IESO: Long-Term 2 RFP – August 20, 2026

By Linda Heron on Monday, August 31st, 2026

Big Falls – Victory – stopped a proposed hydroelectric project on a sacred site!

MEM knows. Its own policy paper calls hydroelectricity non-dispatchable with limited to no flexibility, records the surplus it helps create and the exports sold at or below zero, and concedes that new hydroelectric generation needs longer lead times and long-term certainty than other resources.¹⁵ The policy framework actually driving this procurement is worse. The Ministry’s June 2025 Energy for Generations makes no mention of climate change at all.³¹ ORA said so in its filed feedback of 12 March 2026, and says it again: an electricity plan that does not read the province’s own climate science is not planning.⁵ Ontario’s own Climate Change Impact Assessment, published by another ministry of the same government, rates electrical power generation infrastructure in the highest-risk category for all future time periods, and names increasing temperatures and reduced hydroelectric output as a consequence of drought.¹²

That assessment was not a report to one ministry. It came with a commitment from the government as a whole. The then Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) wrote, in his message launching it, that “climate change requires a whole-of-government approach, and as we build Ontario, it is vital we do so in a way that will protect the well-being of current and future generations, safeguard the natural environment, ensure food and water security, enhance infrastructure and strengthen our economy.”³² Safeguard the natural environment. Ensure water security. Strengthen the economy. All three in one sentence, from this government, about this assessment.

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ERO 026-0419: Invitation to Municipalities to Register Potential Interest in Implementing a Water and Wastewater Public Corporation Model

By Linda Heron on Tuesday, August 11th, 2026

Posted in Sustainability, Drinking Water, Statement of Env. Values, Environmental Registry, River Concerns, Waste Water Treatment Facilities, Government, Environmental Compliance Approval, Sewage, Urban Development, Water Quality, Policy & Process, Safe Water Act, Sewage

The notice asks municipalities why they are interested in the model and how they anticipate it “will improve” their services; what their fiscal circumstances are; what steps they are taking on infrastructure; how independent governance “would benefit” their systems; how their proposal “improve[s] efficiency and generate[s] economies of scale”; and whether they are “willing to merge your water and wastewater systems into a public utility with surrounding systems.”¹

Not one question asks about risk. Not one asks about drinking water sources, receiving waters, watersheds, climate resilience, affordability for low-income households, First Nations, or the Crown’s duty to consult. Not one asks what happens if the model does not work. The questions are written so that only a municipality already inclined toward the model can answer them, and only in its favour.

The sixth question is the one that reveals the destination. Merging systems “with surrounding systems” is regional consolidation of municipal water and wastewater utilities. That is a far larger proposal than the notice describes, and it has not been consulted on.

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ERO 026-0670: Proposal to Update the Statement of Environmental Values for the Ministry of Energy and Mines

By Linda Heron on Thursday, August 6th, 2026

Posted in Sustainability, Biodiversity, Statement of Env. Values, Aquatic Life, Environmental Registry, Climate Change, River Concerns, Dams, Energy, Rivers at Risk, Government, Fisheries, Species at Risk, Water Quality

Vermilion River – Our grandchildren’s future with water!

ORA has reviewed the draft Statement of Environmental Values (SEV) for the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) and the two statements it would replace. The Environmental Registry notice says the climate change content of the former statements has merged into the new document.¹ It has not merged. It has been cut. The draft removed the commitment to sustainable development, the commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the commitment to help Ontarians prepare for the impacts of climate change, and the commitment to engage with communities in their preferred language. It replaces the word evaluate with the word consider. And it never once mentions water.

This matters now more than at any point in the past thirty or more years. One ministry now sets Ontario’s energy priorities, directs what the province procures to meet them, and decides which mineral projects proceed. Both sides of that mandate run on water. Both change rivers. ORA’s position is that the largest single long-term risk to ratepayers, taxpayers, the climate and Ontario rivers is more hydroelectric development, followed closely by the mine waste that will be left behind. An SEV that does not mention water, rivers, fish or cumulative effects cannot manage either risk.

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IESO: Regional Electricity Planning in the Northwest Region – June 11, 2026

By Linda Heron on Wednesday, July 1st, 2026

The Chute, First Falls, Ivanhoe River – Photo by Mark Clement

During the June 11 webinar, ORA asked why wind, solar, and battery energy storage systems (BESS) could not supply some remote communities directly, rather than waiting on long transmission builds, when those resources are cheaper, cleaner, and faster to deploy. The IESO answered that this is “exactly the kind of options and considerations this planning process is meant to consider,” and confirmed that such supply resources “can certainly be done in a shorter timeframe” and “are a key aspect to helping address some of those more near-term needs” for remote communities.¹ ORA welcomes that answer and writes to ensure it is carried into the demand forecast, the scenarios, and the plan that follows.

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IESO: Regional Electricity Planning in East Lake Superior – June 4, 2026

By Linda Heron on Thursday, June 25th, 2026

Posted in SMRs, Nuclear, Transmission, IESO, IRRP, Regulatory, River Concerns, Energy, Government

This regional plan shows the alternative. Local needs can be met without new bulk transmission, and the IESO’s own rationale for local supply at Sault Ste. Marie, that it reduces reliance on the transmission interface, applies equally to local wind, solar, and battery storage. Resources sited near the load need only local connections, not province-spanning corridors, and can be built faster than central nuclear or major transmission lines. Some transmission will always be needed, but it is a small fraction of what is being proposed, and it is a cumulative ratepayer commitment that the public is never shown in total. Remote communities, in particular, are where local wind, solar, and battery storage should be considered first, rather than waiting for long transmission builds.

Regional transmission and generation decisions are long-lived and effectively irreversible once made. The IESO has shown in this very plan, at Chapleau and Algoma, that real needs can be met with low-cost, right-sized solutions. The Sault Ste. Marie recommendation should be held to the same standard: prove the cost honestly, keep the competition open, and do not lock ratepayers into a fossil-gas plant that the IESO’s own analysis shows is unnecessary.

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North Shore Link Project (Mississagi TS to Third Line TS) Draft Environmental Study Report

By Linda Heron on Thursday, June 11th, 2026

Posted in Electricity Act, Ontario Energy Board Act, Transmission, IESO, Bulk Planning, ORA Submissions, Climate Change, River Concerns, Energy, Rivers at Risk, Government, Fisheries, Environmental Assessment Act, Mining, Species at Risk

The Project is being advanced as a designated “priority project”, and that designation matters. Under the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998, the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) grants leave to construct a transmission line only if the work is in the public interest, but the OEB may, by law, consider only a narrow public interest: the interests of consumers with respect to the price, reliability, and quality of electricity service. The OEB does not weigh environmental effects, which are left to the Class Environmental Assessment for Transmission Facilities (2024) (Class EA), and because the provincial government has declared this Project a “priority project”, the OEB must accept that the Project is needed; it does not test need at all. The Class EA gives the public no ability to request that the decision be elevated to a Comprehensive Environmental Assessment, and the comments received during this 30-day window are reviewed and resolved by the proponent, Hydro One Networks Inc. The result is that no independent body weighs whether this line, on this route, at this cost, and with these environmental effects, is the right choice for the public, while ratepayers and taxpayers carry the full and long-term cost.

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IAAC: Crawford Nickel Project, Draft Impact Assessment Report, IAAC Registry No. 83857

By Linda Heron on Wednesday, June 10th, 2026

Posted in Carbon Capture, ORA Submissions, Heavy Metal Contamination, Lake Sturgeon, Climate Change, River Concerns, Rivers at Risk, Government, Fisheries, GHG Emissions, Mining, Species at Risk, Water Quality, Impact Assessment Act

Photo by Dennis Jarvis.

The Crawford Nickel Project is one of the largest proposed mines in Canadian history. Its receiving waters, the North Driftwood, the West Buskegau, and the Jocko Rivers, are not industrial corridors. They are living rivers in Treaty 9 territory, supporting fish, birds, boreal caribou, and the harvesting rights, food security, and cultural continuity of nations that have depended on them since time before memory. The federal government’s own analysis values Canada’s ecosystem services at $3.6 trillion. A “low to moderate” economic contribution from a project with admitted significant adverse effects on fish, birds, and Indigenous rights, whose climate contribution is undemonstrated and whose consultation record is incomplete, does not clear that bar.

ORA calls on the Minister to withhold approval until the consultation record is complete, FPIC from AAN has been obtained or the legal consequences of its absence fully adjudicated, the fish habitat offsetting plan is finalized and publicly reviewed, the mercury methylation risk and the predicted seepage-face exceedances are resolved by precautionary conditions and best available treatment to background rather than post-hoc monitoring, tailings dam safety is brought to the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management, climate change is incorporated into the cumulative effects analysis, and the ecosystem services value of what will be destroyed is honestly weighed against the economic value of what will be gained.

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ERO-026-0414: Streamlining Requirements for Waste Disposal Site Service Area and Fill Rate Changes

By Linda Heron on Monday, June 8th, 2026

Posted in Sustainability, Drinking Water, ORA Submissions, Aquatic Life, Environmental Registry, Regulatory, River Concerns, Rivers at Risk, Government, Fisheries, Flooding, Land Use, Environmental Assessment Act, Species at Risk, Urban Development, Water Quality

ORA urges the Ministry to withdraw this proposal. ERO-026-0414 is not a red-tape reduction measure. It is the elimination of the only independent environmental assessment for a class of waste disposal decisions that can directly affect groundwater, contaminate rivers, damage aquatic ecosystems, and undermine the health and food security of rural and municipal communities, Indigenous peoples, and all communities living near waste-disposal sites. Posted as a companion to Bill 105’s simultaneous assault on the Comprehensive EA process (ERO-026-0415), it is part of a coordinated and accelerating dismantling of Ontario’s environmental protection framework, a withdrawal by the Province from its constitutional and moral obligation to hold Ontario’s natural environment in public trust for present and future generations.

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Federal: Getting Major Projects Built in Canada: Discussion Paper on Regulatory Reform

By Linda Heron on Thursday, June 4th, 2026

Posted in Sustainability, ORA Submissions, Hydroelectric, Aquatic Life, Regulatory, Climate Change, River Concerns, Energy, Rivers at Risk, Government, Regulatory Submissions, Species at Risk, First Nations Treaty Rights, Water Quality, Impact Assessment Act, Mercury

Abitibi River – Twin Falls GS

The Discussion Paper frames delays as a process problem caused by excessive oversight and public consultation considerations that delay projects by more than five years before federal decisions are made and construction begins. The evidence from ORA’s direct experience tells a different story: current delays are driven primarily by proponents who extend their own timelines while development activity proceeds on the ground, and by assessments that defer rather than decide on the most difficult questions. Reducing or eliminating public consultation will not fix these structural failures. It will make them worse, and the costs will be borne by communities, by First Nations, and ultimately by the federal government in litigation.

ORA supports a well-resourced, efficient, and credible impact assessment system, and supports reforms that fix the real bottlenecks: underfunded review staff, incomplete Crown consultation, and weak post-approval enforcement. ORA opposes the proposals that would cut public and Indigenous participation, exempt whole categories of projects from independent review, or allow construction to begin before a decision is made.

The Prime Minister promised, in the 2025 Speech from the Throne, that decisions on major projects would be made within two years. The Discussion Paper now proposes one. ORA asks the Government to hold the Prime Minister to that two-year commitment, and to withdraw the following proposals outright: early construction before a decision (Proposal 6.5); the Cabinet power to exempt projects from the species-at-risk jeopardy test (Proposal 6.8); Federal Economic Zones (Proposal 5); the removal of independent impact assessment for pipelines and transmission lines (Proposal 4); the transfer of nuclear and uranium assessments to the industry’s own regulator (Proposal 4); and the new ministerial powers to weaken environmental conditions after approval (Proposals 6.6 and 6.7).

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IESO: South and Central Bulk Planning Update Webinar-April 30, 2016

By Linda Heron on Thursday, May 21st, 2026

Posted in IESO, Bulk Planning, ORA Submissions, Hydroelectric, Regulatory, River Concerns, Dams, Energy, Rivers at Risk, Government, Fisheries, GHG Emissions, Regulatory Submissions, Species at Risk, Water Quality

Wabagishik Rapids, Vermilion River

Within those parameters, the IESO’s conclusion was nonetheless unambiguous: “a non-emitting, hybrid resource portfolio, in theory, shows significant promise. It can provide both baseload and peak power with reasonably high, albeit imperfect, reliability, and potentially at costs that are competitive with gas and nuclear generation.” The hybrid resource portfolio option of wind, solar and battery storage is estimated to cost between $44 billion and $53 billion, with a build-out of 13,500 MW to 16,800 MW achieving 99.5 percent to 99.98 percent of the peak load served.

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