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Category Archives: Clean Water Act

ERO-019-3268 – Strengthening our Environmental Compliance Approach

West Credit River, Photo by Steve Noakes

The ORA offers strong support for polluters being held accountable; however, that isn’t what’s happening here.  Rather than strengthening enforcement tools that hold polluters accountable, this government is systematically and persistently dismantling, weakening or bypassing all environmental policy and legislation that was designed to protect the environment and deter those industries, corporations or individuals who would pollute and/or destroy the environment.

These ERO postings consistently mislead the public, especially in the top several paragraphs and titles, which contain misleading introductions to the proposed policy the government is proposing.  In fact, you can always count on these “modernization” policy changes to be a further attack on environmental policy and legislation. It is even more despicable that these attacks have largely been carried out during the government’s declared COVID Emergency, where no public consultation is required, and what consultation that does take place is meaningless when the main objective is to cut red tape and remove any roadblocks to development and pollution, in spite of the public’s strong recommendations to protect the environment.

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Speak out against Bill 66 – Schedules 5 and 10

The Government of Ontario is proposing Bill 66, Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act, 2018. It is unacceptable that key environmental protection and legislation that protects the public is under attack.

Schedule 5 of Bill 66 would repeal the Toxics Reduction Act and two regulations. The purpose of the TRA is to prevent pollution and protect human health and the environment by reducing the use and creation of toxic substances and informing Ontarians about toxic substances. 

Schedule 10 of this Bill would enable municipalities to simply pass an “open-for-business planning by-law” under the Planning Act, to exempt local development from the application of key components of several important provincial laws, plans and policies, including the:
• Clean Water Act, 2006, Section 39
• Great Lakes Protection Act, 2015, Section 20
• Greenbelt Act, 2005, Section 7
• Lake Simcoe Protection Act, 2008, Section 6, and 
• Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act, 2003, Section 7  

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EBR: 013-1817 – Watershed Planning Guidance

This document does not go far enough to place CAs in a central role of watershed planning and management, or in working collaboratively with other municipalities and planning authorities. The CAs have a mandate to ensure the conservation, restoration and responsible management of Ontario’s water, as well as the land and natural habitats; however, municipalities have no such mandate and are more development oriented. It is essential that municipalities are not just using this Watershed Planning Guidance purely for municipal land use planning or a stormwater management tool, but that CAs play a central role, and it is used as an integrated watershed planning and management framework.

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Hydrocarbon Pipelines Added to Table of Drinking Water Threats – EBR-013-1839 and 1840

ORA would like to point out that the proposed list does not address an in-water pipeline scenario, it only addresses pipelines above, below and under a water body. Therefore, it is extremely important that the following be added:

Recommendation 1:

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