not interested in public consultation.
The Storrington dump is located in a sand and gravel pit within a few hundred metres of the Rideau Canal to the east and south of the site -- the canal actually follows a curve, and this is built right into the curve of the canal -- close to a class 1 and a class 2 wetland complex; this is very close to the dump. There are 12 families living within a one-kilometre distance of the site to the east and the west and several other families in the surrounding vicinity, all of whom were impacted by trucking, litter, odour, dust, seagulls, rats, noise, illegal dumping etc, not to mention the devastating effect on property values.
The dump had been having negative impacts on the surrounding community and the environment for most of its 20-year history. Complaints by the residents went unheeded by the owners of the site and the Ministry of the Environment. In fact, it was the general opinion of the neighbours that the ministry always supported the dump owners on all issues, to the detriment of the neighbours and the environment. Prior to 1991, the ministry did nothing to alter this opinion; problems were allowed to escalate.
As noted previously, when we entered into the process, there was no opportunity to participate in the decisions about the purpose, the rationale, alternative methods or alternatives to the proposal since these decisions had already been made by the proponent prior to the redesignation under the Environmental Assessment Act. We were not advised as to how the environmental assessment process was intended to be carried out and what, if any, rights we had as the most affected residents. I do recall they gave us a small book about the environmental assessment process which we could read by ourselves. We and our neighbours dutifully attended workshops in order to learn about the proponent's proposal and to assess how this proposal might affect our community and our environment. We had no inkling at the start that anything was amiss; we were not educated in these matters. However, we can read.
After researching the documents which the proponent was required to provide us and consulting with others who had more knowledge of the issues, we came to the shocking realization that this dump had developed a leachate plume in the groundwater aquifer beneath and around the site which was growing in strength and volume with each passing year and making its way to the Rideau Canal. We were astounded to learn that nothing was being done by anybody to control the spread of contamination or to clean up the site.
We discovered that under Ontario law polluters are not required to clean up contamination until it leaves their property boundaries. If they own 1,000 acres, they can pollute 1,000 acres without concern. If contamination nears their property limits, polluters simply buy up more of the adjacent land to avoid cleanup. It was clear to us, even with our limited knowledge, that based on Tricil's own monitoring results the leachate plume was much more widespread than they were prepared to admit. Ministry officials sat on their hands and did not require Tricil to install more monitoring wells in order to determine the true extent of contamination. When we raised our concern about this, the proponent was unwilling to admit there was a problem and refused to discuss cleanup or environmental protection measures. The Ministry of the Environment appeared to give its full support to Tricil's application. Our concerns were being disregarded.
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After approximately five meetings, the proponent abruptly abandoned the public consultation process, declaring that nothing was being accomplished, too much time was being wasted and they were in a hurry to get their approval. This left the neighbourhood feeling powerless to have any impact on the proposal; it seemed to be a done deal.
This motivated us to pursue a course of discovery about the state of waste management in the province and the looming possibility of permanent environmental damage to the Rideau system and the local drinking water supplies. The combination of the proponent's unwillingness to discuss long-term plans for the site or seriously to discuss and address the concerns of the people most affected by their proposal, the obvious support provided to the proponent by the ministry officials and the fears of the neighbourhood regarding the safety of their drinking water and continued damage to the environment placed the parties on a collision course.
We spent five years of our lives building our case against the proposed expansion. The core members of the groups all had full-time jobs. The work necessary to research and prepare our case meant that we now had two full-time jobs each: one job for weekdays and the other job for weeknights and weekends. We had to put off taking vacations, give up quality time with our families because this time had to be used gathering information through freedom of information searches -- and if you've ever done one, that's no mean task -- raising public awareness of the problems at the site, attempting to focus the attention of the ministry on our concerns and consulting with experts and others. None of this precious time was paid for. We spent hundreds of dollars on the costs for our own research. Freedom of information does not come cheaply. The lost quality time with family can never be made up.
In 1990, Laidlaw Waste Systems purchased Tricil Ltd and became the new owners of the dump. We were able to negotiate an agreement with Laidlaw which enabled us to take split samples of the water in a discharge spring on adjacent property Laidlaw owned to the south of the dump across a township road.
At this point in time, Laidlaw was denying our claim that the contamination from the dump had crossed the road, even though it was obvious from their own monitoring results that this was the case. Our samples, later confirmed by ministry testing, showed that contamination had indeed crossed the road and was heading south towards the Rideau Canal. In addition, we subsequently discovered that radioactive waste had been disposed of at this dump. We were unsuccessful in our attempts to gather information regarding the types of radioactive waste and the quantities and the strengths. The neighbourhood grew more fearful about the situation. The proponent continued to do nothing; ministry officials continued to sit on their hands. No attempt was made to try to define the precise location, size and the strength of the leachate plume.
In 1991, Laidlaw faced charges regarding a series of silt spills into the canal from the dump, an extensive littering event that resulted from their continuing to dump waste during a windstorm, and odour problems at the site which had been ongoing for well over a year. They were subsequently convicted of most charges and levied a fine of $94,000. They were convicted a second time with respect to odour emissions in 1994.
Between 1988 and 1991, three emergency certificates of approval to continue operations at the dump were granted by the ministry. The owners of the dump had the support of the municipal users of the site, the local ministry office and even managed to garner support from the chief medical officer of health for Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington counties by convincing him of a ridiculous claim that a public health and safety risk would result if the dump were to close. In fact, there were several alternatives. We have since been able to demonstrate there was never any real emergency on which to base these approvals. Although the public is not permitted to participate in the process of emergency approvals, we nevertheless took time to make submissions with respect to these applications. In 1992, the site was finally closed pending the approval of the expansion application.
By this time, we had no faith in the process and we were convinced that the decision to approve had already been made behind closed doors. We felt our concerns were never going to be addressed. It seemed our only recourse was to request a hearing in the matter, but because of our experience in the process so far, we had no trust that we would even truly be heard. Our request for a hearing was granted and the hearing commenced June 1992.
During the course of the hearing, Laidlaw was required to install additional groundwater monitors on property they owned south of the dump. It was determined after sampling these wells that contamination was much more widespread than the proponent's application had indicated; in fact, the plume had extended by several hundred metres to the south and today it is nearing the boundaries of the site on all sides. If we had not been granted the opportunity to have a hearing in this matter, the detection of the true spread of contaminations may never have come to light, or not for many years. It should be noted that to date, nothing has been done to contain the cleanup of this pollution.
The hearing lasted almost six months, ending in November 1992. We were vindicated when the board's decision was finally released in March 1993. The board, after reviewing all the evidence and testimony provided by all parties to the hearing, had determined the truth of the matter and was prepared to take responsibility to do something about it. In a landmark decision, they approved the expansion but attached serious conditions that addressed the unsuitability of the site for continued waste disposal, the existing and potential problems of contamination of the environment, the impacts on the surrounding community, the inadequacy of public consultation, and the deliberate attempt by Kingston and Kingston township to establish a long-term need for the Storrington dump, thereby avoiding the need to site their own facility. Our faith in the process took a giant leap.
Laidlaw has failed to take advantage of this approval, despite their claims of an emergency need for the site, declaring that the cost of cleanup of existing contamination and adherence to the board's conditions respecting environmental protection will reduce their profit margin.
For the proponent, Laidlaw Waste Systems, the result of refusing to consult honestly and directly with the most affected public, working to resolve issues and concerns, was a hearing that cost them over $7 million. This could have been avoided if they had made a serious attempt to address the issues and make compromises on the proposal that would reassure residents that the environment was being protected.
Instead, they chose to deal with our municipal politicians, offering a lucrative host municipality agreement which would have put a minimum of $10 million into a community of only 3,500 souls. This agreement, made in secret behind closed doors with our municipal politicians -- whose campaign platform was that they would not support the expansion of this dump -- and mediated by the director of our local Ministry of Environment office -- and this is while the hearing was going on -- drove a wedge between the community and its politicians that remains to this day. Laidlaw was eager to spend $10 million to buy the support of our township; however, they were not quite so eager to spend an equal sum in environmental protection.
Our experience with public participation and consultation has shown us that it is not effective under current regulations, and is certainly not improved with the proposed changes to the Environmental Assessment Act. We have had the opportunity to observe other processes under this act and have realized that public participation and consultation in this province is meaningless; it is simply not taken seriously. In fact, concerned members of the public are even prohibited by proponents in certain waste management master plans from joining in at discussions at the table to review proposals. It is difficult to imagine any sort of proper consultation with the public if they are not allowed to participate as equals. The attitude of most proponents, both private and public, is that it is a nuisance to have to deal with people whose lives are directly affected by their proposals. They are unwilling to compromise and address concerns. They spend their time deflecting the public and trying to label them all as NIMBYs.
In our opinion, the bottom line is that if you want to set up a business in a residential neighbourhood, part of doing good business is to ensure that your neighbours and the environment around you are not going to be adversely impacted. Proponents should realize that they create a hostile environment when they refuse to listen to the concerns of the public. The public, in turn, feels powerless to have any influence over a proposal which will negatively affect their lives.
The proposed changes to the Environmental Assessment Act do not require public consultation in development of the terms of reference. Why bother to include the public at all? By not including the public in the development of the terms of reference at the outset, the proponent is free to exclude issues of concern to the public. The public most affected must be treated as an equal partner in the process from day one. If the government is serious about including the public in this decision-making process, they should legislate this right, clearly defining the requirements for meaningful public consultation; requiring the proponent to deal directly with the most affected public; defining who the other "interested persons" are; providing for arbitration where needed; and ensuring that the concerns of the most affected public are adequately addressed. If the minister is unwilling to follow this course, hearings must be granted to ensure the rights of the public. Until public consultation is enshrined and taken seriously, the result will continue to be a hostile environment where nobody wins and the environment itself may be the biggest loser.
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Intervenor-participant funding: The details of proposals under the Environmental Assessment Act are very complex, and ordinary people do not have the skills of an engineer, lawyer or groundwater specialist. The public needs experts to assist them in understanding the proposals and all of the ramifications. If a proposal with such far-reaching impacts is expected to stand on its own merit, it should be able to withstand public scrutiny.
We were very fortunate to be granted intervenor funding to cover the costs of our lawyers and expert witnesses to put forward our case at the hearing. Our group has seven core members and we represent approximately 40 families in the immediate vicinity of the dump. This is a small, rural community; people live ordinary lives and have ordinary or less than ordinary levels of income. As part of the process to qualify for intervenor funding, we were required to raise funds to help cover the costs of our participation. We were able to raise $1,200. The hearing costs for our own legal and expert assistance totalled approximately $500,000. Even in our wildest dreams we could never have raised these funds on our own. How effective would our case have been without this assistance?
We were not funded for important expert testimony to counter evidence by the proponent regarding the issue of property devaluation. We were not funded for the time we had to take off work to attend the hearing, although everyone else who participated in the hearing was compensated for their time. We were not funded for any of our group's costs other than for the legal and expert assistance. We were required by the board's decision to pay 2% of our total costs for such assistance.
Without intervenor funding we could not have hoped to participate in the hearing. It does not seem fair that ordinary people have to decide between dropping out of a process or taking on a very substantial debt in order to protect themselves and their environment. We supposedly have a government department whose mandate it is to protect our environment. However, the reality is that we're on our own, and if we want to protect our environment and our quality of life, we are faced with a daunting task. Despite the board's landmark decision, we certainly would not recommend our environmental assessment experience to anyone.
Laidlaw appealed the board's decision and its appeal was denied. However, it does not end there. In fact, it never really ends. They get several kicks at the can. We have had to devote the past three years of our lives since the release of the board's decision to monitor the manipulations of Laidlaw in its continuing quest to get a variance of the board's decision, having to absorb all the continuing costs of legal and expert assistance. In our opinion, if proponents fail to take advantage of an approval, that approval should lapse after one year. Ordinary people should not have to go through what we are going through now. If conditions change and the application truly needs to be reassessed, a new application and process should be initiated with a reconvening of the board to hear new evidence.
Intervenor funding was initially established to level the playing field. A corporation like Laidlaw has corporate assets of over $2 billion. It's a little difficult to move into a community, with most people making $30,000, that can even afford to match them. Since the minister has not renewed the Intervenor Funding Project Act and has not yet proposed new legislation for funding provisions, how does the minister expect the public to meaningfully participate in the process?
To have any sort of impact on decision-making, you must have experts to assist you in understanding the proposal and all the ramifications and to put forward your case if a hearing ensues. Without intervenor funding or participant funding, the public is impotent. We simply are unable to have any impact on decisions that directly affect our lives and our environment because we are not financially capable of doing so.
If the government is truly serious about enhancing public participation and consultation in the environmental assessment process, funding must be provided by proponents to cover the costs of the public working with them to come up with a fair and equitable proposal, and if that process fails, to cover the costs of preparing and presenting their case at a hearing. Without funding, there is no possibility of meaningful public involvement.
We have great concern about the new powers given to the minister that make it possible to remove requirements of the EA Act. This undermines the intent of the act. All proponents must meet the requirements of the act in conducting their environmental assessments to ensure that all impacts of proposals are assessed.
It seems inappropriate for the Minister of Environment and Energy to be in a position of power in respect to the granting or denying hearing requests. The Ministry of Environment is not really an impartial party in this process. One of their tasks in the process is to assist the proponent with their environmental assessment. However, they do not offer any such assistance to concerned members of the public who are directly affected by these proposals. They're on their own. There is also the risk of political influence in the decision-making process. In our opinion, decisions regarding hearing requests should be the responsibility of the Environmental Assessment Board.
Decisions of the Environmental Assessment Board must remain free of political interference. It appears that the Minister of Environment may be in a conflict of interest when amending or revoking any part of an Environmental Assessment Board decision. This could be compared with a party to a trial arbitrarily changing a decision arrived at by a provincial court judge. We believe that as a party to the process the ministry is not necessarily impartial. Therefore, the ministry should not have the right to tamper with the board's decision. No other party to such hearings has the power to change a board decision. Whether the ministry supports the proponent's position, supports the intervenor's position or remains neutral, having the power to change the board's decision is an unfair advantage over other parties to the hearing.
In addition, the Environmental Assessment Board has the opportunity of hearing all the testimony and viewing all the evidence provided by parties to a hearing. The Minister of Environment does not have this opportunity and is therefore not in a position to vary the board's decision.
In our opinion, requests for variances of Environmental Assessment Board decisions should be under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Appeal Board, and all parties, including the Environmental Assessment Board, should have equal rights and opportunities before the appeal board. At the very least, the minister should be required to consult with the Environmental Assessment Board with respect to any variance. The board should have the opportunity either to defend its decision or, following review, to agree to the variance, and all parties must have equal opportunities to make submissions.
As a footnote, the Environmental Assessment Board determined that Laidlaw's monitoring program for the closed site was inadequate and attached several conditions to its approval concerning improvement of this program. In a recently issued certificate of approval for the closed Storrington dump, the ministry refused to follow the board's directives. The ministry apparently does not agree with the board's decision in this regard. In our opinion, this amounts to a variance of the board's decision, and we believe the ministry has set a very dangerous precedent.
I'll try to make the recommendations quickly.
A clear definition of requirements for public consultation must be enshrined in the regulation. There must be a clear definition of who the interested people are and who they include. There must be a clear requirement for the proponent to deal directly with the most affected public and not the local host municipality. In our opinion, the Environmental Assessment Board should be appointed to arbitrate any dispute issues to avoid costly and stressful hearings. Proponents must be encouraged to deal with the issues and work to resolve them in a meaningful way. Hearings should only be avoided in cases where all issues have been satisfactorily resolved. The public must be assured that if the issues important to them are not resolved, a hearing must ensue.
Procedures must be put in place that ensure the public is clearly informed about the process and their role in the process before any consultation commences. This should be the responsibility of the Environmental Assessment Board.
Without funding for participation and hearing costs, meaningful public consultation cannot exist. The minister should reinstate the Intervenor Funding Project Act and legislate a requirement to provide participant funding at the commencement and throughout the consultation process. Such funding must provide the public with a level playing field. Disputes with respect to the amounts of such funding should be arbitrated by the Environmental Assessment Board. Since it is generally the affected public and the environment that are the potential victims in both cases, the requirement for the public to absorb the costs should be extremely limited.
Powers granted to the minister to arbitrarily decide that some requirements of the EA act do not need to be met must be removed. All environmental assessments must meet the full requirement of the act to ensure that all impacts are properly assessed.
The powers of the minister with respect to granting or denying hearing requests or variance of an Environmental Assessment Board decision must be removed. Hearing requests should be under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Assessment Board.
Requests to vary decisions of the board should be under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Appeal Board. At the very least, the minister must be required to consult with the Environmental Assessment Board regarding any variance of a decision and the board must be allowed to defend its decision or, following a review, agree to the changes. All parties must have equal opportunity to make submissions. Funding must be provided to the public to take part in the process.
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If a proponent fails to take advantage of approvals, such approvals should lapse one year from the date of the release of the decision to approve.
Sorry I've taken so long. Thank you.
The Chair: That's quite a journey you have been through. It seems to me all politicians in governments at all levels should take note very seriously. That's quite a case study.
We are out of time, but I'm going to allow each party to have one brief question out of respect for the journey you've been on.
Mr Gerretsen: I've got two comments. First of all, I agree that the review whereby the ministry in effect can change a decision made by a board is, in my opinion, totally inappropriate, because it gets away from the whole intent of sending it to an arbitrator in the first place.
The other question deals with intervenor funding, and I can certainly understand that in your particular case you never could have fought this thing on your own, obviously. Where do you feel there's a balance there? On the one hand, we're talking about $500,000. Have you given any thought at all as to what kind of intervenor funding could be made available and yet also have the amount of money be accountable to the public as a whole?
Mrs Janet Fletcher: In our case the amount was so large because the proponent was so determined not to make any changes. It required us to counter all of their experts with our experts, and we weren't funded, as we said, for all of these people.
What we would really like to see is that proponents come to the realization that there are people whose lives are affected, and the first thing in their minds, other than making a dollar, should be trying to satisfy the concerns and the fears of the people who are going to be affected. If they did that, there probably wouldn't be a need for intervenor funding, because there wouldn't be a need for a hearing. There would only be a need for participant funding to take you through that process of ironing out the issues of concern.
I have no sympathy for Laidlaw obviously, because it brought this on itself, but back in the beginning of this process we were quite prepared to go along with whatever it had to say, as long as it addressed the questions we had. We weren't very educated. We didn't know anything about dumps. We didn't know there was a problem. They could have easily taken care of us at the start before we got into reading the documents and figured out what was going on. We had just enough time to figure it out, and the end result is what we've relayed to you here.
Ms Churley: Thank you for the opportunity. It is quite a journey you've been on, and I think it's important that the committee hear from community groups such as yours your experience, because we hear a lot from the likes of Laidlaw and waste management associations etc, which give their side, their frustrations, but to hear the public point of view is extremely important in terms of trying to balance this kind of complicated environmental assessment.
On the public participation side, the public are not included in the negotiations around the terms of reference, yet the government side -- the ministry and the parliamentary assistant -- has said repeatedly, "For the first time, public participation is enshrined in the legislation," which is great, but it's later on down the road. How important do you think that is? I agree with you the public -- interested parties -- needs to be defined, because we don't know what that means, but how important is it for someone in your situation to be very involved in defining the terms of reference?
Mrs Fletcher: It's really important to be in it right at the start, as the previous speaker also noted, mainly because of the issues that people are afraid of, things that might happen to them and they're not sure what's going on. These things can be addressed immediately and not become contentious issues later after all the decisions have been made about the rationale, the alternatives and all the rest of it. It gives proponents who don't want to deal with public concerns the opportunity to exclude those issues, from what I've been looking at here. I don't think that's fair, I don't think that's equal and I don't see any purpose in including the public if you're not going to include them from the start. As I said, it just raises more problems along the line and you don't get a complete assessment; you don't see what's going on for the people who have to live with this thing day after day.
Mr Fletcher: I think there's also an education part to this whole process. We didn't come on the scene scampering at full speed; we were dragged into this kicking and shoving. It was a very difficult situation for us to get into. We had to be educated, and this takes time. We had five meetings with our friends from Laidlaw and that was it, "You're on your own." This takes time to get into it. They have experts. They know what their proposals are. They've got everything mapped out ahead of them. They're running this. They're full speed when they come in to meet us, the public, and we're kind of confused. It's a certain syndrome; it's almost like dying, I suppose. One has to go through different stages of coming to terms with it. The first reaction I think, I'm not ashamed to admit, immediately was NIMBY. "This thing was supposed to close; it's got to be got out of here; this is an affront to society etc." Later on you start to find out and discover what's really happening, and there needs to be time for this discovery to take place.
The public has to be educated. If you're going to live near a landfill site, it behooves you to know exactly what will be going on there and what's under the ground and how this may come around to affect you, and this takes time. I think the proponent, be it a city or a private proponent, should really be honest, straightforward and not try to mask the facts of what's going on. It has to educate, and that's why the EA is important.
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): Thank you for your presentation. I think you and I have something in common, because I did the same thing. I bought property and live next door to a landfill, albeit one of the old ones, and it's the old ones that worry me. I can appreciate what you're doing, but that's not my question. My question is, under Bill 76, what we are trying to do with that bill, by looking at areas that don't have a major social impact, environmental impact, economic impact, and that will have an infrastructure under it, is that by looking at engineered sites, that will solve some of the problems you have had with the way landfill and dumps have been built in the past?
If you look well through Bill 76, and I know you have, do you agree with me that some concerns you people have had of the actual siting and building of dumps will be alleviated?
Mrs Fletcher: I don't see enough detail in the act to tell me that. I don't see clear requirements or clear guidelines for proponents on where to site a facility. I don't see a requirement for a diversion. That worries me. I think they need clear guidelines like, "You don't have to put a landfill site on a river any more because you don't need to have that clay base; you can have these wonderful modern-day liners," which, believe me, don't work after 20 years. You've only delayed the pollution by 20 years with the liners.
Aside from that, I think proponents need clear direction of how to site a facility, what to look at in terms of 3Rs to make sure that the most waste possible is diverted from the site. I don't think 3Rs should be excluded. If there's any public nearby that's likely to be affected by issues like trucking or odour or seagulls, those issues need to be taken care of. You don't need to go to a hearing to solve these issues. These things can be solved in public consultation as long as it's dealt with from the start.
Mr Stewart: I appreciate that, and public consultation is needed; I have no problems with that at all. Of course we're looking at reasonable alternatives in where we're going to site it. I guess what worries me is that you're --
The Chair: One question, Mr Stewart. I'm sorry, we've gone over the time.
Mrs Fletcher: I'm sorry. We didn't realize we were going to be so long. It takes a while to tell the story.
The Chair: Out of respect for what you've gone through, believe me, there's a great deal of sympathy. Thank you very much for coming and sharing your experience with us. We appreciate it.
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SANDRA LAWN
The Chair: Our final witness for this morning will be Sandra Lawn. Welcome; you have 30 minutes. Whatever time remains from your presentation will be divided up for discussion among the three parties.
Ms Sandra Lawn: It's certainly a pleasure to be here today in this particular forum. I have a long-standing interest in environmental issues, having as a young mother and graduate in sciences from Queen's University been out cleaning up river banks and hauling garbage cans and old refrigerators out of the St Lawrence River. Having come this long route, I take a special interest in Bill 76.
Since the election of the government in June 1995, I've read and heard a great deal of speculation and naysaying about the fact that the new government does not have a commitment to the environment and that things are going to deteriorate very quickly. There's been a lot in the media, a lot of things said about this gloom-and-doom approach. It's my nature, having been brought up in northern Ontario and surrounded by nature and natural things all my growing-up years, to be more of a realist, I hope, than a pessimist. I do not share that pessimism but I have some thoughts on Bill 76 that have come in part from my experiences as a quasi-scientist, from my 19 years as a municipal politician where I was the chair of an economic development commission for over a decade, and also, I was the vice-chair of the Leeds-Grenville waste management committee until 1991.
I've also been a conservationist all my thinking life and recently was the empowerment director of a scientific research institute located on the shores of the St Lawrence River, which is a very excellent example of a community taking its future into its own hands.
When we talk about environmental remediation and protection, I think one of the greatest things we have to overcome is public cynicism. Bill 76 is an instrument to help overcome that cynicism and involve the public in a meaningful way in the whole process. I feel there are some very important points made in Bill 76 that clearly define guidelines about timing, the introduction of mediation, which in many ways should facilitate some of the problems that are there now, and clear procedures for complaints and interventions are absolutely essential.
The provincial government obviously has a role to set the stage for environmental protection and enhancement, but it is my belief that this stage needs to be prepared at the place where the environmental protection and enhancement happen: at the community level, on the ground where the people are, both rural and urban. I believe also that those rural and urban people are the true experts in the protection of their own environment.
Local authorities have a crucial role to play. Many projects that will fall under this legislation are indeed prompted by the people of a community who come to their local authorities and initiate projects that they feel they must have; for example, proper waste management, good, clean water, the protection of a forest or the implementation of new biotechnologies in that community.
Clearly also, local authorities oversee the planning of such things as drinking water systems, roads, sewage treatment plants, solid waste treatment that we have heard a great deal about this morning, the planning of housing and industrial development; local authorities set local environmental policies and help to implement national and provincial environmental policies. As the level of government closest to the people, local authorities play a vital role in educating and mobilizing the public around sustainable development.
Knowing and perceiving that there are many intervenors in this whole process who are well-practised in the adversarial system, I'm going to confine my remarks to two areas: communications with public bodies and the public, and to put some added emphasis, I hope, on an ecosystem approach to environmental protection decisions.
In the first area, communication with public bodies and the public, true communication is two-way, and we've heard about that this morning. We've heard of some success in one instance and some drastic failure in another. If the public is to be truly consulted, it must have the opportunity to be involved before the matter becomes a crisis. It is human nature to react defensively to a crisis. The process of involving the public in environmental protection decisions must not only be early but effective. The public needs to be part of the early development of consensus. I use the example of the public coming to its local authorities and asking those local authorities to intervene or to begin the process of giving the public, giving the community proper landfill, giving the community good water supplies and so on.
Every community has responsible citizens who, for a variety of different reasons, are the true experts in their own local environment. If they are consulted from the beginning, people will be saved a great deal of anguish and a time-consuming and extremely costly, as we've heard this morning, adversarial system.
Bill 76 instructs the public body to fulfil the legal requirement to consult. I suggest that we must add perhaps some words that would ensure that consultation be logical, accessible, in plain language, meaningful and early. My suggestions are therefore as follows, and I have a series of very small but specific suggestions that I think might improve the bill and eventually the regulations that follow from it.
The definition of "terms of reference": I think there is a series in part I where the definitions are all very well spelled out, but I would like to see the definition of "terms of reference" included because this can mean different things to different people and it is unclear precisely how this is to proceed. Municipalities are in many contexts accustomed to having the province prepare these terms of reference. Exactly what is the process going to be? I suggest that perhaps there is some ambiguity there.
In part II under subsection 6(1) and section 6.1, it would be important to add words to ensure that the public have really been informed and that it is not just people who "may be interested." I'm using the word "obfuscation"; I think that's a wonderful word because we have to be very careful, in the use of legalese and complicated language, that we don't in the end obfuscate what we have tried to make clear. It is important from the beginning to ensure that the public is perfectly clear about what is happening. An earlier witness or one of the committee, perhaps, mentioned that fear of the unknown is one of the greatest fears of all. I think we could do a great deal to mitigate that fear.
In subsection 6.2(2) of Bill 76, in the list of contents that would be included in the assessment, it would be very important to make note of the fact that people need to be involved in determining their own future. We have progressed from an agrarian society that has really done for themselves, then slowly but surely government began to take over many responsibilities of the community and then we began to introduce opportunities for the public to comment on government's actions. Now I believe Bill 76 is making an effort to involve people at an earlier time and in a more meaningful way, not just to get their reaction, and I think that's what is really important. The public should not be put in a position where they're having to react to something; rather, they should be part of the process right from the very beginning and they should be putting into action the remediation of their own specific environment.
In section 6.3 and in other places where it states we shall "notify the clerk of each municipality," I think it would be a good idea to consider the wording, "We should notify each municipality through notice to the clerk." I know of an instance with another ministry where policies on wetlands, for example, came down from the ministry in Toronto. They were circulated to the municipalities. The municipalities did not know of the implications of this until later on. The wording of these notices also is extremely important. I like the use of the word "clear." I don't think it would hurt to add the word "clear" wherever possible to Bill 76.
In section 6.5, with respect to public inspection of the assessment, again we're setting ourselves up for an adversarial system where it becomes extremely costly. We heard of a tragic example of the very high cost of this adversarial approach. If we get to that stage and we insist that people have to put in writing their concerns about the assessment, I think a lot of anguish could be saved, and a lot of frustration and cynicism, if there was someone on hand to hear the verbal comments of people as well. The legalese and obfuscation and so on that often come through from the bureaucracy can create an unwillingness on the part of the general public to even want to participate in that.
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There are many examples of where it has really worked if the public are involved right from the beginning. We did hear one example of that this morning in the case of the Leeds-Grenville waste management committee. That was not a specific, definite requirement, but obviously wise people understanding the citizens of their region and making sure the public was involved.
I believe the provision of mediation is also a splendid idea and that those mediators, if they are there to work with the public and the proponent, should have access to all of the available scientific and health-related evidence that has been brought forward up to that point. This is just a small matter in the technicalities of things, but I believe it could be helpful.
Also, being sometimes not a picky person, but I like to pay attention to detail, and knowing from my own experience that technology can sometimes go astray, let's make very sure that the language we use in the bill -- make sure that we are ready for sometimes that technical information getting lost on the lines.
Also, having been mayor of a separated town for 15 years, although I know that Ontario would probably dearly love to get rid of the separated towns, they do indeed still exist. So in order to be correct, the list of the municipalities should include separated towns.
The organization of the bill also: I feel that these bills are extremely important instruments of communication and of the will of the government, and therefore they need to be as clear as possible. I felt it would be a very good improvement to put the actual steps needed for the terms of reference and the assessment itself clearly at the beginning of the act so that people needing to know more could then go on into the act itself.
I believe environmental assessment decision-making, which is really what Bill 76 is all about, must integrate environmental, economic, social and governance policies in a sustainable manner.
The economic value of an ecosystem functioning in a sustainable manner is readily measured in tangible terms in eastern Ontario, and I think we in eastern Ontario perhaps have a special advantage in that our communities are relatively small and our environment is obviously extremely important for our economy in the areas of tourism, agriculture, rural development, urban living, manufacturing and just plain quality of life. They all depend, directly and indirectly, on a high quality of water, and we are reminded constantly in our rural municipalities that groundwater is something that, if out of sight, should not be out of mind. It enters very strongly into this whole matter of environmental assessment; also soil, the air, forests and biodiversity. We are richly endowed in eastern Ontario and clearly we can see that everything is connected to everything.
Therefore, I would suggest that in subclause 10(1)(b)(iii) of Bill 76 we should not make the research, investigation, studies and monitoring programs related to an undertaking as something that comes later on. These are the kinds of things where the proponent should be informed very early on in the process, and the public along with the proponent, at the same time. Research of an appropriate form should not be optional, and research should also be multidisciplinary. I think that local authorities have been on the leading edge of the ecosystem approach. This is a new way of thinking about things. Rather than thinking of things in silos, we have got to think horizontally of the interconnectedness of all of these various things when it comes to our environment. I believe the province needs to encourage these innovations to the greatest degree possible.
One excellent example of this is the village of Westport, where they have innovated so greatly in the area of sewage treatment, for example, and the involvement of the environment with respect to their blossoming tourism industry, things of that nature. Also in the area of Cornwall we have seen the city of Cornwall and the united counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, the Mohawks at Akwesasne and the University of Ottawa coming together to look at their environmental problems in a multidisciplinary way, because that is the only way they believe they're going to be able to solve those problems.
Local authorities and the public must have a clear understanding of provincial policy principles right from the beginning. Therefore, I am suggesting that the Ministry of Environment and Energy should consider issuing policy principles in a very firm and definite way instead of "may issue policy guidelines." I think we need a much greater degree of comfort and knowing exactly what it is that the province is suggesting.
I would also recommend that MOEE sit down with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism and the Ministry of Health. I'd like to think this could happen very, very nicely at the community level or at the county or riding level to develop some of these principles that everyone would know applied to all ministries of Ontario.
There are many things in Bill 76 that I feel are valuable, and I do feel that in the hands of knowledgeable, caring people who know exactly what they're doing it could ensure indeed a more efficient and effective approach to environmental assessment and public empowerment. The only way we are going to make advances in our environment is through the empowerment of the people on the ground, at the community level, the local authorities that Agenda 21 talks about being the real place where the changes are going to take place.
I want to thank you for the privilege of presenting these thoughts on this very important matter.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We'll begin with the NDP. We have two and a half minutes each.
Ms Churley: Thank you for your presentation. It's nice to hear from somebody who's not an expert and who took the time to read the bill and so carefully come up with some suggestions for changes.
I like your emphasis on community involvement, and I'm asking you the same question as I've asked others. There's no provision in the bill as it now stands for the public to be involved in negotiations around the terms of reference. There are some loose provisions, although it's not written into law, to post on the environmental registry, after the negotiations are complete, for public comment. I'm wondering if you would recommend to the government members that this be changed, that an amendment be made so the public would be involved from the very front end of the process.
Ms Lawn: I think it would be an easy matter to make that change, and I think the wisdom of the local authorities has proven to be correct in many examples where the public have been involved right in the beginning. Indeed, I think of my own community, where the whole issue of water quality was a very important issue. The public came to the community with concerns about the water quality, so the public actually initiated in an indirect way the whole process.
If we put people in an environment where they are face to face, talking about things that have to do with their community and the environment of that community, we would be very surprised, and I think pleasantly surprised, to find out that people who normally would end up being at each other's throats, when asked to share their vision for their community, would all have the same ultimate vision of what that community could be.
The Chair: We have two questioners: Mr Rollins and Mrs Ross.
Mr Rollins: Thanks, Sandra, for taking time to be part of that public. I think this process is part of being public, and it's nice to see that somebody has put in the time and energy and effort to come up with some good ideas. I think that most of them are very well thought out. People like yourself coming forward express exactly what we probably have to do in this government, which is to take a good look at letting the public be involved.
In our area where I come from, the Quinte area and Belleville, we have spent close to some $2 million or more. We're not lucky like the people in -- we had a gentleman speak from Westport, where they have found a dump site. We have come up with the idea; we haven't found one. So we've wasted that kind of money for a very simple reason: non-involvement. My thanks is just saying to you on behalf of a member of the government, thank you very much for taking part. We really appreciate it.
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): Sandra, thank you very much. I enjoyed your presentation. I found it most constructive. You commented that you thought it was important that the public be involved all the way along the process and not just reacting to government actions, in fact being involved in the process. Do you not agree that in the new act there are more steps along the way to involve the public than there were previously?
Ms Lawn: Yes, and I'm really pleased to see that. I think that a wise proponent -- in most cases we hope they don't need prompting, but it would be a wise thing to inspire that wisdom by ensuring they are reminded that the public need to be involved.
I use an example of a waterfront development in my own community, where the first thing that was done was that a public meeting was called about the waterfront: What are we going to do about the waterfront? The public came up with a lot of ideas, a lot of excellent suggestions. Then the process of changing the official plan and changing the zoning bylaw and so on followed that. The whole thing went, I know, so much more smoothly than it would have gone if the council had just come up with a plan and then said, "And now we want some public involvement." The public are very wise, and the public need to be consulted right from the very beginning.
I think this bill definitely makes that clear. I would like it just to make it a wee bit clearer by the use of some small changes in language on when the public is involved, and how they're involved as well. That could come out of the regulations. It could be, "We have a problem here, folks," and then you call the public together. The public will often share the same vision as the local authorities, or the provincial government or the federal government for that rate, but their opinion needs to be respected. I think you respect that opinion by listening to it and having a two-way communication.
The Mohawks say that you need to have respect, equity and empowerment. I think this is a process where we can see that demonstrated very nicely.
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Mr Gerretsen: I hope that what you're saying in your conclusion will actually happen. If we always had knowledgeable and caring people involved in these issues, I suppose we wouldn't need any laws at all because people would try to take care of the environment to the best of their ability and for the betterment of the environment as it is. I'm not sure whether that's always the case. Maybe I'm a little bit more pessimistic about it than you are.
I'm very intrigued with some of the amendments you've made. It's obvious that you've gone through this act in quite a bit of detail and you've put your MPA knowledge and bachelor of science knowledge from Queen's to good use. I always plug the institution and the various programs that --
Ms Lawn: That you've participated in.
Mr Gerretsen: Thank you very much. Is that on the record, by the way?
I'm concerned about time lines in all of these things. Do you have any general comments about the time lines that should be involved in the approval process? We heard the earlier presentation by Reeve Thake where basically they came up with their plan back in 1994, I believe he said, and they're still sort of waiting to get the final approvals once their plans have actually been forwarded to the government. Do you have any general observation as to how the time lines in this whole approval process can be improved upon?
Ms Lawn: I think Bill 76, in suggesting definite terms of reference at the beginning and then the steps being spelled out more clearly -- if there wasn't the constant fear of the adversarial system and making some little slip in the process that is going to take you before the courts and going to give the lawyers an absolute field day -- sorry -- that in itself should make a big difference as far as the time lines are concerned, and some clarity on the principles that are to be applied.
I was involved with the Grenville-Dundas waste management study that eventually evolved into the Leeds-Grenville one, and there was always an unknown quality about it. We were in uncharted waters, it seemed. These things are not all that different across the province. It shouldn't be uncharted waters. By spelling all these things out more clearly in Bill 76 and the ensuing regulations, it's going to cut down on the time considerably.
The Chair: Ms Lawn, thank you kindly for appearing before us this morning and sharing your views. They were very thoughtful, and we appreciate it.
Mr Gerretsen: Before adjourning, it's my understanding that the city of Kingston wanted to make a presentation but for some reason -- I think it's basically as a result of the city not knowing they had to apply to be on the agenda by a certain date. Could you just state for the record again and maybe for the other people who are here the fact that written submissions may be made to the committee, and what will happen to them?
The Chair: Yes, absolutely. People are free, from anywhere, at any time, to submit to the committee by way of the clerk's office. We can share an address with you if that's needed. That will be reviewed. Our research staff bring that together. We share all copies with all members. It's also considered as part of the report for the committee members for their consideration as well.
The basis on which people are selected is essentially a first-come, first-served basis.
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Lynn Mellor): No.
The Chair: I'm told it's not. What is it, then?
Clerk of the Committee: The responses to the advertisement that appeared in the paper were forwarded to each of the caucuses and the caucuses made selections from that list. Anyone who applied after, at that point the selections had already been made and anyone else has been encouraged to submit in writing.
The Chair: Thank you. We'll resume at 1:30 sharp. We have four witnesses this afternoon.
The committee recessed from 1238 to 1334.
KINGSTON ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION PROJECT
The Chair: Mr Walton, welcome and thank you very much for taking the time to be with us.
Mr Eric Walton: I'd like first to thank the standing committee members for this opportunity to speak on Bill 76. We're all volunteers at the Kingston Environmental Action Project, with busy schedules and limited legal and consultative resources. I've therefore asked a local Wolfe Island resident, whom you may know, Richard Lindgren, to assist me in technical and legal areas where I lack expertise.
I will be brief, since the Kingston Environmental Action Project's primary concern relates to clause 6(2)(c) and subsection 6.2(3) of the proposed bill. We interpret these sections as effectively granting the Minister of Environment and Energy special powers to bypass the requirements of a full environmental assessment and replace these requirements with his or her own terms of reference.
The planning value of a full EA is precisely in its ability to provide a standard and objective screen to a variety of different projects. Some projects will fail an EA; that is what one would expect from a well-functioning screen. Granting the minister special powers to redesign the EA process on a case-by-case basis seriously undermines the safeguarding function. In addition, it leaves the minister and other members of government vulnerable to intense lobbying and political pressure by proponents of these projects.
Improperly screened projects in the Third World -- and I've lived for quite a period of time in the Third World, so I have personal experience of this -- have often shown that it is only after a period of time that the full magnitude of the negative environmental, social and economic costs reveals itself. If Bill 76 is passed with these exceptional ministerial powers intact, it is likely just a question of time before we will start seeing similar outcomes in Ontario. I can foresee the day when forensic analysis of these white elephants traces their beginnings to this significant change in the EA process.
I would like to ask the committee to amend these sections of Bill 76 in order to protect the integrity of the full EA process. We have made slow but steady progress in Ontario towards sustainability. We still have a long way to go before we cease degrading our life support systems, but already the benefits of leading in this area can be seen in the proliferation of green businesses, deferred health costs and general quality of life. It is critically important that the government of Ontario distinguish between policy measures that reduce fiscal deficits and those that merely convert a fiscal problem into an environmental and social deficit. Failure to make this clear distinction between true reduction of debt policy measures and simple conversion will inevitably download economic costs into an environmentally and socially diminished future for all Ontarians.
We are confident that no member of this committee would desire that outcome. We would request that the special ministerial powers to bypass a full EA be removed from this bill. I focus primarily on this because I consider this by far the most serious implication of the bill.
Mr Galt: Thank you very much. It's kind of a treat to have a supershort presentation. It's to the point and zeroes right in on what you're concerned with. There certainly is no question it is the intent of the government to have full environmental hearings; there's just no question there. You're concerned about the fact that the act might allow something different in the terms of reference. Do you want to expand any more on how maybe the bill should be changed or what should be put in there to prevent the concern that you have from happening?
Mr Walton: In a way it protects the environment, but it also protects the political representatives by having an objective screen that can't be modified on a case-by-case basis. In a sense, I could see tremendous pressures in areas with maybe higher unemployment or where there are strategic reasons for bringing in a proposal. I could see intense pressure and political cost to not changing the terms of reference so that a proponent would eventually accomplish his project. In a way, I think the government ministers, members of Parliament, would protect themselves by having, in a sense, an objective body separate from the internal political party, having an objective screen. Because ultimately -- we've seen it with Mirabel, we've seen it in the Third World with the Aswan dam, tremendous political pressures to push through projects which later turn out to be terrible mistakes and which cost tremendous amounts of money to society as well as the public purse.
There are reasons why certain projects don't pass an environmental assessment. We shouldn't see it as a failure in, say, progress, but we should see it as perhaps a project that should not have happened. The moneys would then go to other things. It's not like the moneys and the energy won't be diverted to other forms of progress, but they'll be diverted to projects with better long-term social, economic and environmental benefits.
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Mr Stewart: You had mentioned that you had spent a lot of time in Third World countries and the negative impact on the environment and so on that they have had because of lack of legislation and lack of direction and lack of a number of things. With this presentation, basically what you have zeroed in on is the one thing. Do you have any other comments on the bill as far as things that possibly should be strengthened are concerned? What we're trying to do with the bill is prevent the problems that have happened over the years in many other countries by getting some of the standards set and finding new and effective and efficient ways to handle our waste as well as protect the environment in all aspects. Do you have any comments on other things that you feel should be strengthened or indeed lessened?
Mr Walton: There is one thing, and that's the whole area of intervenor funding. I actually think there's a long-term preventive benefit to having very strong intervenor funding. Right now there is intervenor funding, but it's a real labour of love for the people who do it. If there's very strong intervenor funding, what actually happens is proponents probably do self-screening before they go into the whole process of environmental assessment, knowing that there will be a strong watchdog function provided by the public. In a sense, it will probably save everybody a lot of grief.
Right now, I suspect a lot of proponents recognize that most public groups do not have either the staying power or the funds to fully go through the full EA process and will wear them down, or they never appear. I think the Storrington group is more the exception to the rule. Perversely, increasing the amount of intervenor funding, creating a stronger public participation process, will actually result in fewer EAs, because everybody will understand that it makes no sense to go into the EA process when everybody is on a more equal playing field.
Mr Stewart: But do you not feel, though, that if the public is more involved -- and certainly that's what we've been hearing over the last two or three days -- the need for intervenor funding may be less because the public is involved on a relatively continuous basis and is part of it right from the start?
Mr Walton: We say "the public," but ultimately it comes down to a group of people and ultimately they're going to need money for legal and other expertise. It's not like the entire population of Ontario suddenly jumps into the waste management issue of Kingston and each chips in a dollar. It really comes down to a small group of people acting for the larger good.
Mr Stewart: But in some areas, with the way the process has gone on over the past number of years, where they come up with three, four or five site locations and you're giving intervenor funding to all of these groups and then they throw them out and we go to another one, clearly the process that we've been working on is wrong. What I'm saying is that if we can clarify and change some of this process, we may solve some of the problems that you're talking about and have more cooperation with people on a continuous basis.
Mr Walton: I'm afraid this is not an area that I'm really well versed in. Could you answer that, Richard?
Mr Richard Lindgren: I think the committee heard my answer to that question yesterday.
Ms Churley: Would you repeat that?
Mr Galt: Did you forget?
Mr Stewart: I was looking for a new perspective, sir.
Mr Walton: I agree. The process has to be clear, aboveboard; one needs to know who's involved and who's committed. If the funding is full so that, in a sense -- I was reading the Storrington proposal; it was only partially funded. Really, a lot of their time is not funded. If we are going to have a consistent public intervenor, then let's give them their costs for their time as well, not just for the costs they incur in terms of hiring expert advice.
Mr Pettit: Mr Lindgren, I think it was you I asked this question to yesterday. I'd like to ask you this today, Mr Walton. Do you have any familiarity with the EA acts in other jurisdictions or provinces?
Mr Walton: No, I don't.
Mr Pettit: Okay, so we can't pursue that any further. Maybe you could tell us how you would like to see stakeholders involved at the beginning as far as the terms of reference go.
Mr Walton: I guess that's the key word, "in the beginning": right from the very start, before any terms of reference have been developed, involving the public who have a stake in that project, not later in the process but right from the start, and enshrining in the legislation those requirements. It seems to me fairly straightforward.
I think the key variable is enshrining who the stakeholders are in the legislation so that you have a fairly representative group, funding them fully so that you don't have a situation where groups with more resources can distort the process and ensuring that the process happens expeditiously. I think that's part of the problem. It just drags on for so many years that eventually those with fewer resources have to bail out.
The Chair: We must move on now. Welcome to the committee, Mr Cleary. It's your chance to ask the questions.
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): Welcome to the committee. I just have a few questions here. I take it from your comments that you're not happy with the present legislation.
Mr Walton: Specifically this special ministerial power section.
Mr Cleary: The other thing that I guess you partially touched on is how you would like to see intervenor funding. Are there any other items you'd like to see changed?
Mr Walton: That's probably all I feel comfortable talking about, those two items.
Mr Cleary: Speaking for myself, I've been involved in these things for a long time. Do you not think that if the new legislation allows the public to be informed on day one that would solve some of the problems, that they would have their input into what's happening in their community and not finding out at second hand weeks or months or years later?
Mr Walton: That's one thing I wasn't certain of. I was under the impression that the EBR was going to provide that kind of immediate information on new projects, so perhaps the EBR process needs to be improved if that's not the function. But I was under the impression in terms of just straight information on new developments, the environment registry was going to provide the public. The problem is that it's not just who gets the information, it's what they do with it. There are a lot of people who I think read the paper but not a lot of people who necessarily will get active on an issue.
I think open and free information is essential and at the beginning of a process rather than later on, but I think there's much more to ensuring good public participation. Specifically, I think it's the resources available to certain individuals within that public group who have a strong enough interest in that area to get involved, because it is quite a change in lifestyle or a new expansion in your daily schedule to take on a cause that might take two or three years before it's resolved.
Mr Cleary: I would think that you would agree, and speaking for myself, having come from a municipal background for many years, the way things are right now municipalities cannot afford any longer the costs and everything, things dragging on for so long.
Mr Walton: I'm sorry, the costs of what?
Mr Cleary: The cost to the municipalities. Would you agree with that?
Mr Walton: That we're in a period of fiscal restraint?
Mr Cleary: They cannot afford the way it is at the present time.
Mr Walton: I agree. I'm all for fiscal prudence in government. The point I'm making is that it's very important that we reduce costs and reduce debt rather than converting those costs. We would all be millionaires tomorrow if we cut every tree in Canada, but then we'd have no forestry industry left. That's an example where you could reduce a fiscal deficit immediately but you would have no sustainability in terms of an ongoing income stream or resource stream.
It's very important that any measures that the government takes to reduce overspending be measures that are true debt reductions versus what I talk about, conversions either environmental or social, because the costs will come back to haunt a future government and future generations.
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Mr Cleary: If you had your wish today, what would your priorities be there?
Mr Walton: Essentially two things: that the special ministerial powers, this ability to create exceptional terms of reference be deleted from the act; secondly, in this area of intervenor funding, that people are paid for their time, not just for the legal expertise and other expert testimony, but that their time in intervening in these ventures be paid for.
Mr Cleary: Thank you. Those are all the questions I have today.
Ms Churley: Sorry I missed your presentation. However, I read it very quickly. It is to the point. I was surprised when I came in and found people actually asking questions on it. It's very rare that somebody gets so rapidly to the point in these committees.
I wanted to talk to you a bit about some of the issues you raised here. One is that you specifically refer to Third World countries and your experience there, but of course even in Ontario and in Canada -- we don't have to go to the Third World to see some of the fallout from bad environmental planning here in Ontario. I think, as you rightly pointed out in your brief, that some of those white elephants from before led to the strong beginnings of the EA process we have. Some examples are groundwater contamination from leaking landfills, groundwater contamination of people's drinking water from leaking underground storage tanks that nobody thought at the time were eventually going to leak.
The committee was in Chatham yesterday and I was surprised to find out from a local member there that they can't grow beans there any more because of acid rain. We hardly ever hear about acid rain any more, but that is all global warming, the smog that we're experiencing right now, and I could go on and on.
Certainly we haven't solved our environmental problems here and there's a lot more to do in terms of finding better ways to protect the environment. I'm sure you're aware of that, but I just wanted to put on the record that we still have a long ways to go here in terms of the future problems.
Having said that, were you here this morning when the Storrington group --
Mr Walton: No, but I read it.
Ms Churley: Coming to intervenor funding, I think there's a very important lesson to be learned from that. When we hear about intervenor funding, immediately hackles are raised. It's taxpayers' money and it's going to those groups. Sometimes it's misused. I suppose in any system there can be abuses at times. But I think this is an example where at first you could think of this group as simply a NIMBY group, but of course in the process of doing their work and their studies they found out that there could have been environmental damage done to the whole Rideau system and the local drinking water supply. So you could say that that was money, and in the long run a small amount of money, well spent in terms of the cleanup costs and the social costs that would have come further down the road.
I believe that's what you're trying to tell us today, that it's very important to look at the long term and not just see these groups who want to be involved because legitimately it's human nature to not want garbage in your backyard.
Mr Walton: That's a good example. Kingston is facing a bit of a landfill problem. A conversion of cost would be, say, reopening the Storrington site or opening a site that was inappropriately engineered and it would save money in the short term, quite a bit of money probably in the short term, but then 20 years from now the municipality would be faced with a horrendous cleanup or some other high health costs. That would be a downloading or conversion of cost example.
Ms Churley: That's what you're trying to get us to look at, the long term and the future deficits that can be caught.
Mr Walton: Sustainability I think is actually -- I don't think this has been played up enough, but I think it's the most economically efficient way to operate because ultimately it's reflecting true costs. So one can make decisions that reflect true costs on a day-to-day basis and one doesn't have liability suddenly springing up on one down the road.
Ms Churley: Do you have any comments to make on the issue of -- you may have mentioned this -- citizens' participation throughout the process and in particular in relation to the terms of reference and the fact that that's not in the new bill and the fact that you're certainly concerned about the minister being able, in those negotiations, to negotiate off the table key components of the EA, in particular looking at alternatives, for instance. Is that the concern you have and why would that be so important to you?
Mr Walton: The EA has been developed over time and there are reasons for the screen that's there. I think removing some of those reasons may expedite an approval, but the long-term cost is that key variables will be ignored or sustainability will not be respected. We'll never be able to guess every possible impact of a development, but we can try our best. Ultimately, certainly the quality of our social and environmental life will be improved by that, but also I think economically we will be a better nation if we apply those kinds of criteria to projects because the best projects will then get the energy and capital and poor projects which have long-term liabilities will not get that energy and capital. So in a sense we're focusing on the strong projects, not the weak ones.
Ms Churley: Many of us are urging the government to come forward with a new intervenor funding project of some sort after the existing one was not renewed. Do you have any thoughts on how that might be done?
Mr Walton: I think the biggest point, and certainly that's been reaffirmed in reading the Storrington committee, is that there has to be funding for the time of some of the key players on the public side. It doesn't have to be for every one of the, say, 50 members of a group, but I think certain key members who put in an inordinate amount of time should have some sort of funding, because ultimately I don't think it's sustainable and certainly I think some proponents with deep pockets recognize that and will drag out the process or not come up with good solutions.
I think they're still struggling with the Storrington landfill issue and I suspect partially because they're wearing them down, whereas maybe we could have resolved that situation if they knew that there was full funding and that only a negotiated truce would be possible.
The Chair: Very good. Are there any other questions?
Mrs Munro: I just wanted to ask you a question related to the last comments that were made, and that is your response to the built-in mechanisms of mediation. Do you see these as positive? You were referring to the whole issue of proponents with deep pockets and the fact that in the minds of many in the public there's that notion that this is an endurance test. I just want to know what your response was to the mechanisms in Bill 76 with relation to mediation.
Mr Walton: I don't have enough expertise in that area to answer your question.
Mr Lindgren: The question has been deferred to me. I think mediation is something that everybody supports in principle, provided there are appropriate safeguards to ensure meaningful and comprehensive public participation.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Walton. I appreciate your comments. Thanks for joining us today.
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ECO-COUNCIL OF THE PETERBOROUGH AREA
The Chair: Our next group is the Eco-Council of the Peterborough Area, and that is Jean Greig. Welcome to our hearings. Thank you for being with us this afternoon.
Ms Jean Greig: Good afternoon to the committee. I appreciate and welcome the opportunity to speak to you on this issue. Actually having come in just when Eric Walton was finishing his presentation, I can see that there's an awful lot of overlap between what he had to say and what I have to say. I suppose that's not really surprising, given that we come from a similar perspective as members of citizens' environmental groups in the province. I'll try to not kind of beleaguer the point too much, since you've already heard it, but I will go over it briefly.
Quickly, the way my brief is organized is that I have a summary in the first part and then more detail in the remaining four pages. The first part of the brief deals with our particular concerns about the bill. The second part: I'd like to take the opportunity to touch on what it means to be a citizens' environmental group and what our role is and how changes to the legislation -- not only in this case, but also in some other cases of legislation -- affect us particularly and the role we play in society. That's a bit more of a philosophical note at the end, but I think it's important that there's that understanding and that context for the concerns we have.
I represent the Eco-Council of the Peterborough Area, and we're a grass-roots citizens' environmental group. We've been active in the Peterborough region for about six years. We're volunteer-based and we've been involved in a wide range of different activities on the local level, on the regional level and on the provincial level -- everything from making contributions to provincial policy and speaking in front of committees like this to being quite deeply involved in local planning initiatives and playing a public education role in our community on quite a wide range of environmental issues.
Over the past year or so we've been watching with some concern the changes that are happening in the province to a lot of our environmental legislation and regulations, and recognizing the need to be more cost-efficient, to make processes less cumbersome, quicker. We recognize that streamlining may be important, that there are ways of making things more cost-effective and more efficient. But we've seen, in our opinion at least, that in the attempt to do this streamlining and cutting costs we're eroding some of the most fundamental environmental protection mechanisms we have and also some of the democratic rights we have as the public to participate in environmental decision-making. Our concerns around Bill 76 stem from the same general concern we have about legislative changes to other pieces of environmental legislation.
There have been a number of flaws in the bill which have been pointed out by other parties, and our critique has been limited to two: first, as you've heard before, the issue of development and approval of binding terms of reference; and second, the whole issue of public consultation in relation to the EA process.
Our first concern very much echoes what Mr Walton was saying: Effective EA involves a number of essential requirements. That includes determining the need for and the purpose for an undertaking, looking at the full range of alternatives and alternative methods, including the null alternative, and then also looking at all the full range of environmental impacts -- environmental in the broadest definition. These essential requirements of EA ensure that the process is preventive, that we're looking at the problem beforehand and that we're finding perhaps not the best but a better environmental answer to a particular opportunity.
In section 6 of the bill, there is a provision for the development and approval of terms of reference that direct preparation of EA. That's fine. The fact, though, that the minister can then approve terms of reference that do not necessarily include all of those essential requirements of EA is very disturbing to us, for the same reasons that have been stated before. Well, I'll go on further: Not only can they be approved without necessarily containing all the essential EA requirements, but also the development of those terms of reference can be done without public involvement, essentially behind closed doors, and those terms of reference, once approved, are then binding.
The scenario is that the minister meets with proponents behind closed doors to develop terms of reference. They may not include the assessment of alternatives, perhaps discussion of mitigative measures, any of the essential requirements. They are approved by the minister and then when the public does have an opportunity to get involved in the process, it's already prescribed in such a way that some of the key issues and key investigations that the public would like to see happen are not part of the process and there does not appear to be any recourse for the public to then go back and say, "Hey, wait a minute; you're missing some essential steps here."
We recognize that this is probably not the intent of Bill 76, but it does, as the bill is currently written, open the door for that kind of abuse. We feel that the public shouldn't have to rely on the goodwill of politicians and proponents to ensure that a full EA is going to happen or that the public will perhaps be let in on the process of developing the terms of reference. As it's written, we feel the bill threatens the foundations of effective environmental assessment in Ontario and makes the process uncertain, unpredictable, inconsistent -- potentially, at least -- and open to abuse. It also increases the likelihood of long and expensive delays that are the result of groups like ours, for example, feeling that we've been shut out, that the process is not as full as it should be, and having to turn to other, more adversarial means of making sure that a full EA happens and the integrity of the EA process is preserved.
What I'm saying is that by making it vague, making it open, making it inconsistent or potentially inconsistent, there could be a longer-term cost just in people fighting back to say, "No, we have to have full EA; we have to have integrity of the process." Our recommendation would be that the bill should be amended to: first of all, require public consultation during negotiation of terms of reference, and that this be required prior to the submission of those proposed terms of reference to the minister; and second, to ensure that only terms of reference that include all the essential EA requirements can be approved by the minister, so that a deficient EA process is not approvable. We feel that by putting that in the legislation we'll make the whole process more certain, more dependable, less open to abuse, and will avoid the possibility of future conflict, delays and expenses when citizens' groups feel they have to fight back.
Secondly, the public consultation issue: As was discussed a little bit earlier today, full public involvement from the very beginning stages of environmental decision-making, including environmental assessment, does a couple of things: It ensures that the process benefits from a full understanding and incorporation of public concerns about the undertaking and it helps to avoid the delay and expense of conflict later if parties feel that they haven't had the opportunity to express their concerns or that their concerns have not been heard. It benefits the process informationally, but it also benefits the process in ensuring that all parties feel involved from the very beginning and avoiding conflict in future.
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Our feeling is that the provisions for public consultation that are in Bill 76 are in some cases vague and in some cases absent. We've already discussed and I've already pointed out the need for public involvement during the development of the terms of reference, a requirement which appears to be completely absent from the bill. More generally, the prescription for public consultation in general through the EA process is there in a small way, but it's fairly vague. Section 6.1 says that "the proponent shall consult about the undertaking with such persons as may be interested" when preparing an EA process.
There are several questions that come out of this: Who qualifies as an interested person? That doesn't appear to be defined. What is the nature of consultation? Is the notice on the EBR registry enough or does it have to involve some more? An open house etc? In the statement itself it says they shall consult about the undertaking. Does that mean they only have to consult about the undertaking itself and not alternatives, environmental impacts or mitigative measures?
That statement needs to be fleshed out. It's fairly vague and it could potentially be fairly narrowly construed, and that's our concern; not that it will in every case, but that potential is there. Much like with the terms of reference, it may not be abused every time, it may not be abused very often, but the potential is there and it makes the whole thing less certain.
The other issue about public consultation that has already been discussed quite a bit this afternoon is participant or intervenor funding. We also agree that there needs to be a requirement for mandatory participant or intervenor funding, and as has been explained, most citizens' groups that get involved in this kind of process, such as ours, have very few resources. Trying to find the money to pay a lawyer, a technical expert or even somebody to have staff time to research the issue and write briefs is almost impossible. If there is no provision of funding for the participation of citizens' groups, participation can become almost meaningless. The opportunity to participate, although it may be there, becomes almost meaningless.
Our suggestion is that Bill 76 should be amended to: first of all, require and more fully define meaningful public consultation from the very earliest stages of EA planning, including development of the terms of reference and throughout the EA process; and second, require mandatory participant funding and intervenor funding.
That's the content portion. Those are the two areas that we've focused on, that we feel there should be changes to, that we would like to see amendments to.
I just want to go a little bit into what the role of citizens' environmental organizations is, because I feel that especially over the past while maybe there's not been a very good understanding of what citizens' groups are and what they do and why these kinds of issues about clarity and meaningful opportunities for involvement enshrined in legislation are so important to us.
We're a citizens' environmental organization, the Eco-Council of the Peterborough Area, and we're similar to many of the 700 or so citizens' environmental organizations across the province. We're loosely organized. We don't have any staff and we don't even really have an office; we have a phone line. We're all volunteers and we have very little money. Most of the expenses we incur, things like photocopying or phone calls, are paid for out of our own pockets. We do our work around everything else that we do in our lives, of course, like work, take care of our kids etc. Usually we work over the phone late at night, that kind of stuff.
We are not a special interest; citizens' environmental groups are not a special interest. I believe that citizens' groups have been characterized as such over the past year or so by our current provincial government. We are members of the public who are concerned about the health of our community and are concerned about the natural environment within which all of us -- not just us in the groups but all of us -- live. We are not a vested interest. We have no vested interest. We are working for the public interest. We have very little power -- political, financial or any other kind -- except that which we get by working together as active community residents.
Citizens' groups are the public -- I think that's really important to understand -- and we're committed to defending the public interest. I would just like to point out that if there's any doubt in anybody's mind that environmental protection is in the public interest, you only have to look to the number of polls, four, five, six, over the past months, that have indicated over and over again that Ontarians expect and are committed to strong environmental legislation and regulation.
From our perspective as a small volunteer group that is working for the public interest, our effectiveness as a public advocate depends on a couple of things. It depends on clear, predictable legislation and meaningful opportunities for public involvement in environmental decision-making. Without any political or financial power, really the only support that citizens' groups have to lean on to allow them to be effective public advocates is a clear and dependable environmental legislation framework. In the face of any real conflict it's our only recourse, because we can't fall back on money and we can't fall back on political power. We have the legislation that supports our defence of the public interest.
The second thing, the ability to be meaningfully involved in decision-making from the very planning states and throughout the decision-making process helps to ensure that our role as a public advocate is effective; also, that our involvement is as non-adversarial as possible. Maybe I touched on it a bit earlier, but we also touched on it in the discussion about forestalling or avoiding adversarial conflicts between citizens' groups and a proponent or the government if citizens' groups are involved from the very beginning in a meaningful way. For groups with limited or no resources to hire lawyers, technical experts and staff, financial support is also critical.
Those aspects of Bill 76 that we have pointed out aren't just technical problems. For us they erode the only powers we have to participate meaningfully in the EA process. I would say it's similar to many changes in environmental legislation that we've seen over the past year: It's taking away from our ability to be active, effective participants in environmental decision-making. We've always operated on the belief that citizen participation is a pillar of democratic society, that environmental participation and decision-making are critical, and we feel that Bill 76 needs to have some fairly considerable amendment before it too helps to uphold that principle of democracy.
Mr Cleary: Thank you for your presentation. I take it you're not happy with the legislation that exists at the present time?
Ms Greig: We're not happy with some aspects of the proposed Bill 76.
Mr Cleary: You mentioned many times, and again on the last page, that it's eroding the present system. Is that correct?
Ms Greig: The removal of intervenor funding, for example, the removal of a requirement for mandatory participant or intervenor funding, coupled with the non-renewal of the Intervenor Funding Project Act, as I pointed out, takes away from our ability to be involved in a meaningful way. As Eric Walton pointed out, we don't have the resources, we're not getting paid for our work in most cases and eventually we'll burn out and fade away; so yes.
Mr Cleary: You had mentioned too that you're a volunteer group and you mentioned approximately 700 groups throughout the province. Do you have any elected people on your group? Who makes up your group?
Ms Greig: Do we have any elected people in our group? We do have an elected utilities commissioner in our group but mostly they are just citizens. No, they're not elected people; they are just members of the public.
Mr Cleary: You had mentioned that the bill will lead to longer delays. Would you like to explain that?
Mr Greig: It won't necessarily, but it does open the door for that. If citizens' groups feel that they're being shut out of the process, if for example terms of reference are approved that don't contain some critical elements of EA, that don't contain an assessment of all alternatives, depending on whether they can muster the resources, most citizens' groups that are committed to an issue are not going to let that lie. If they haven't been involved in the decision from the very beginning, they're probably going to fight, and that fight is going to incur expense for the process, it's going to take time and it's going to be a hassle. It's much better to have them involved in the negotiation from the beginning, come to an agreement that all can live with and then proceed without further delay because all parties have agreed to the process.
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Mr Cleary: You mentioned a few changes you'd like to see. Would you like to list them again?
Ms Greig: Sure. In the area of the development and approval of binding terms of reference we'd like to see the bill amended to require public consultation during the negotiation of terms of reference prior to submission of those proposed terms of reference to the minister, and amended to ensure that the minister can only approve terms of reference that will produce a full EA which addresses all the essential EA requirements as set out in the existing Environmental Assessment Act.
In reference to public consultation, we feel that Bill 76 should be amended to require and fully define meaningful public consultation from the earliest stages of EA planning throughout the process, and to require mandatory participant funding and intervenor funding.
Mr Cleary: Another thing you mentioned was who qualifies as an interested person. Who do you think should qualify?
Ms Greig: I'm not sure I'm qualified to say. It certainly varies with the situation. If "interested party" is interpreted to mean only those with some sort of financial, pecuniary interest in an undertaking, for example, and members of the general public who could be affected by the undertaking in a broader way are excluded because of that definition, there's a problem.
Ms Churley: I believe you have outlined the fundamental problems with the bill. Many have been outlined over the course of the last couple of days, but I think those are the intervenor funding and the ability of the government to let the proponent off the hook on looking at alternatives, which of course is the heart of an EA. Essentially what we're doing here, if this bill goes through as is, is that we will no longer have what we constitute a full EA, and therein lies a very major problem.
On the issue of intervenor funding, which I think is just fundamental no matter what happens with this bill, we heard from the Storrington people this morning how they did get some intervenor funding. It's very clear, the abuse and the possible and indeed present environmental problems that resulted from that particular site. If it had not been for that group being so persistent and being able to get intervenor funding, it seems as though we would be dealing, down the road, with multimillion-dollar cleanups, drinking water contamination, so I think that is one example why community groups are so crucial to the process. It's very clear that if you're going up against big companies like Laidlaw and the Ontario Waste Management Association, whom I had an interesting encounter with yesterday -- they refused to answer my question -- there can be no meaningful participation.
I'm getting to my question here. There seems to be a gap in the understanding of the bill between myself and you and many other people who have been involved intimately in the process about public participation. The minister said yesterday in Toronto, "It's better than ever because we've enshrined it," and members here have said, "There's going to be more public participation," but there isn't. Certainly it isn't enshrined in the beginning of the process in the terms of reference. Overall, I would like to see if you can explain how you see the difference from the government in that they think there is actually more public consultation than ever before, and the implications of no intervenor funding in terms of public participation.
Ms Greig: That's a good question. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer and I haven't combed through the bill for every clause, but it appears to me that while the intent may well be that there is more public participation, and that's an excellent intent, it does not appear to be enshrined in the legislation; it appears to be somewhat vague or, as we say, absent in the development of the terms of reference stage. I wanted to spell out what the role of citizens' groups is and what the reality is, because I have a feeling that there isn't an understanding of that and that there's some sort of misinterpretation of what citizens' groups are or what they do and whom they represent. I think it's really important that this legislation be based on an understanding of the critical role that citizens' groups play and the fact that citizens' groups represent the public interest. Indeed, that should be the role of the government and we should be supported in representing the public interest rather than discouraged or undermined by the absence of things like intervenor funding.
Mrs Ross: I just want to follow up on the line of questioning with regard to public consultation and intervenor funding and that type of thing. I'm not an expert in the environment, but from what I know of this act, I do believe there is greater public consultation allowed in it. I want to ask you this question: Do you not think that the mechanism that's put in place for mediation early on in the process between the proponent and citizen groups such as yourselves is a good thing that's been put in this act to help solve some of the problems before they go any further, before you need intervenor funding?
Ms Greig: I'm not that familiar with the section on mediation. I don't recall where it actually says that mediation will kick in. I think that was one concern that's been raised by other groups, that mediation may not be right at the very beginning of the process.
Mrs Ross: You don't really need mediation at the very beginning because you don't know --
Ms Greig: Presumably, you wouldn't, exactly. Mediation is fine; I think it's good. There may be other techniques as well that aren't just mediation that maybe should be mentioned in the bill, but that's not really my area. I think while the provision for mediation is good, it would be better if there were clearer and stronger provisions for full public involvement from the very beginning of the process to forestall the need to use that mediation. I don't want to throw out the mediation, that's great, but let's not assume it's going to be necessary and we can perhaps ensure that it will be less necessary; it will be necessary less often if it's really clear and very firmly enshrined that the public has a role from the very beginning of the process, including the development of the terms of reference.
Mrs Ross: Let me ask you one more question. With this act, in your own opinion, is there not more public consultation before you get to the point where citizens have to get vehement about opposing something? There are, in my opinion, about five steps along the way where they can get involved before it gets to that point, before you need a hearing or anything. Don't you think that's better?
Ms Greig: If that's what is actually in the bill, then yes, it's good. My reading, at least of the sections that I've seen, is that it's still vague. It may be there but it needs to be clarified, or it is open to a narrow interpretation and a potential shutout of some members of the public.
Mrs Munro: I just wondered, has your group had any experience in the current EA process?
Ms Grieg: I'm trying to think if anybody has; I was trying to think of that on the way up here. Yes, I guess we have, actually. For example, I have some myself, in two examples where I wouldn't have called us intervenors so much, but we were participants in a planning process that included EA as part of the process.
Mrs Munro: All I wanted to know was, in terms of your own personal experience, what you have experienced under the current legislation in contrast to what you perceive this piece of legislation to cover.
You and many others have talked about the need for public consultation at the level of the terms of reference. The question was asked of you about who should be included. This is the purpose of this kind of meeting, to be able to look at what are the best-case scenarios, so I really have to come back to that question because you have referred to this as an essential component. What is your best-case scenario of full public consultation at the level of the terms of reference? This appears, from the discussions we are having, to be an extremely important issue. We've heard from community leaders, municipal leaders, who have demonstrated in their presentations the ways they have sought public input. My question to you, as someone representing a grass-roots organization, is, what is your best-case scenario?
Ms Grieg: I guess the best-case scenario is that there be public announcement through the newspaper, through the EBR, perhaps even through some personal contact with, say, leaders of citizens' groups in an area where an undertaking is going to take place, that an EA process is going to take place and that terms of reference are going to be developed, perhaps an invitation to participate -- I'm talking off the top of my head, because I haven't really thought this out -- in a preliminary meeting, to sit around the table and talk about who the interested parties are, some determination of who should be at the table.
The Chair: We've run beyond our time, but I suggest, because I believe Mrs Munro's question is a really important one, if you think it through and you've got some ideas and you want to submit them by paper, certainly the committee would accept that.
Ms Grieg: Okay, I'll jot that down.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Grieg, for your time and for your thoughts here this afternoon. We appreciate it.
Ms Grieg: Thank you. I appreciate your attention.
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CATARAQUI REGION CONSERVATION AUTHORITY
The Chair: Our next witnesses are from the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority, Mr Fyfe and Mr Warwick. Welcome, gentlemen.
Mr Stewart Fyfe: I'm Stewart Fyfe, the chair of the authority, and this is Bill Warwick, our general manager.
The authority welcomes this opportunity to appear before this committee and hopes the submission will prove of some assistance in a useful contribution to the provisions of the act.
The authority is in many ways an environmental agency, with a mandate for the conservation of natural resources on a watershed basis. As such, it has some involvement with the environmental assessment process, both as a proponent of flood control works under the provisions for class assessments and as a commenting agency for a range of public endeavours, including the selection of a waste disposal site for Kingston. Not all of our experience with the environmental assessment process has been positive, however, and we're therefore pleased to see consideration being given to amendments.
The authority has two concerns with respect to the present legislation: its administration and its effectiveness. The first relates to the assessment process as such, the second to the impact of the shortened time frames and other developments on the ability of the authority and other agencies and groups to participate effectively.
With respect to the process itself, there is something very wrong with the present process when it takes over 10 years, several million dollars and a great deal of public controversy not to find an answer to the problems of waste disposal for this area, except to export the waste to Ottawa-Carp, Napanee and the United States.
On the other hand, we don't see how it could be realistic to resolve such complex and contentious issues within the less than one year time line contemplated with the legislation. Very early, it became evident that the process was designed to find the perfect solution -- that is, the present process -- taking every possible alternative into account, with no mechanism to contain costs or to ensure that an answer be found within a reasonable time. Our role, particularly since one of our properties ceased to be a candidate site, was to keep informed and provide information as required, but generally to leave the matter to others who had more direct interest and greater financial, technical and professional resources.
While there are problems with the legislation, difficulties have been related, as much as anything, to how the act is administered. The ministry in some cases has been slow to respond, in other cases gives little guidance as to what is likely to be acceptable, or has thrown the book at a proposal and has required that every step be followed whether it was appropriate or not. The authority's own projects have been small but the costs of advertising and consultation have been disproportionately high in time and money, given the scale and potential impacts of the projects.
In the information distributed regarding the amendments, considerable emphasis is placed on the provisions for tight time lines so that decisions will not be drawn out unreasonably. But both applicants and the public should feel confident that proposals are dealt with efficiently, effectively and fairly.
The public is entitled to be confident not only that their interests are protected but also that the process is fair to everyone. Potential applicants should know what the rules are, what information is available and that applications will be treated expeditiously. This requires a delicate balancing of public and private rights and judgement as to whether improvements in the process and in obtaining information exceed the costs of doing so. The perfect is the enemy of the good, if you like.
Placing tight time lines is very attractive. It is a powerful incentive to sort out priorities and come to a decision. However, experience with tight time lines is that they do not of themselves improve the results and can in fact distort the process to the detriment of the intended results, and ways will be found around them when they do not fit the circumstances. One must look at why the process is deficient. Delays can occur for a variety of reasons, some appropriate, and some explainable but not defensible. A practical concern with some elements of time line is they do not allow for the realities of how municipal councils and other bodies make decisions.
It is one thing to have staff and consultants prepare a report and make recommendations. However, the responsibility for decisions lies with the municipal council. On complex and contentious issues, it is neither desirable nor practical to delegate authority to staff. For important issues, it may be necessary to arrange for public consultation. Most councils meet on a cycle of every two weeks or monthly, but not all year round, and even the largest may not meet every week. For secondary agencies such as conservation authorities and for ratepayers and other groups, the decision process can be more complex and time-consuming. It is necessary to allow for this two- and three-step process, which is inherently different from that employed within the public service, where by law you can authorize ministers and civil servants to make decisions and the authority stops there.
The proposed time lines do not differentiate between different kinds of proposals. As the scale, complexity, quality of information available, number of relevant precedents, number of parties affected and the potential environmental impact increases, it inevitably takes more time to deal with the proposal. Nor can it be assumed that all applicants are equal in sophistication, resources and motivation to take into account public concerns.
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Similarly, the public and interested parties, and particularly public bodies which are required to be part of the process, vary greatly in their resources and sophistication. Local bodies have a strength in their depth of knowledge about the particular area and local conditions, but have limited experience in dealing with comparable problems and have limited resources for analysis. The province has a breadth of knowledge because it sees all proposals, has a depth of professional knowledge and a wider perspective in terms of where related issues cross internal or external jurisdictional boundaries. The problem is how to relate these two levels of decision-making.
It is recommended, therefore, that there be some elasticity in the time lines proposed.
The problems arising from the internal deficiencies in processing proposals, which have been very real, can be related to organizational problems, the quality of staff and style of administration. Unfortunately, it's an iron rule of bureaucracy to be preoccupied with detail, to look at the trees rather than the forest, and as the organizations become more elaborate, this becomes more and more the practice. Legislation can only do so much to change this, but one means is a mechanism for separating the simple and straightforward from the complex and controversial.
The proposed amendments give the minister very sweeping new powers to: approve the terms of reference for an environmental assessment; designate issues to be sent to the review board; designate the time allotment for board review; approve an environmental assessment document without a board hearing; decide that a hearing is unnecessary; vary the decision of the board.
This centralization may be necessary but it would be more acceptable if it were not accompanied by such time lines which make it difficult for anyone outside the ministry to play an informed role. The authority is concerned that the process allow for proper consideration of what are often very complex proposals.
The recent disaster in the Saguenay is a good example of the difficulties that come with dealing with the human consequences of our activity on the environment. The storm was about equivalent to Hurricane Hazel; there is a probability of recurrence about once every 250 years. Storms of this ferocity or of less but still of catastrophic potential occur very frequently in Ontario; it's just that most of them are rather small in the area they affect or they affect an area which is unpopulated or very thinly populated, so the consequences are very small, that we are aware of. It is part of nature doing its thing. But sometimes nature does dump on Toronto or other places.
The Chair: Everybody else does.
Mr Fyfe: Yes, but it earns it more.
Anyway, if that had happened in Toronto last month, we would not have had the disaster we had in the Saguenay. There is a weather watch, an emergency warning, which is very well developed, and the authorities act as the local coordinating agency for that, so there would be more warning for evacuations, removal of valuables to upper floors and what not, so you wouldn't have had to call in the Red Cross and the army helicopters quite as much.
There is a well-developed system of identification of flood risk through hydrological studies of river systems. There are preventive and remedial measures in place, such as the regulation of development in the floodplain through the work of conservation authorities and the local municipalities.
There are studies of channel capacity and development of rule curves as to how dams should be managed to at least reduce the flood peaks. There are means to reduce the runoff through stormwater management development, erosion control, wetland protection, reforestation and the development of flow projections to provide design criteria for roads, watermains, bridges and other public works which, of necessity, often have to be located in or next to a floodplain.
These measures have developed over 50 years and have been given impetus by such high-profile events as Hurricane Hazel and the Grand River floods of 1974.
There is work still to be done, but one of the very important things of environmental process is the information that is generated that makes these measures possible is built into the environmental assessment process, providing design criteria, identification of risks. This is made available to the municipalities, to the provincial government, to developers, to the public, and that is part of, complementary to and works with the environmental assessment process.
Lastly, while changes should make the environmental process more efficient and effective, the reduction in resources at the provincial level threatens to leave a void, as is already occurring in land use planning, weakening the process. At one time, the primary activity on some environmental matters could be left to others. This is no longer possible. Because of changes, the others are no longer there or have given notice that they're not going to be there much longer or that they have not the depth of resources to do the work they once did.
Conservation authorities and other local bodies have a responsibility under their mandate to fill some of this gap. However, while the need continues and the will may be there, the flesh is weaker because of reductions in funding and the pressures to increase responsibilities in other areas.
Further, local agencies can only fill this void to some extent. The resources are already under stress, with lower revenues and greater responsibilities. There are some things which by the very character of local government, even the largest and most sophisticated agencies have not the professional resources, the breadth of experience nor the geographic jurisdiction to carry their end of the process by themselves.
The Chair: Mr Fyfe, thank you very much for your presentation. We will now begin the questioning with the member from the NDP.
Ms Churley: Mr Fyfe, how long have you been involved with the conservation authority? It sounds like a while.
Mr Fyfe: Twenty years, and 25 years with local government town planning before that.
Ms Churley: You sound like you have a lot of experience. I think some of your comments are well taken. Obviously, from your experience on both levels, you know where the pitfalls lie, and I think, reading between the lines, you also know that while there has to be some improvement to the act and some changes to make it more current, a lot of environmental issues such as landfill are never going to be simple. Time frames can work in some of the simpler cases, very tight time frames, but not always, or you can get bad decisions, particularly with budget cuts and not the same level of staff there to do the kind of detailed, technical work that needs to be done.
I believe in a way that's what I'm hearing you say, that it's not that simple and some complications could make it difficult to get a good result in a very tight time frame.
Mr Fyfe: Yes. Very rarely do you find a simple answer to an unsimple problem, and one of the problems at the moment has been in fact the style of administration.
Ms Churley: In fact, we don't hear a lot about this, and this too is complex, but most of the delays in EA come at the government review period of an EA for a variety of reasons. Tightening time frames is not a bad thing, it's just that there are lots of things to consider in that process.
Mr Fyfe: You must be realistic in your time frames, and I think one device that would help would be to have categories with different time frames formula or have some elasticity in the time frames so you can allow more in a very complex or very contentious issue or in an area where you just have very limited information, it's unique, you haven't bumped up against it before. Knowledge is changing very quickly in these areas and the problems are too.
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Ms Churley: You alluded at the very end of your presentation to budget cuts that all governments have been experiencing for a time now. I know that under this government the conservation authorities have been deeply cut. I don't know if you want to go into that here or not -- I think your approach to it here was very gentle -- but do you think that those cuts to the conservation authorities have begun to or will impede your ability to do the very important environmental protection work and remediation work that you do historically?
Mr Fyfe: It cuts in various ways, but one thing is it's not only a cut, but you have these other responsibilities coming down on you as the boundaries between provincial and local responsibilities shift, so we had to lay off 40% of our staff this last year. In that, one of the people who went was a geologist, who is very relevant to this kind of work.
Ms Churley: So who fills that gap?
Mr Fyfe: We hope we can phone somebody and get some advice for free or we try and cut in other areas, or you try to concentrate on what you think is the most important part.
Bill, do you wish to add?
Mr Bill Warwick: You're not far off the mark. Actually, we have been using a lot of volunteers. We've actually had engineering firms that have offered free services on specific issues to assist us. We have cut back on other areas of our operation in order to concentrate our effort in sort of environmental protection. But it's getting very, very difficult, no question about it. The other thing --
The Chair: Ms Churley -- I'm sorry.
Ms Churley: You can follow up on that.
The Chair: Mr Pettit and Mrs Munro.
Mr Pettit: Thank you, gentlemen. I would like to stay with the time frames. I have your concern too, that tightly mandated time frames sometimes may cause a problem, so there may indeed be a need for some elasticity there on time frames. But that aside, would you agree or disagree that when you have clearly defined terms of reference in conjunction with earlier public involvement that those two things will make the review process easier and more timely?
Mr Fyfe: They should clear away a lot of the underbrush, if you like, at the beginning, and you can focus on the areas where you need more information about what are the most critical issues. But time lines, my experience is it's surprising how you can get around them. The British tried to put in time lines which were very, very tight on planning approvals at one time. They found what happened was just everybody said: "No. You don't like it, see you in court."
Mr Pettit: But you would agree then that some of the amendments that are in Bill 76 will to a certain extent rectify the time problem that we face now?
Mr Fyfe: Yes.
Mrs Munro: I want to compliment you on having a look at a particular area of this legislation that hasn't received perhaps the attention that it should have, but very often we come back in the discussions to the whole issue of public participation. You raised the issue here in the last sentence of your first page about the cost of advertising and consultation being disproportionately high in time and money. I found this germane to so much of the discussion that we've heard today and that is the concern to have some kind of threshold of public participation. One of my concerns about establishing a threshold is that it becomes at the same time the minimum and the maximum, and does it always serve the best interests of the particular issue being examined. So when you have this comment here about the disproportionate cost, I just wondered if you would care to comment on the whole notion of having a threshold of public participation and how you can build in the flexibility that perhaps you're suggesting here.
Mr Fyfe: I think one of the problems that the legislation overlooks is that for the environmental class assessments you're dealing with public bodies, and particularly at the local level. We're dealing mostly with quite small municipalities.
Mrs Munro: Yes.
Mr Fyfe: The local community knows about the project even before -- long before -- and we do not go ahead without the local approval of the municipal council. So there has been a fair amount already, and then to go through an additional advertising and the special committee added on to all our other things which are open -- it's a public information session but I don't think it adds much and it selects particular types of projects from others, which you do all kinds of other things, but you don't have to go through such a dramatic process, which are just as important or maybe even more important. For the public to participate, they have an opportunity to be informed and they have to have an opportunity to be there when a decision is made, and it's very difficult to go much beyond that in legislation.
Mr Cleary: Thank you for your presentation, Mr Fyfe. I hear occasionally from conservation authorities these days. I happened be on one for many years, and past chairman. You outlined some of the problems you see with the legislation. Is there anything else you'd like to add to what you've said?
Mr Fyfe: No. One of the difficulties is you're looking at this piece of legislation, which is only one part of a series of things which are of other pieces of legislation which make the whole regulated environment process, and it's hard to pick out one particular piece. There's a ripple effect. If you do something to one thing, it affects all the others, and all these others are being affected at the moment.
Mr Cleary: As former municipal politicians we were always criticizing all levels of government for not making decisions in a hurry, so I can't be too critical of that part of it if things get done faster.
Mr Fyfe: Sometimes you shouldn't make decisions in a hurry.
Mr Cleary: Not in a hurry, but the way it drags on for year after year after year, I don't have time for that myself. Life is too short.
The other thing: You had mentioned earlier about 60% of your staff. Are you privatizing some of your operations now, too? I know that down our way that's what they're looking at.
Mr Fyfe: There's some, but there's not very much we can privatize because we don't have campgrounds, we don't have marinas, we don't have ski hills. There's a limited amount of privatization of boat rentals, some maintenance of areas, but not much.
Mr Cleary: So, in other words, you're dealing with your funding cuts through more volunteers?
Mr Fyfe: Somewhat more volunteers; reduction in standard of work, obviously. You can't do the same kind of work and then you have to sort out your priorities rather more. But we are finding that there are volunteers coming forward and there are people coming forward offering donations of money and land and help in various ways. We are very fortunate in some ways on the technical side that we have a really good working relationship with the university in biology, coastal engineering, mapping and a variety of other technical things in biology, which gives us resources which most authorities five times our size would not have.
Mr Cleary: Do you think you'll have a closer working relationship with natural resources now?
Mr Fyfe: It's hard to relate to people who aren't there.
Ms Churley: There's hardly anybody left at natural resources.
Mr Cleary: I knew that was what you were going to say.
Mr Fyfe: The 800-number doesn't work when nobody answers the phone.
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Mr Cleary: No, no. I understand that.
I'm going to ask you, you had been critical of the legislation, so what would be a couple of the most important issues that you feel would concern conservation authorities?
Mr Fyfe: Confidence that the process is working well, that you had a system which was workable and you could follow and track things and intervene where necessary but not have to intervene unless other people worked there or something was going wrong. I don't know if you saw the program last night on The 5th Estate about the Philip's dump in Stoney Creek, where all kinds of commenting bodies seem to have evaporated at various stages, including the conservation authority.
The Chair: Mr Fyfe, Mr Warwick, thank you kindly for sharing your views and your experience with us this afternoon. It's much appreciated.
KEALEY CUMMINGS
The Chair: Our final witness for this afternoon here in Kingston is Mr Kealey Cummings, if you would come forward, Mr Cummings.
Mr Kealey Cummings: I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to make a presentation. I'm not here representing any particular group. I'm an individual who has been extremely active for many years in the area of health and safety and overall protection of the environment and I felt compelled to come forward to set out my views.
Referring to the paper which I've put before you, my interest in health and safety along with environmental protection of the workplace dates back to the mid-1950s when, as president of the Ontario Hydro workers' local union, a joint health and safety committee was negotiated. The results of these negotiations established that working rules could only be changed, if safety was involved, with the union's agreement. The local to this day maintains an active approach in protecting its members.
In addition to my activities at a local level, I also played a role in the following organizations: labour representative on the Ontario Labour Safety Council, which by the way was the first one established in Ontario -- it was a tripartite body -- between 1965 and 1969; member of the health and safety committee at the founding of the Canadian Nuclear Association in 1960, again a tripartite body; representative on the Canadian Labour Congress occupational health and safety committee from 1957 to 1978; founding member of the board of governors of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety between 1979 and 1985; and founding board member of the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre between 1980 and 1985.
Presently I sit as a labour representative on the Ontario Hydro board of directors, now in my second term. As a board member I have sat on the health and safety committee, the environment and public policy committee and the nuclear review committee. In each case there is a clear relationship not only to the health and safety and working environment of Hydro employees, but in many respects the same conditions for all Ontario citizens.
It is with this long-standing understanding and commitment to the environment that I appear before you today.
Looking at a bit of philosophy initially, the purpose and role of government and Parliament in relation to the environment: History has proven the world over that the only way to surely protect the total environment in all its aspects is to establish and maintain strict rules and regulations. It is also clear that the key to success relies on a system of inspection with adequate staffing and funding to closely check against any violations.
When workplaces, air, water and the introduction and control of products are not regulated, tragic results have caused millions of deaths, the scarring of nature never to be repaired and the impact on the whole of mankind yet to be fully understood.
Prior to commenting on Bill 76, I feel it is necessary to make some general remarks about the impact of government actions which cannot but have a major impact on the health and safety of workers in the workplace and the general impact on the environment as it applies to all who live in Ontario.
The overall program to cut $8 billion from the operational cost of running the provincial government while cutting taxes and drastically reducing services in a program of slash and burn is not only disturbing but in many cases destroys proper servicing levels.
In this ministry the cutting of the budget by 36% was more severe than in most ministries and in turn caused related cuts in many interconnected areas. To mention a few: a 70% cut in the funding of the Ontario conservation authorities; terminated the funding for the popular blue box program; killed the green communities program; eliminated new funding for the municipal assistance program; withdrew the ban on the construction of new garbage incinerators; killed the Ontario Waste Management Corp and the hazardous waste reduction strategy; killed intervenor funding; passed legislation to eliminate environmental safeguards in the Planning Act.
In addition, in a recently released 72-page report, a new deregulation program is proposed which, if implemented, will turn the clock back, as far as protection is concerned, 50 years or more. Public comment is requested by September 15 during this normal summer doldrums period, almost as though to hide these drastic changes.
In other ministries changes were made in areas which relate to health and safety and the environment: for example, the abolition of the Workplace Health and Safety Agency; drastic changes to the workers' compensation coverage and benefits and the operation of the Workers' Compensation Board; cutting $27 million and 126 positions from the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines; removal of the need for mandatory inquests for construction and mining deaths; the cutting of $500,000 from the anti-drinking and driving advertising campaign; major cuts to municipalities which impact on police services, roads, youth programs, sanitation and water purification programs, anti-smoking community grants, community mental health programs and major cuts to hospital programs and related services.
Now to Bill 76, An Act to improve environmental protection, increase accountability and enshrine public consultation in the Environmental Assessment Act. The wording of the title of this bill would almost lead one to believe that, if interpreted literally in the area of environmental assessment, the protection of the public is to be improved and consultation expanded. However, when the details of the bill are examined, the protection and consultation process is weakened or eliminated.
To touch on a few of the points:
Under Bill 76 there's no longer a guarantee that current requirements under the present act for an environmental assessment on landfills, incinerators or many other environmentally significant undertakings will take place.
The minister will have sweeping new powers to improve environmental assessment documents which do not include the essential environmental assessment requirements which are currently mandatory under the present EA act.
Bill 76 will permit private waste companies or municipalities to get approval from the minister without first examining other alternatives to landfilling or redesigned sites or, more importantly, the full social and economic and cultural impact of such sites.
The minister as well has broad powers to vary or dispense with the requirements of the EA act or to grant wholesale exemptions from the act.
The bill is unclear on how consultation will take place, if at all, or who are considered "interested persons."
The minister may under harmonization orders grant wholesale exemptions and thus destroy the need for any environmental assessment of projects by using the equivalency approach in other jurisdictions, thus lowering standards.
The bill does not require the ministry to monitor and report upon compliance with terms and conditions of any exemption declarations.
The bill does not allow any upfront public participation in the development of the terms of reference and allows for the minister to approve terms of reference that do not meet essential environmental assessment requirements, which at the present time are mandatory.
The 45-day period of government review is too restrictive to allow input from all interested persons.
The minister should be required to provide written reasons for the rejection of any environmental assessment.
The director should as well be required to provide written reasons why a finding of an environmental assessment is supported.
The bill gives proponents an unreasonable time frame to decide what will be done to rectify deficient environmental assessments.
Duties and responsibilities of the review agency are not described in the bill.
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The mediation process is unclear as to terms of using it at all stages of the environmental assessment, and other means of public involvement should be allowed.
The minister is not required to give any written reasons why matters are referred to any tribunal or entity.
The bill empowers the minister to deny reasonable hearings requested from the public, even if significant or controversial. An example, of course, is the one which was just touched upon, the Stoney Creek dump.
The bill allows a board decision to be varied or reversed without meaningful public notice or comment.
Class environmental assessments could be misused or expanded to cover projects which should receive separate environmental assessment examinations and hearings. No means of monitoring class environmental assessments is covered by the act.
Section 5 of the act should spell out in clear language what the minister will do to enforce compliance when an environmental assessment is contravened.
The act does not prohibit pre-approval site alterations and does not empower the minister to issue enforceable restoration orders even where the environment has been unlawfully altered.
In 1970 the Canadian Environmental Law Association was established, and it has played a major role in improving the laws to protect the environment and to conserve our natural resources. CELA has been outstanding in the development and protection of the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act, in place since 1975, by a previous Progressive Conservative government.
The submission made to this committee yesterday -- by the way, if you would add the two words "by CELA" to my brief -- set out a list of 12 recommendations as a means to not only correct Bill 76 but also cover many areas already put forward by the Environmental Assessment Advisory Committee. I am fully in agreement with the recommendations they made.
In closing, I strongly urge this committee and the present government to refrain from taking any action which will reduce or diminish any protection or rights of citizens of this province. In an era when we must worry about smog levels, depletion of the ozone levels and UV levels which cause skin cancer, we all have obligations to stop such impacts and to protect future generations. Thank you.
Mr Galt: Thank you, Mr Cummings, for presenting to us and putting forth this thoughtful presentation. I was wondering about your experience and involvement with environmental assessment. Have you been involved in some of this process in the past?
Mr Cummings: You mean as far as landfill sites are concerned? No. As far as the impact on workers and the area related to health and safety matters, yes, I have been involved in a number of hearings where workers have been hurt, have been killed, through inquests, some of it directly relating to the on-the-job conditions, some of it because of the surroundings in which they work.
Mr Galt: You're referring to things where there had been an environmental assessment involvement, like in a landfill site you're referring to?
Mr Cummings: No, I'm not referring to a landfill site. People have been hurt on the job because of environmental conditions; that is, the air and the water surrounding the conditions they work with. I can recall sitting on inquiries into whether a person contracted asbestosis from working on the job.
Mr Galt: On page 2 you make reference that an important part of government is to maintain strict rules and regulations. I hope you've seen our new standards that we've put out on the landfill sites, the requirements for those.
Mr Cummings: I haven't seen the new standards for the sites themselves, no.
Mr Galt: But you would agree that those are the kinds of rules and regulations you're looking for?
Mr Cummings: I certainly wouldn't comment on them without having seen them. I haven't seen them.
Mr Galt: In the past, they hadn't been in place. They had been laid on for certain landfill sites, specific sites. This is one that's generic and coming out with those kinds of strict rules and regulations that you're referring to.
Mr Cummings: If it fills the requirements in all situations, it's obviously a good move.
Mr Pettit: On page 4 you mention that the bill is unclear on who are considered "interested" persons. We've heard this before in the last few days and I'm not so sure anyone has answered the question, at least to my satisfaction. Would you define for me what you would consider to be interested persons?
Mr Cummings: First of all, I didn't write the act; I didn't put those words in it. At the present time, under the present act, there aren't limitations as to people being able to come forward and comment on any particular project that is being assessed by the government. I don't think we should put wording in there that in some way may restrict the public involvement. I'm afraid without describing who interested persons are, you could limit that.
Mr Pettit: Do you have a description of what interested persons are yourself?
Mr Cummings: No, I do not have one.
Mr Doyle: You say you don't think there should be limitations on who should be an interested party. I find that a little difficult to accept, because you could have somebody come in from another province and complain to something. The process of course would go on endlessly if that were the case.
Mr Cummings: I wouldn't expect that people from other provinces should have a right to comment on a site in this province, no more than we should have a right to comment on the environmental assessments --
Mr Doyle: But there has to be, would you agree, some kind of limitation on who an interested person is?
Mr Cummings: I would certainly agree that people from other provinces shouldn't have a right to make comment on sites in Ontario.
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Mr Cleary: Thank you for your presentation, Mr Cummings. It was very thoughtful. You touched on a lot of issues there. I for one agree, and I'm sure you do too, that the residents of Ontario expect clean air, fresh water and inspected food. Without that we don't have much of anything, and we would hope no government would stray beyond those boundaries. Are you satisfied with the present legislation?
Mr Cummings: As far as individuals who are putting forward an assessment under 5(3), where the present legislation requires the presenter or the proponents to not only make a request but to set out alternatives I think is extremely important. That is missing from this legislation. It's not only the matter of saying, "I would like to do X or Y," but I also want to be able to say that X or Y perhaps could have been done in some other way. That is spelled out in the present act under 5(3), and I think that is an ingredient that is lost here that should be included.
Mr Cleary: I'm going to ask you now what changes you would like to see in Bill 76.
Mr Cummings: As I mentioned in the second-last paragraph, I had the opportunity of reviewing the material submitted by CELA. I certainly don't want to say that I measure up to their broad skills or experience, but having read a summary of their presentation and also a list of their 12 recommendations along with the subparts, I would endorse totally the submissions and the 12 points put forward by CELA.
Ms Churley: Thank you very much for your presentation. You have reiterated for the committee many of the same concerns that others have raised, and I think we are starting to see a pattern in some of those concerns.
I want to take my couple of minutes, however, and come back to a question that's been asked by members of the governing party to a couple of people now about what you think "interested" parties should be. I would say to the government members that to ask people, laypeople in particular, who are coming in and giving you their analysis of the bill to come up with answers for that right here and now is a very difficult thing to do.
I want to give a little advice on that. I think the bottom line we should take into account is, let's start with the premise that the terms of reference will not be done in secret behind closed doors with a proponent, which is what would happen now. So if we start with that premise and go from there, and I would suggest that the parliamentary assistant go back to officials, some of whom are here, and say: "This is becoming a recurring theme."
People want some kind of definition of who interested parties might be. I heard proponents raise that as an issue as well, that it could be a real problem. They didn't know how to define it. Somebody suggested there could be lawsuits over it. It is a major, fundamental question we're talking about here. I can see your interest in wanting to hear people's points of view, but I think we should start from the premise of what I already mentioned.
I'd also refer you to CELA's recommendations, number 16. They do make a stab at identifying. You could take it for granted that "interested persons" would be people who live in the surrounding area, for instance, local environmental groups. There are some you can take for granted, and then you have to move beyond that and consult with people about what this means, because it is such a fundamental question, bigger at first blush than you might imagine -- like, who are these kinds of people going to be? Because you're right; they can't be everybody. You have to contain it somehow, but you also have to make sure that it's fair and open to -- is my time up?
The Chair: No. Some people may want me to say yes, but --
Interjection: Getting closer all the time.
Ms Churley: I came back to this because I think the question is being asked in good faith. I don't think you are trying to put people on the spot. It's been raised a lot and I think it's at a stage where we do want to hear from people about what it means to them. But the government needs at this point, because it is such a major question, to show some leadership. Perhaps the parliamentary assistant could come back to the committee, and I would request that, with some suggestions as to what the government means by interested parties, so that people would have some reference point.
I don't know if you want to comment on my comments.
Mr Cummings: The only comment I would make is that the whole area of the environment is much too sensitive an area to be restricting. If we are going to err, I think we should be erring on the side of much broader involvement.
There are soups being developed out in the environment now by chemicals, by things that exist that no one understands, and sometimes it takes 10, 15, 20, 30 years to come to a point where we know it's damaging the public health. If we're going to restrict input and involvement, we're going to have damage to all citizens. We all know, in the last few days, about the smog warnings and the high UV ratings and so on. When we were a little younger and my hair was a different colour, we didn't know what UV ratings were. Other than going to Los Angeles or, I'm sorry, Sudbury, having worked in Sudbury, for some of the yellow air, we didn't understand what smog meant. So in anything that we're doing from here on, I think we have an obligation to err, if we're going to err, on the side of allowing greater involvement.
The Chair: Mr Cummings, thank you kindly for coming here today and sharing your views with us. We appreciate it very much.
Mr Cummings: Thank you for the opportunity.
The Chair: That's the last witness for today. A couple of housekeeping items, if I may, for the committee members. For those of you who are flying back to Toronto, cabs will be downstairs at 10 to 4. There have been some revisions, as you know, to the Thunder Bay agenda and the clerk has rearranged flights so that the flights you see now won't be as late. They will be earlier, which may please people unless you had made other arrangements in Thunder Bay.
Interjection: Was that earlier in the morning or earlier in the afternoon?
The Chair: No, earlier in the evening to return to Toronto.
On Monday we resume in our home room, which is the Amethyst Room, room 151 of the Legislative Building, at 10 sharp.
Mr Galt: Is that a change in location to the Amethyst Room?
The Chair: No, that's usually our home room, the Amethyst Room, 151.
Ms Churley: Video lotteries took it over this week. They had priority over the environment.
Interjection.
The Chair: Those times have already been arranged for you, so if you want the details, speak to the clerk.
Can I raise a question? You asked informally and your response heretofore has been that if you'd like to request something, could it be put in writing and you would respond. Would you welcome that?
Mr Galt: It makes it much easier if it is in writing.
Ms Churley: I'll present it on Monday.
Mr Galt: Okay, or if you deliver it to me now, we'll see if we can have something for you by Monday. Just scrawl something out, please.
Ms Churley: Then I will formally do that.
Mr Galt: We attempt to please.
The Chair: Good. My final comment is that any members are encouraged to please feel free to share your feedback with me on my role and how I dispense my duties. I try to behave in the most non-partisan manner possible.
Interjection: You're about to be fired.
The Chair: Thank you very much. So we are adjourned until Monday morning.
The committee adjourned at 1527.