Category: PROVINCE OF ONTARIO

Way back in April 2012, the Ontario government included in its Omnibus Budget Bill (Bill 55) a proposal to amend the Endangered Species Act.  That caused quite a furor and these particular amendments were withdrawn at the end of June. But before the year was out, the Ministry of Natural Resources came out with its alternative strategy:  A thorough re-write of the regulations, part of a wide-ranging initiative to “Modernize

The Federation of Citizens’ Associations, of which the Greenspace Alliance is a member, is in turn a member of the Federation of Urban Neighbourhoods of Ontario (F.U.N.)  Amy Kempster, Treasurer of the Alliance, is on the Executive of F.U.N. F.U.N. is preparing a report card on the McGuinty government. With regard to Wetland and Flood Plain Policies, Amy (with thanks to Ken McRae for input) suggested: While the provincial policies

Section 2.1.5 of the Provincial Policy Statement states that “Development and site alteration shall not be permitted in: … d) significant wildlife habitat; … unless it has been demonstrated that there will be no negative impacts on the natural features or their ecological functions.” To help implement this policy, the Ministry of Natural Resources developed a Technical Guide to Significant Wildlife Habitat (October 2000; with Appendices, 396 pp., 2.4 MB;

August 10, 2017 The Greenspace Alliance today sent in its comments on the planning aspects of Bill 139.  The letter is here.  Some highlights: We strongly support much of this Bill, in particular the end of de novo hearings and the move to a court-of-appeal type regime, the creation of a Support Centre for citizen-appellants and mandatory case management for all appeals. We strongly oppose, however, the proposed inability to

From The Ottawa Citizen, April 25, 2007. p. A5 Abstract Data produced by Mr. [Gord Miller]’s office show that funding for the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Natural Resources dropped off sharply in the mid to late 1990s under the Mike Harris Conservatives. At the same time, they show only a mild recovery under Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals, who came to power in 2003. Full Text  (Copyright

On April 24, 2007, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, Gord Miller, released a special report, “Doing Less with Less,” saying the Ministries of Environment and Natural Resources are “starved of funding for core functions.” This will not come as news to anyone who has tangled with these Ministries or with MNR’s poor cousins, the Conservation Authorities. The report documents how MOE and MNR’s mandates have expanded but their operating budgets

Ken McRae reports – December 2006: There is a “Notice” posting on the Ontario Ministry of the Environment’s (MOE) Environmental Bill of Rights Registry (EBRR) regarding the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) consideration of a “Discussion Paper – A Proposed Modelling and Scenario-based Approach for Identifying Natural Heritage Systems in Southern Ontario”. A copy of that posting is copied and pasted below. The final “Modelling and Scenario-based Approach for

In response to the Notice highlighted elsewhere on our website (here), the Greenspace Alliance sent in the following comment: October 13, 2007 To: Ariane Heisey, Special Projects Advisor, Ministry of the Environment, Project Coordination Section 2 St Clair Avenue West Floor 14, Toronto Ontario M4V 1L5 Re: The Code of Practice: Preparing, Reviewing and Using Class Environmental Assessments in Ontario Dear Ms. Heisey: The Greenspace Alliance of Canada’s Capital wishes

     Bill bypasses notices on the Environmental Bill of Rights web site 14 April 2012 Bill 55, the Ontario Budget Bill, also amends 69 different statutes in its schedules, including the Endangered Species Act, the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act and the Public Lands Act. Laws such as these are prescribed under the Environmental Bill of Rights, 1993 (EBR). Normally, when the government