Leadership at a Treaty 9 First Nation set fire to documents about a proposed road to the Ring of Fire this week, sending a message of resistance to the Doug Ford government about its plans to kick-start mining in the region by pushing through Bill 5 without Indigenous consultation.

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation Coun. Sam Mckay told The Narwhal that individuals, whose names he still doesn’t know, flew into the remote community north of Thunder Bay, Ont., unannounced on June 10 to deliver the draft environmental assessment. He said the nation’s chief and councillors felt they had to respond.

The document burning, captured on video and posted online, is a symbol of the nation’s opposition to both the road and Bill 5, Premier Ford’s fast-tracking law that sped through Queen’s Park this month despite widespread First Nations opposition.

“We know the provincial government fast-tracked Bill 5. This is the reason why: so they can open and do whatever they want in our territories, with no regard for our own laws, our treaties and everything,” Mckay says in the video, as Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug Chief Donny Morris and a small crowd look on. 

Mckay can be seen tearing off sheets of paper and placing them into a bowl where a fire had been started. At one point the camera pans over to show cardboard boxes stuffed with large ring binders, filled with hundreds of pages. Mckay and another band councillor told The Narwhal these boxes were delivered by plane without their consent.

“We’re going to destroy them publicly because we don’t want to be construed as being part of this supply road that’s going to be part of the Ring of Fire,” Mckay said in the video.

Bill 5 creates “special economic zones” where designated projects can be exempted from certain provincial and municipal rules. Ford wants the Ring of Fire to be one of these zones “as quickly as possible” and said the government would be consulting this summer with First Nations about the new law.

The Ontario government says it is committed to upholding its constitutional duty to consult Indigenous Peoples. But First Nations leaders say the province should have consulted with them before passing the law, especially since it involves fast-tracking industrial development on their lands.

“They’re saying that they’re willing to consult First Nations after they passed the bill. That’s not right,” Mckay said in an interview with The Narwhal. “How are we going to believe them that they’re going to consult with us before they do anything?”

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug is part of a group of First Nations in Ontario that has formed an alliance to oppose resource extraction in their territories without their consent. In May, Chief Morris and two other Treaty 9 chiefs warned the province was using the threat of U.S. tariffs as an excuse to speed up development.

First Nations that do support a road to the Ring of Fire say it isn’t just about mining

There are no major, all-season roads to the Ring of Fire, making it expensive for those who live there to travel south for medical care, or to ship in daily necessities. The draft assessment Mckay and others set fire to is for the Webequie Supply Road, one of three proposed roads the Ontario government wants to build to link Ring of Fire mineral deposits to the provincial highway network.

The other two are the Marten Falls Community Access Road, for which a draft assessment was published in April, and the Northern Road Link, meant to connect the two.

Webequie First Nation leadership does support the supply road and released its draft assessment June 9. Mckay said the document burning was not meant to criticize the wider Webequie community, just those who want to build the road. The Narwhal reached out to Webequie Chief Cornelius Wabasse and Deputy Chief Selena Wabasse by email but did not receive a response before publication. Webequie was evacuated due to a wildfire earlier this month. 

Several nations have expressed skepticism that the road proposals are being planned with better access for First Nations in mind, rather than simply for mining. Marten Falls First Nation has long said it needs its new road because its community can’t keep relying on dangerous winter roads that must be rebuilt each year, as climate change is shortening the season in which these roads can be open; but Chief Bruce Achneepineskum said earlier this month he is not okay with Bill 5 and is feeling conflicted. 

In 2020, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug informed Marten Falls and Webequie that it would not be participating in the road assessment and has declined invitations to participate ever since, Mckay said.

An ‘unauthorized visit’ for an unwelcome delivery

On June 10, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug members got word that a plane had landed at the First Nation’s airport. The band office had not been informed someone was coming and the visit surprised Chief Morris and councillors.

When Coun. Beatrice Fox went to the airport to investigate, a person there pointed a camera at her, she told The Narwhal.

Fox said she asked four people standing there to identify themselves. One responded they were “a spokesperson for the delivery,” Fox said. They left soon after delivering the boxes, which Fox brought back to the band office. 

The identities of the visitors remains unclear. The Narwhal reached out via email to AtkinsRéalis, the engineering firm formerly known as SNC-Lavalin that compiled the report, as well as a representative from Webequie First Nation connected with the assessment, but did not receive a response before publication. 

Mckay, who had recently returned from Toronto after protesting Bill 5, opened the boxes on June 11 and discovered they were filled with binders containing copies of the draft assessment report. 

“I was very concerned when I realized what it was and I voiced my concern to the rest of the council,” he said. 

“Right away, all my red flags went up because, with Bill 5 being passed, why all of a sudden is it so urgent to deliver all these reports?”

Fox and Mckay drafted a letter, also published online, to Webequie and AtkinsRéalis representatives outlining the incident and pointing out that the visitors made an “unauthorized visit.” They stated that Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug refused the delivery of the documents.

“They just came and dropped them off very disrespectfully,” Mckay said. 

“We wanted to show the government and the proponents — not necessarily Webequie the community, but the proponents and the government — that we did not accept these things.”

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It’s been two decades since the Supreme Court issued a pair of judgements that affirmed Canada’s “duty to consult” Indigenous Peoples beyond giving them a chance to “blow off steam.”

Since then, Canada’s courts have continued to sketch out the legal contours of Indigenous Rights, one decision at a time — like when they found government consultants must act as more than mere “note-takers” in a case involving the Trans Mountain oil pipeline, or must respect the principle of “free, prior and informed consent” in another about a nuclear waste dump.

The message from these and many other cases is clear: Indigenous Peoples cannot simply be told about projects happening in their territories as an afterthought, or have their concerns brushed aside. They must have the space, time and resources to control their own destiny, as “full partners in Confederation.”

“I think we should learn from the past. We should learn from all the case law. That’s what the case law was meant to do,” Anishinaabe lawyer Sara Mainville, managing partner at JFK Law LLP and former chief of Couchiching First Nation, told The Narwhal.

“Judges tried to give good guidance to Crown governments on how to respect Aboriginal and Treaty Rights, before they get breached — not as they are breaching them.”

This summer, that message is being put to the test.

Politicians are eager to usher in a new wave of industrial development. They say Canada needs to build things — pipelines, ports, highways, railways, airports, power lines — much faster to assert its sovereignty, protect its economy and fight back against a U.S. trade war and an expansionist Trump administration. And to do so, they say they need to toss out the old rules.

The federal government and provincial governments in B.C. and Ontario have moved to grant themselves enormous new powers to fast-track these kinds of projects and exempt them from regular reviews or permit processes meant to examine environmental and Indigenous impacts.

At the same time, if there’s any defined list of preferred projects at this point, they have kept it a secret. (There are no commercial proposals for a new cross-country pipeline currently on the table, for example.)

In May, B.C. passed Bill 15, giving the province the power to declare virtually any project “provincially significant” and potentially exempt it from a full environmental assessment.

This month, Ontario passed Bill 5, empowering the government to create “special economic zones” where designated projects can be exempted from certain provincial or municipal rules.

The federal government also tabled Bill C-5 this month, which if passed would create a five-year period where the government can designate a project in the “national interest.”

Once a project is deemed to be in the national interest, the government’s focus is on getting it built. As Prime Minister Mark Carney put it June 6, rather than asking why a project should go ahead, “we will instead ask ourselves, ‘How?’ ”

For example, the bill states that, for national interest projects, “every determination and finding that has to be made” and “every opinion that has to be formed” in terms of project authorization is considered completed.

Laws to fast-track development are eroding trust of First Nations

In promoting these bills, all three governments have made an attempt to speak to the importance of Indigenous Rights.

At a June 6 press conference, Carney said the federal legislation mandates “meaningful consultation with Indigenous Peoples” during both the process of determining national interest projects, and when the government comes up with the conditions that will be placed on each of those projects.

He said the government will also be incorporating Indigenous expertise through an Indigenous advisory council with First Nations, Métis and Inuit representation, and providing funding for Indigenous participation in the new fast-track process.

B.C. Premier David Eby said in the legislature he understood “you cannot fast-track a project in Canada unless you have the support of First Nations.”

And Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government added provisions affirming the protection of constitutional Indigenous and Treaty Rights into its bill shortly before passing it. Ontario’s Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce said “we think we can do both” — develop resources and uphold the duty to consult.

Yet each jurisdiction’s leaders have also sought to evoke a halcyon past that could be restored — if Canada can overcome the threats of the present.

“Canada is a country that used to build big things,” Carney said. Now, he said, projects take “too long” and “it’s holding our country back.”

Eby said the province’s “history of building” doesn’t “have to be a tale that our grandparents talk about.” Ford said U.S. President Donald Trump “wants to destroy our economy” and Ontarians “have to get up and fight like we’ve never fought before.”

But some big projects of the past polluted the lands and rivers Indigenous Peoples relied on for generations. Many First Nations have spent decades grappling with the toxic legacies of industrial development, with no end in sight.

Stopping this from happening all over again means putting First Nations in the “driver’s seat” this time, Mainville said.

The bills have upset several First Nations leaders, who worry their rights will be trampled on in the rush to stand up big industrial projects.

Ontario’s Bill 5 “erodes trust” and will “only delay planning and development because there is no shortcut around First Nations’ Rights,” Moose Cree First Nation Chief Peter Wesley said in a statement.

Don Tom, Chief of the Tsartlip First Nation and vice-president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, called on B.C. to “immediately withdraw” Bill 15.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse said the group was “deeply concerned” about the federal legislation, “especially given the potentially massive impact on the rights of First Nations.”

The Narwhal spoke with several experts in Indigenous law, who warned a botched rollout of all these fast-tracking bills could trash years of hard-won trust between Indigenous leadership and the Crown.

Mainville said the bills left her wondering whether recent efforts on reconciliation, like the Trudeau government’s overhaul of Canada’s environmental assessment regime in 2016 in order to focus more on Indigenous Rights, Knowledge and engagement, was all “just a dream.”

Notwithstanding the issues she had with that Trudeau-era legislation, she said, the new bills were “just such a step backwards for reconciliation.”

“I think what’s getting everybody’s ire up, is it always seems to be, ‘trust us’ … the legislation is the giveaway that First Nations cannot trust these governments to do the right thing.”

A spokesperson for Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who is the minister responsible for the One Canadian Economy policies, told The Narwhal the proposed legislation “recognizes that meaningful Indigenous consultation and partnership are essential to building projects in the national interest.”

To that end, they said, “there is no possibility of any government” overriding constitutional rights. “This legislation acknowledges that and considers Indigenous consultation and partnership as integral,” the spokesperson said.

B.C.’s Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma, in a statement sent to The Narwhal, said “I acknowledge that our engagement process for the Infrastructure Projects Act was shorter than we would have liked. But I want to be very clear, the Act can’t be used to shortcut Indigenous participation.”

Ma said this was guaranteed by the way the legislation was written as well as another provincial law that ensures alignment with the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and the constitution. 

“The new tools in this legislation are focused on provincial processes and do not change our government’s commitment to reconciliation,” Ma said. “We are committed to working collaboratively with Indigenous Peoples as we develop regulations to implement the Infrastructure Projects Act and deliver projects for communities.”

Governments must ensure projects are not ‘prematurely approved’

If they don’t proceed with caution, governments may wind up watching their attempts to speed things up backfire as projects land in court, said Métis lawyer Paul Seaman, a partner at Gowling WLG and the firm’s national leader of Indigenous law and member of its environmental law group.

The duty to consult is a constitutional imperative derived from Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. That section recognizes and affirms Aboriginal and Treaty Rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis.

It’s also linked to a constitutional principle known as the “honour of the Crown,” which compels Canada to act honourably and in good faith in all its relationships with Indigenous Peoples.

That means a lack of consultation “amounts to a constitutional vice,” the Supreme Court said in a 2010 case that involved hydro development on the traditional territory of Carrier Sekani Tribal Council First Nations.

It follows that “a project authorization that breaches the constitutionally protected rights of Indigenous Peoples cannot serve the public interest,” the Supreme Court made clear seven years later.

That was a case brought by Inuit of Clyde River, Nvt. and the Nammautaq Hunters and Trappers Organization, to protect their community from underwater seismic blasting in search of oil and gas.

Ultimately, this means it’s up to governments to ensure their projects are not “prematurely approved, only to be subjected to litigation,” the court wrote — including by proactively fixing their own laws or regulations.

“That’s the principle that the Supreme Court was trying to leave lawyers and governments with, was saying ‘Look, nobody benefits from this when you’re just trying to ram something through, subject to some court case,” Seaman said.

Corey Shefman, a partner at Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP who provides general counsel to First Nations, said the fast-tracking bills appear to be a part of a category of legislation where governments are “taking away triggers for consultation.”

“Every time the Crown considers issuing a license, or a permit or approving an environmental assessment … generally speaking, that is a trigger for the duty to consult,” he said.

“What (the bills) say is, if you want to build a mine, or a pipeline, or a power line, or whatever, in this geographic area then you don’t need a permit — then they’re taking away opportunities for consultation.”

But as many cases have demonstrated, the duty to consult is not easily side-stepped.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), an international human rights standard, has now been incorporated into federal law, as well as provincial acts in B.C. and Northwest Territories.

In 2023, the Supreme Court of British Columbia addressed the role of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, when it found the province has a duty to consult Indigenous groups when registering mineral claims, in a case involving the Gitxaala Nation and the Ehattesaht Nation.

This year, the Federal Court also addressed the role of the United Nations declaration in the context of the duty to consult, in a case centring around Kebaowek First Nation’s battle against a nearby nuclear waste disposal facility.

The court found the declaration’s prominence in Canadian law meant consultations needed to be more robust.

“You can’t talk about these pieces of legislation and the consultation duties without also talking about that next step, which is the right to free, prior and informed consent,” Shefman said.

In the Carrier Sekani case around hydro development, the Supreme Court affirmed the duty to consult is not limited to the point in time when governments actually carry out their decisions, but also earlier in the process when they make “strategic, higher-level decisions” about projects.

That means the Crown can’t adjust the sequence of events for project approvals in order to escape its constitutional obligation to consult.

Doing so would be “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, so to speak,” Seaman said.

Fast-tracking the fast-track bills

While speaking to the centrality of Indigenous Rights, B.C., Ontario and the federal government have also rushed to entrench their new powers in law before the legislative summer break, despite calls for a pause from First Nations leaders.

Federal officials outlined the new bill to Indigenous leaders on May 23 and gave them until May 30 to respond, according to remarks from Chapleau Cree First Nation Chief Keith Corston in The Globe and Mail.

Carney wants Bill C-5 passed before the House of Commons rises in the next two weeks and is prepared to extend Parliament’s sitting into the summer to do so.

B.C. waved off requests to delay its legislation until the fall, even though Eby had to acknowledge his government had failed to follow its own standard in B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.

Meanwhile, the Ford government in Ontario used a time allocation motion to shut down debate and speed its bill through the legislative process while First Nations and supporters rallied outside Queen’s Park.

Ontario’s Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford has argued the duty to consult begins after legislation is tabled, while demonstrators have insisted the province should have consulted sooner.

A Supreme Court decision in 2018 found Parliament doesn’t have to consult when drafting laws, because the separation of powers means the legislative branch develops and passes laws itself.

But it’s worth noting the judges on the case also disagreed about how the duty to consult applied to the lawmaking process. Some judges argued that Parliament’s duty to uphold the honour of the Crown includes a duty to consult Indigenous groups when making laws.

“It’s a bit of a mess of a case because there were so many opinions inside of that case,” Mainville argued.

But even when taking into account how the constitution works and the separation of powers, Mainville said, “there’s an importance to talk to First Nations when you’re changing legislation.”

As governments roll out their fast-tracking laws, they need to “rethink the playbook” and forge stronger relationships with Indigenous communities, Mainville said.

“There has to be a reasonable process going forward, and not the continuing exploitation of First Nations territories at their expense, and with very little benefit going back to them.”

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The Ontario government’s proposed Highway 413 would cut through not just one but three parcels of land set aside for conservation, according to an internal report obtained by The Narwhal.

Much of the backlash to Highway 413 in recent months has centred on the Nashville Conservation Reserve north of Toronto, which is owned by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. The highway would pave part of the reserve, which is in the protected Greenbelt. But the document obtained by The Narwhal shows that the contentious project will cut through two additional properties owned by the conservation authority. 

“The 413 is more destructive than we thought,” said Gideon Forman, a climate change and transportation policy analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation. 

He and other environmentalists say it’s important to protect southern Ontario’s few remaining greenspaces, which naturally store carbon, mitigate floods and provide habitat for endangered species. Conservation authorities are mandated to oversee watersheds, and the land they hold is particularly crucial, often encompassing sensitive ecosystems. The highway project, if built, would disrupt protected wetlands, endangered species habitat, prime farmland and the Greenbelt. It would also worsen existing problems, including air pollution from fossil-fuel burning vehicles, which contributes to climate change, and waterway contamination from wintertime road salt runoff.

The report obtained by The Narwhal is a draft of a document called an initial project description, which Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation must submit to the federal government as part of the impact assessment process. Ontario hasn’t yet filed a final version. 

The document doesn’t detail how Highway 413 will affect conservation land specifically. But generally, it says construction will involve “direct wildlife habitat removals” in wetlands, woodlands and meadows — including “confirmed significant wildlife habitat” and habitat for migratory birds and endangered species — along the route. 

Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation did not answer detailed questions from The Narwhal about where the conservation authority land is located or how many acres of it would be disrupted or destroyed by construction. But Dakota Brasier, a spokesperson for Ontario Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney, said the province is moving “full steam ahead” with Highway 413, which it says will create thousands of jobs per year during construction.

“Under Premier Ford’s leadership, the days of endless studies, debates and committees are over,” Brasier said.

If built, Highway 413 would loop for 60 kilometres around the northwestern reaches of the Greater Toronto Area, connecting the Ontario suburbs of Vaughan and Milton. Also called the GTA West Corridor, the project was first sketched out decades ago. It was a major plank of the Tories’ re-election campaign in the 2022 Ontario election.

The previous Liberal government cancelled it after an independent panel concluded it would save drivers less than a minute. The Progressive Conservatives put Highway 413 back on the table in late 2018 after forming government, and now argue it would actually save drivers travelling the length of the route half an hour. (Studies have shown for decades that in the long term, new roads attract more traffic and don’t solve congestion.)

Last year, an investigation by Torstar and National Observer sparked more backlash with its finding that eight powerful developers, many prolific Progressive Conservative donors, own significant land that would skyrocket in value if Highway 413 is built. 

Amid a rising tide of public concern in 2021, Ottawa stepped in and decided to subject Highway 413 to a federal impact assessment, potentially delaying the project for years. The federal Impact Assessment Agency, which oversees the process, pointed to concerns about how Highway 413 could harm habitat for three species at risk in particular: the western chorus frog, red-headed woodpecker and a type of dragonfly called a rapids clubtail.

The report The Narwhal reviewed is an October 2021 draft prepared for the province by engineering consulting firms WSP and AECOM, obtained through an access-to-information request to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.

The draft is incomplete, and notes that Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation needs to do more fieldwork in summer 2022. It includes over 300 pages of research, including lists of endangered species living in the area and five nearby aquifers, along with 95 watercourses and 65 archaeological sites located on Highway 413’s proposed route that could also be disturbed. 

In feedback for the Ontario government contained in the access-to-information request, Impact Assessment Agency staff said the draft lacks details on specific environmental damage that could be caused by the highway, and how the province plans to avoid or lessen that damage. 

In an email, the Impact Assessment Agency confirmed the draft is the most recent version it has seen but redirected questions to Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation. The project cannot move into the next phase of the impact assessment process — or get much closer to construction — until Ontario submits a final version of the initial project description, and the agency confirms that final document meets its requirements.

Irene Ford, who lives in Vaughan and is part of the grassroots group Stop the 413, said she believes the Ministry of Transportation is releasing as little information as possible to the public about the new highway.

“I do think the public is entitled to know,” she said.

Brasier said in an email that “Ontarians voted overwhelmingly in favour of Premier Ford’s plan to build critical infrastructure,” including Highway 413, in the 2022 election. But that election, held just weeks ago, had the lowest voter turnout in Ontario’s history, with just 43 per cent of those eligible heading to the polls. The Tories won 40.8 per cent of those votes, with the New Democrats and Liberals taking 23.7 per cent and 23.6 per cent, respectively. 

Conservation authority, province won’t say where properties affected by Highway 413 are located

The Nashville Conservation Reserve is an hour’s drive northwest of downtown Toronto, in Vaughan. It’s home to the headwaters of the Humber River, which drains into Lake Ontario to the south, as well as lush, ecologically important forest.

In 2020, the Ontario government decided on a route for Highway 413 that would avoid a future development project and send the new road through the Nashville Conservation Reserve instead, the Toronto Star reported in April.

The reserve is especially important because it’s one of the few remaining places in the region with enough forest to support species that are deterred by nearby human development, said Tim Gray, executive director of the non-profit Environmental Defence.

“A lot of birds won’t live in forest that is too small or too fragmented,” he said. 

“And of course, having major amounts of forest cover on both sides of the river means that you have water filtration potential there for rainstorms and runoff, to keep these rivers clean, that doesn’t really exist [in] many other places in the watershed as it becomes urbanized.”

The Ontario government report refers to the other two Toronto and Region Conservation Authority properties along Highway 413’s route as “Kirby Lands” and “Etobicoke Creek Headwaters,” but doesn’t say where they’re located. Brasier didn’t answer when asked about the exact location of the properties.

Conservation authorities are watershed protection agencies, regulated by the province and mostly funded by municipalities. Some of the properties they own are open for public use, like the Nashville Conservation Area, which has hiking trails. But they can also hold other parcels to regenerate sensitive areas, or for flood control. The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority doesn’t have any public parks called Kirby Lands or Etobicoke Creek Headwaters, and it doesn’t maintain a public list of other land it owns, though it does say it holds some property near Etobicoke Creek, which is already under pressure from human development.

In response to questions from The Narwhal about the location and ecological value of the Kirby Lands and Etobicoke Creek properties, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority pointed to other public documents where it expressed concern about Highway 413’s impact on the Nashville Conservation Reserve and two other pieces of land.

One property previously highlighted by the conservation authority is near a proposed interchange where Highway 413 would meet Highway 427. The other is a property near Heart Lake Conservation Area in Brampton, Ont., outside of Toronto — it includes protected wetlands that are connected by streams to wetlands within the conservation area, which would be paved for an interchange with Highway 410.

But the conservation authority wouldn’t confirm whether the two properties it had referred to before were the same as the ones listed in the provincial report.

“At this time TRCA is not able to accurately understand land impacts on our holdings until further information is communicated from [the province],” the conservation authority said in an email.

There’s not much conservation land left in southern Ontario, so those that remain are incredibly important, Forman said.

“Even if these areas are not open to the public, they are crucial, crucial sanctuaries for wildlife, whether it’s migratory birds, whether it’s local wildlife that doesn’t migrate,” he said.

“Southern Ontario has a lot of endangered species and not a lot of greenspace. So the idea that you would further compromise and pave our greenspace is just utterly irrational.”

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Ontario Power Generation, the province’s largest power generator, seriously started thinking about electric vehicles only five years ago. 

Back then, Heather Ferguson recalls, charging stations across the province were few and poorly maintained. As the automotive and power industry started considering electrification more and more, OPG had an opportunity to “refresh” the charging infrastructure and think about the problem “in a whole new way.” 

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand we had a role to play,” says Ferguson, OPG’s senior vice-president of business development, strategy and corporate affairs. “We produce electricity and the connection to electric vehicles is pretty straightforward.” 

Fast forward many conversations with stakeholders and years of planning, OPG and Hydro One, the province’s largest distribution utility, announced a new joint venture: Ivy Charging Network. The company is funded in part by both companies, as well as $8 million from Natural Resources Canada, with the goal of launching 160 chargers at 73 locations, each an average of less than 100 kilometres apart, by the end of the year. As of mid-December, 28 of those stations were fully operational but Ivy hoped to have the full system up and running by spring 2022. It will make Ivy the largest fast-charger network connecting Ontario from Kenora in the northwest to Cornwall in the southeast. 

The company was created to solve “range anxiety,” or the fear of buying an electric vehicle in Ontario due to a lack of charging stations. Soon, for $9, electric vehicle users will be able to charge for half an hour to drive 150 kilometres — or about the distance from Toronto to Orillia.

“The idea is we’ll be able to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles,” says Matt Vines, co-president of Ivy Charging Network. “We’re going to build the network and then continue to proactively grow it.” 

“It’s a chicken and egg thing,” says Ferguson. “If you don’t have charging infrastructure, people aren’t going to buy EVs; if you don’t have EVs, people aren’t going to build charging infrastructure. So I think OPG and Hydro One decided to take a bit of a bold leadership role here and lay out the critical infrastructure for this electrification thing to happen.”

Ivy Charging Network is the latest initiative in a string of electrification projects that are being set up across Ontario. For the most part, they are being spearheaded by public utilities and municipalities — Hydro One is a 60 per cent private, 40 per cent public utility, while OPG is a Crown corporation. Many of the electrification projects have received financial backing from the federal government, which has contributed funding to 52 proposals in Ontario as part of its Zero Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program. Such initiatives are now shaping political discourse ahead of a provincial election this spring, forcing Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government to enter a conversation it has largely stayed out of. 

Just this month, Ivy announced a series of agreements with ONroute, which had promised chargers five years ago but never followed through, to deploy chargers on Ontario’s 400-series highways by next summer. The agreements also include retailer Canadian Tire and, surprisingly for many in the electric vehicle industry, Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation. While the ministry offered no financial assistance, it owns the sites leased out to ONroute so its participation was needed for this agreement to move forward. Vines says it was “a priority” for the Ministry, that it was part of the negotiations and “extremely supportive.” (Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney declined to answer The Narwhal’s questions.)

This kind of positive support is a stark shift for the Ford government. 

Since coming into power in 2018, the government scrapped an existing buyer incentive program, which provided up to $14,000 on the purchase of an electric vehicle. (For comparison, buyer incentives exist in eight provinces and territories.) Ford also removed a $2.5 million incentive program that helped homeowners install their own charging equipment. The government also deleted electric vehicle charging station requirements in Ontario’s building code and ripped out a couple dozen public electric vehicle charging stations that had already been installed. 

“It only benefitted millionaires who could afford Teslas,” Premier Doug Ford said at the time. The government presented this move as a cost-cutting measure regardless of the fact that his government’s Made in Ontario Environment Plan, released in 2018, projected “low carbon vehicle uptake” would account for 16 per cent (or a sixth) of the province’s emissions reductions. Right now, transportation causes over a third of the province’s emissions. 

Still, Ford didn’t change his tune. “I’m not going to give rebates to guys that are buying $100,000 cars — millionaires,” he told CBC last month. 

The vacuum of electric vehicle policies and provincial investment dollars has had rippling impacts across Ontario. To start, the Canadian arm of Tesla took the government to court, claiming it was treated unfairly in the cancellation of the electric vehicle incentive program, and was arbitrarily exempted from a program that allowed customers of other cheaper electric vehicle brands to continue receiving rebates during a transition period. Tesla won the court challenge. 

In the absence of dedicated policies, sales of electric vehicles in Ontario dropped by over 50 per cent in 2019. 

According to data from Statistics Canada, electric vehicles represented 1.8 per cent of new light duty vehicle sales in Ontario in 2020, which was below the global average of 2.7 per cent and well behind the Canadian national average of 3.5 per cent. In the third quarter of 2021, according to data from IHS Markit, electric vehicles represented 3.1 per cent of new vehicle registrations in Ontario, compared to 13 per cent in B.C., which has a $3,000 incentive, and 9.9 per cent in Quebec, which has an $8,000 incentive. Last year, there were more electric vehicles registered in Vancouver than in all of Ontario. 

But then a series of industry shifts happened that forced the Ford government to take the future of electric vehicles in Ontario more seriously. 

How Doug Ford learned to love electric vehicles

Sometime in the summer of 2020, Ford called Magna founder Frank Stronach, an automotive tycoon who has twice donated to the Progressive Conservatives in 2021 and met with Ford once before in 2019. The premier was seeking advice on how to create jobs in the auto industry. Two years earlier, on the campaign trail, Ford vowed to bring back 300,000 manufacturing jobs he said the province had lost under Liberal governments. According to a report by The Auroran, Stronach came up with a solution: Focus on electric vehicles at home.

As both Ferguson of OPG and Vines of Ivy note, Ontario is in an ideal position to reap the benefits of electric vehicles. The province has a largely clean electricity system so the best way for it to further reduce its greenhouse gas emissions is to focus on the highest-emitting sector: transportation. OPG and Hydro One, along with many other utilities across the province, are leading the way, Ferguson says. 

“You take all the heavy lifting you’ve done to build out an extraordinary clean system and you power the transportation sector,” she says. 

Automakers are also taking note. Ontario is the only jurisdiction in North America where five major automakers build vehicles: Stellantis, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Honda and Toyota. In 2020, three of those companies — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — announced billion-dollar electric vehicle manufacturing investments. Stellantis’ Windsor assembly plant will transform to build more electric models, with plug-in and electric vehicle battery manufacturing starting in 2024. General Motors will invest nearly $1 billion to bring the production of the BrightDrop EV600 electric vehicle to its manufacturing plant in Oshawa. The government of Ontario and the federal government each committed $295 million toward the renovation of Ford’s Oakville assembly plant, which will exclusively build electric vehicles. 

“We all were waiting with baited breath to see if this was going to cause Premier Ford to change his tune on electric vehicles,” says Joanna Kyriazis, a senior policy adviser at Clean Energy Canada. 

It took a while, but it happened. 

Government data shows that electric vehicle manufacturing is already an economic win — in 2019, it contributed $13.9 billion to Ontario’s GDP.  And there’s a burgeoning market: global sales of electric vehicles in 2030 are expected to be 15 times what they were in 2020.

Last month, the Ford government released Phase Two of its Driving Prosperity plan, which puts an emphasis on manufacturing electric vehicles in Ontario. In it, 2030 looms large. Ford pledged to meet four key targets by 2030: “reposition vehicle and parts production for the car of the future, establish and support a battery supply chain ecosystem, innovate in every stage of development, invest in Ontario’s auto workers.”

The plan states the government’s goal is to see 400,000 electric vehicles manufactured in the province in the same time frame and also establish a new electric vehicle and hybrid assembly plant. It cites industry projections that by 2030, one out of every three vehicles sold globally will be electric and that the market volume will be 31.1 million vehicles. It’s estimated that there will be half a million electric vehicles in Ontario by then, which currently has a population of more than 14.5 million, versus 635,000 electric vehicles projected for B.C. at that time, with a third of the population. Hydro One expects electricity demand to grow around 15 per cent annually between 2022 and 2040 to meet this surge.

The battery aspect is an economic opportunity, albeit a complicated one. In 2019 alone, Ontario produced more than $10 billion worth of minerals, accounting for almost 25 per cent of Canada’s total mineral production. At the top of the list of naturally occurring minerals in Ontario are graphite, lithium, nickel and cobalt — all crucial raw materials in the production of batteries for electric vehicles, and many of which are found on First Nations land. Ontario’s Driving Prosperity plan is heavily reliant on taking advantage of critical minerals found in the Ring of Fire, with Ford and several ministers promising to work in concert with First Nations communities in the region to build an electric vehicle mining hub that will benefit all. 

Earlier this year, three First Nations communities in northwestern Ontario —  Neskantaga, Attawapiskat and Fort Albany — declared a moratorium on Ring of Fire development until further study has been done to ensure environmental risks are mitigated and First Nations are fairly consulted. Their concern is that communities will be “seriously and permanently desecrated by massive-scale mining in the Ring of Fire.” And as mining giants battle over rights for the region, there are questions about whether accessing the minerals is truly economically viable.

Ian Klesmer, director of strategy at The Atmospheric Fund, is encouraged by the government’s new enthusiasm for electric vehicles. “I think that’s a recognition among the province that [electric vehicles] are really important, both as an economic opportunity and also as an environmental opportunity,” he says. “I think right now the key is to focus on how we can put the right policies in place to scale that ambition.” Part of that, Klesmer says, will be to hear the government offer clear timelines and more details about how Ontario will “make EVs a central part of our future.”

Ontario Environment Minister David Piccini tells The Narwhal the government is “creating a climate where we’re seeing massive EV investment and an actual coherent strategy for this province that is increasing supply and driving down costs.” He calls this plan “a made-in-Ontario solution that’s creating wealth, that’s creating jobs and that’s driving electrification.”

Piccini says his government’s strategy is in line with other countries who are also pushing electric vehicles. “When I was at [the UN climate change summit] I spoke with the head of the Transportation Committee in the U.K., and everybody’s grappling with it together,” he says. “But as we have those sorts of debates and discussions one thing we can immediately do is create a competitive climate for manufacturing.”

But some critics are hesitant about this approach, arguing electric vehicles are only beneficial if they come with a whole myriad of policies that encourage driving less and taking public transit more. Several reports also note that electric vehicles won’t go mainstream until 2030, so it is imperative to reduce demand for fossil-fuel powered vehicles in the interim. 

Electric vehicles charge into the 2022 Ontario election

Wilf Steimle, president of the Electric Vehicle Society, says there are four pillars that the government needs to address: supply, charging, demand and education. Right now, the government is only focusing on the first two, he says. “There has been very little spent on any government to do broad comprehensive education to make sure everyone understands this technology and why it will save you money and is better for the environment.”

“The dialogue doesn’t stop at manufacturing,” Steimle says.

“I do think that Ford and his government are doing some good things on the manufacturing side. But still, he’s missing half the equation: helping Ontarians actually drive electric vehicles,” Kyriazis says. “Just because you build electric vehicles, doesn’t mean everyone will buy them.” 

Right now, 90 per cent of all electric vehicles built in Canada are exported to the United States, while B.C. and Quebec get the bulk of the Canadian supply. The current wait time for an electric vehicle in Ontario is nine to 12 months. Solving the supply-side problem is, as Kyriazis says, half the equation.

That’s why she wants to see the Ford government make a U-turn on a purchase incentive and propose something like a tax credit. She’d like to see provincial investment in charging infrastructure and an electric vehicle mandate in the building code — two things the government scrapped.

When asked recently if Ford would reconsider electric vehicle incentives, given that the government has in the last two months touted them as the cars of the future, the premier refused to commit. 

“Before the election, I didn’t believe in giving millionaires rebates on over $100,000 Tesla cars,” he told reporters. “Nothing against Tesla, they’re gorgeous cars. But, you know, I just didn’t believe in it. Let’s see how the market dictates.”

He added that the government’s approach to electric vehicles is sufficient. “We’re putting billions and billions of dollars into the electric vehicle market in the companies. We’re partnering with the federal government.”

Energy Minister Todd Smith defended the seismic shift in his government’s electric vehicle policy, some of which includes reinstating what it initially cut. In a recent question period, Smith said the electric vehicle charging stations that were ripped up in 2018 were removed because “the equipment the Liberals installed was substandard. It wasn’t working.”“Nobody was using it,” he said. “We’re going to put in world-class technology thanks to our partnership with Ivy Charging Network … that people are actually going to want to use.” 

Opposition parties, however, disagree and are making electric vehicle offerings that could turn it into an election issue next year. The Ontario Liberals have proposed an $8,000 incentive on the purchase or lease of electric vehicles, if they take power, as well as a $1,500 rebate on the purchase of home electric vehicle charging equipment.

The NDP plan includes setting a province-wide zero-emission vehicles sales target of 15 per cent by 2025, rising to 45 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2035. Their plan promises “strong incentives” for zero-emission vehicles; no dollar amount is provided. 

The Greens pledge to “increase access to electric vehicles (two-wheeled or more) and make them less expensive than fossil-fuel powered vehicles, through [incentives], rental systems, financing, and a zero emission vehicles mandate.”

Both the NDP and the Green Party also have extensive proposals to boost Ontario’s electric vehicle charging infrastructure at public buildings, private homes and multi-unit buildings, workplaces and on highways, and to reinsert electric vehicle charging infrastructure into the building code for new construction.

Ontario Greens leader Mike Schreiner considers the Ford government’s shift on electric vehicles a win, noting he has “pushed them hard publicly and privately.” He says these actions, however, “fall far short in terms of what’s needed for widespread adoption.” 

“While not being actively hostile to electric vehicles is welcome, their strategy is wholly ineffective because rebates are the most effective way to drive down costs,” he says. “Their plan is reactionary and insufficient.” 

At the moment, much of the gap in the electric vehicle space left by the provincial government has been filled in part by the federal government in the form of rebates and funds, as well as policies put forward by municipalities. This month, the City of Toronto released a climate plan that aims to reach net-zero emissions by 2040. The plan proposes that electric vehicles should account for 30 per cent of all registrations by 2030 and aims to deploy over 3,200 fast charging stations in high-priority public locations and create incentives for installing stations in existing buildings. The city also recently passed a bylaw requiring that all new parking stalls include electric vehicle chargers. Other municipalities across the province are following suit as the federal government also looks to impose a national mandate on electric vehicle sales by the end of 2022.

Looking ahead, a big challenge for the Ford government will be figuring out how to respond to the U.S. government’s proposal to implement an electric vehicle tax credit that will offer up to $12,500 to purchase American-made electric vehicles. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the U.S. electric vehicle tax credit is “going to undercut well-established systems and supply chains” across the continent, and indicated Canada could “align” its own electric vehicle incentives to promote buying Canadian. Automotive vehicles are Ontario’s top export item, and Canada’s second-largest; 93 per cent of all vehicles made in Canada, most in Ontario, are exported to the U.S. 

Brendan Sweeney, managing director of the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing, says the U.S. tax credit is an opportunity for the federal government to build “a pan-Canadian electric vehicle industry” that will allow provinces to collaborate and join in. “Automakers need government help to build an electric vehicle industry to scale,” Sweeney says. “In the next five to 10 years, if we want this to happen, we all have to be tangled in this.”

He says automakers looking to build electric vehicles will seek out “the most hospitable ecosystem” that will help them sell electric vehicles, which are not yet easily profitable. 

“This is an all hands on deck situation,” Klezmer says. “We’ve got huge investments to make in a really small period of time in order to capture the economic opportunities and to meet our climate targets. So definitely the private sector needs to play a role, but we’re finding that in order to do that, a lot of those investments need to be unlocked through a favourable policy landscape.”

Kyriazis agrees. “If the election is causing the Ford government to be thinking about and talking about electric vehicles more, then that’s great,” she says. “But let’s actually propose meaningful actions and not pretend that helping manufacturers to make [electric vehicles] is also going to help Ontario residents to afford them and access them and benefit from them.”

Updated Dec. 16, 2021, at 7:28 p.m. ET: This article was updated to correct a photo caption that had incorrectly identified a Magna executive as company founder Frank Stronach.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Premier Doug Ford’s government is skirting environmental laws while industry benefits and the public is left in the dark, Ontario’s auditor general has found.

In a series of blistering reports Monday, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk outlined a broad range of failures by Ford’s Progressive Conservatives. The environment ministry is “deliberately ignoring” public transparency rules, billing taxpayers for hazardous waste spills instead of charging companies that pollute, allowing industry to avoid recycling as landfills reach capacity and rubber-stamping permits to destroy endangered species habitat, she found.

“We believe that the public would expect a ministry named the Ministry of the Environment to take the lead and be proactive in ensuring that Ontario’s environment is protected for future generations,” Lysyk told reporters.

“Our work indicated that there are many areas where this is not the case.” 

Ontario Environment Minister David Piccini fired back. “I don’t see it that way,” he said, pointing to the government’s moves to modernize the provincial recycling system and look at climate adaptation measures. 

“I think actions speak far louder than words,” Piccini added. “The results speak for themselves.” 

Phil Pothen, Ontario program manager at non-profit Environmental Defence, said Lysyk’s findings were “troubling.” 

“If actions speak louder than words, the minister of the environment is telling us that he does not believe climate change is a real matter of public concern, he’s telling us that he would happily see Ontario’s endangered species be driven to extinction,” Pothen said. 

Though previous governments failed to address some of the issues turned up by the audits, Lysyk said the Ford government is bringing in “more obvious” ones. 

Here are the key takeaways from Lysyk’s reports. 

Ontario Environment Ministry ‘automatically’ approving harm to endangered species

Some of the most eye-popping findings in Lysyk’s reports concern Ontario’s endangered species protections. Since 2009, the number of approvals the province has given to projects that would harm endangered species has gone up by 6,262 per cent. 

“I had to look at that number three, four times to actually make sure it was accurate,” provincial Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said. “That tells you all you need to know about Doug Ford’s lack of commitment to protecting the places we love.”

Approvals for projects to protect and recover species haven’t kept pace with the flurry of permits: the number of those approvals went up 59 per cent over the same time period, while the number of at-risk species climbed by 22 per cent. 

The Environment Ministry has never denied a permit to harm an at-risk species, Lysyk found — most are granted “automatically.” The ministry also doesn’t do any inspections to ensure companies abide by the conditions of their approvals, nor does it assess the cumulative effects of development. 

“The Environment Ministry’s systems and processes for approving development projects and other types of activities facilitate and enable harm to species and their habitats,” Lysyk said.

In one example, a permit to divide cottage land into smaller lots was approved even though the company in question received a stop work order in 2018 for building a road through Massasauga rattlesnake habitat without government approval. Even as the company was still being prosecuted for damaging habitat in that incident, the ministry approved the 2021 permit. (The report did not name the company or say where the incident happened.)

“Premier Doug Ford is continuing to do his best to make things good for his buddies, no matter what the cost is to the rest of us, to our children, our grandchildren,” Ontario NDP climate critic Peter Tabuns said.

The ministry’s goals for helping species recover are “generally less ambitious” than scientists recommend and it has no objective way of knowing if its actions are making a difference, the report said. The government doesn’t even have a long-term plan to help species recover, as is standard in other jurisdictions, Lysyk found. 

Inside the Environment Ministry, employees are starting to raise red flags: an internal employee survey showed 76 per cent of staff in the branch working on species at risk believed the ministry was “not on the right track,” the audit noted. 

The Ford government has also stacked the committee that advises the province on endangered species with representatives from industries such as construction “whose interests can be contrary to protecting species at risk and their habitats,” the report found. Of the 15 people on the committee, 10 work for industry associations or companies, and half of those are registered lobbyists, which means they are paid to advocate to the government on behalf of industry.

The ministry couldn’t explain to Lysyk how it had chosen six recent appointees to the committee. Five weren’t screened for having endangered species expertise, and ministry staff recommended against the hiring of the sixth.

“Talent is talent,” Piccini said. “We embrace diversity of opinion, we don’t shun it.”

It also failed to add any new species to the at-risk list for two years because the committee didn’t have the required number of members, and the government failed to appoint anyone new. 

In the meantime, the government has delayed preparing recovery plans for 17 species at risk. It has also delayed funding to conservation projects, which sometimes led to their cancellation. 

The Ford government also permanently exempted forestry companies from the law meant to help some endangered species recover. That change could significantly harm 12 species, including the boreal caribou, the report notes. 

In response, Piccini said the government is working to fix the system. He pointed to the Ford government’s Species at Risk Conservation Fund, which allows developers to destroy key habitats if they pay fees, which are meant to be used to help the species recover elsewhere.

Critics said it amounts to a “pay to slay” fund.

“We’re investing in letting conservationists guide conservation,” he said, adding that it’s hard to quantify the impact because the project is so new. “Through this fund, we’re going to see incredibly impactful actions to preserve species at risk.”

Piccini also said the Progressive Conservatives have issued more permits for projects aimed at helping species recover than the previous Liberal government

Justina Ray, president and senior scientist at Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, said the Ford government’s changes to endangered species protections are insidious. Especially without proper monitoring, the impacts to fragile ecosystems might not be clear until they hit a crisis point.

“They’re just whittling away at our biodiversity,” Ray said. “I fear it’ll be too late before we find out.” 

Ontario’s hazardous waste spill system riddled with weaknesses and loopholes 

Of the 73,000 hazardous waste spills documented in Ontario between 2011 and 2020, the government pursued polluters for the costs of cleaning up just three times, Lysyk found. And even in those three cases, the province only asked for about half of what it spent, leaving tens of millions of dollars on the table. 

Taxpayers foot the bill for the rest.

Not all of this can be pinned on the PCs: two Liberal premiers were in power during that time, until Ford won in 2018. But the lack of accountability means polluters have little incentive to reduce the risk of spills and improve their clean-up practices, Lysyk said. 

The Ford government is “turning a blind eye to hazardous spills and sending the bill to the people of Ontario,” Schreiner said. 

The audit also showed that the Ontario government’s hazardous waste spill regime is weak, not transparent and full of loopholes. 

For example, it doesn’t require companies operating pipelines or fuel storage facilities. where the risk of spills are high, to have spill prevention and contingency plans. The province argues that pipelines and fuel storage facilities are covered by federal jurisdiction and other provincial regulators — the auditor general’s report also found that those sets of rules either don’t protect the environment or don’t target the most commonly spilled pollutants in Ontario. Other types of companies are required to write contingency plans, but the ministry doesn’t ensure they’re actually in place, the audit found. 

Although polluters are supposed to promptly report spills to the province, about a tenth of them aren’t reported until the next day, the audit found. The Environment Ministry did not always penalize companies that failed to report spills quickly. The Auditor General’s office also did a close review of 110 spills between 2010 and 2020, and found that 41 per cent of them weren’t reported by whoever was responsible — the province learned about them through firefighters, police, municipal officials and the public.

“That’s a hole that needs to be patched,” Pothen said. 

The government doesn’t oversee remediation work either, Lysyk concluded. The Auditor General’s office found five cases where polluters refused to clean up spills, couldn’t be found or were unprepared to fix the situation. In all of them, the Environmental Ministry failed to intervene, “resulting in further risks of the environment and human health,” the audit said.

“Spillers are left to police themselves … with little risk of Environment Ministry enforcement,” the report reads.

Meanwhile, staffing reductions have caused the ministry to do less proactive inspection and enforcement — even though 42 per cent of the inspections that do happen turn up problems. It’s also not recording or analyzing data that would allow it to prioritize the riskiest spills.

The ministry’s enforcement system has allowed 41 repeat offenders — including waste management companies, pipeline operators, hydro providers and several major cities — to keep operating without long-term consequences, even allowing them to expand in some cases. It has only ever revoked two companies’ permits for mismanaging waste, not following a long list of rules, failing to pay fines and illegal dumping. 

The government slaps companies with fines in only a few select circumstances and even then, the fines are lower than other jurisdictions like California, Lysyk said. The fines don’t apply to the polluters responsible for 94 per cent of spills reported between 2016 and 2020.

Piccini said the government is working on modernizing Ontario’s antiquated spills reporting system, which now has a publicly-accessible smartphone app, which he said is a “game-changer.” 

“We’re empowering citizens to report on spills and things that they’ve witnessed,” he said. 

He also said most hazardous waste spills are minor, but that he’s had positive feedback from local officials about provincial response when they happen. He also said the government is updating its strategy for dealing with companies that spill often, and working on a new procedure for revoking permits when polluters repeatedly fail to follow the rules. 

“The major spills and enforcement and actually going after repeat offenders, that’s something that the previous government failed to do and something I, as minister, am addressing,” he said. 

Ontario NDP environment critic Sandy Shaw said Ontario deserves better.

“Doug Ford is forcing Ontario families to pay millions in cleanup costs, and really letting big industry off the hook,” she said. 

Ford’s Environment Ministry is ‘undermining’ public right to be consulted

The Ford government is sidestepping laws meant to ensure the public is consulted on decisions affecting the environment, Lysyk found.

In Ontario, the Environmental Bill of Rights requires the government to be transparent about those choices by posting proposals on the provincial environment registry and allow citizens to weigh in. An independent provincial watchdog used to oversee the law — the Progressive Conservatives axed the office in 2018 and folded that responsibility into the auditor general’s office.

This year is the third in a row where Lysyk has rebuked the government for failing to follow the Environmental Bill of Rights. But she took her criticism one step further Monday, saying the Progressive Conservatives are “deliberately” undermining the law, and the Environment Ministry in particular is suffering from a lack of leadership.

“We’ve been waiting and hoping that the importance of that act will be taken into consideration,” she said. 

Even for notices the government did post on the environmental registry, key information was often missing, Lysyk added.

In response, Piccini said he believes the government is being transparent, and that it has worked to clear old notices from the registry.

“We have dedicated an educational webpage and ongoing public education campaign on the Environmental Bill of Rights, appreciate the Auditor General’s comments and are going to continue to take meaningful action.”

Pothen said Piccini is dodging questions because he doesn’t have good answers. “The government has consistently made changes to Ontario’s environmental protection and planning regimes that erode public accountability,” Pothen said.   

Lysyk also said the problems with the Environmental Bill of Rights run deeper. The law doesn’t apply to all ministries and decisions, even if they shape environmental policy — a loophole the government could easily close, she added.

Ontario’s looming landfill shortage

If Ontario continues on its current trajectory, landfills will be full in 11 to 14 years, Lysyk found, warning of a “looming shortage.” That’s mostly because more than 98 per cent of businesses and institutions — like movie theatres, schools and construction sites — aren’t required to recycle. The extra waste also contributes to pollution and rising greenhouse gas emissions.

“The amount of waste generated in Ontario, and Canada as a whole, is among the highest levels of waste generated per person in the world,” the audit found. 

About 40 per cent of Ontario’s waste comes from homes, with the other 60 per cent from businesses and institutions. The Ontario government recently overhauled its residential recycling program, a move that garnered praise from municipalities and set higher targets for diverting products from landfills. The changes also mean companies that produce plastic must fully pay for recycling programs, a burden that used to be shouldered by municipalities. 

That change wasn’t factored into the audit, but is unlikely to help much because it wouldn’t affect waste from the vast majority of businesses and institutions, Lysyk said. “People in their homes are recycling more and diverting more than industry.”

The audit finds that the government has allowed it to be cheaper for businesses and institutions to dump their recyclables and compost in landfills. Environment Ministry inspectors also aren’t looking at whether businesses and institutions’ recycling programs actually work and have stopped enforcing some rules.

Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Quebec have used measures like landfill bans and levies to disincentivize waste, with better results.

Meanwhile, Ontario hasn’t updated its list of items that establishments must recycle since 1994. It doesn’t include coffee cups, most plastics and compostable packaging. 

“We all recycle, we compost, we do our part,” Shaw said. “It’s very frustrating to see the large source of landfill not being addressed at a higher level.”

In response to questions about the landfill audit, Piccini did not address the issue of institutional waste, instead mentioning residential blue box changes. When asked whether he planned to crack down on industry, Piccini also said the government is working with businesses. “I don’t think we’re going to affect the meaningful climate change by driving industry out of this province, rather engaging them towards a common goals that we all share, which is diverting more waste,” he said.

The public is in the dark about progress on climate, environment 

Again, Ford’s government wasn’t the only one to take a hit. The Ontario government has failed to fix its system for informing the public about the state of the environment for 20 years, Lysyk found, meaning the Liberal governments led by Dalton McGuinty and then Kathleen Wynne are also culpable. 

In 2016, for example, the Environment Ministry stopped regularly reporting on the state of Ontario’s water quality, a task that took on extra significance after the Walkerton tragedy in 2000, when seven people died after the town’s water supply was contaminated with E.coli. Though the government does release some raw data, that information is difficult for the public to make sense of, Lysyk said. 

Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca defended his party’s record, saying Ontario was an environmental leader before Ford took power. “​​Trusting Doug Ford with our environment is kind of like trying to trust an arsonist with a pack of matches,” Del Duca said.

That said, things have gotten worse under the Progressive Conservatives. Ministries are not always meeting deadlines for preparing key reports on topics like the Great Lakes and Lake Simcoe and don’t face consequences, the audit showed. And gaps in key information are many. 

Internal government estimates included in a follow-up to Lysyk’s 2020 audit of the province’s climate progress showed government policies will only achieve a fifth of the emissions reductions it promised.

Speaking to reporters, Piccini argued that Ontario is a leader in emissions reduction and is working to help carbon-intensive industries like steel get cleaner: “We’re making continued progress to those important objectives,” he said.

According to the audit, the ministries of environment, natural resources and agriculture are all failing to explain if or how they’re progressing on key goals for climate, conserving wetlands, preventing the spread of invasive species, preserving pollinator species like bees and keeping soil healthy. 

Piccini said issues with the system predate the Progressive Conservative government, but that they’re now embracing open data in an effort to improve.

“We’re bringing the government out of the Stone Age, in which we operated under the previous government, and into the 21st century,” Piccini said.

Updated November 30, 2021 at 3:46 p.m. ET: This article was updated to clarify provincial and federal responsibilities around monitoring certain hazardous spills; to clarify that most, not all, businesses and institutions would not be affected by recent change to recycling rules; and to correct that the Ford government has appointed industry representatives to the committee that advises the government on endangered species, not the committee that classifies endangered species.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Last December, Hassaan Basit was awaiting the passage of an omnibus bill by the Doug Ford government that would limit Ontario’s conservation efforts. 

As the CEO of Halton Region Conservation Authority, Basit was concerned about a number of proposals in the bill, including one amendment that could disempower conservation authorities like his in matters of development across wetlands.

Then, on the eve of the bill’s passage, he got a phone call. 

It was then-environment minister Jeff Yurek asking Basit if he would help figure out how conservation authorities could work with and implement the new regulations. 

That phone call marked a turning point in the contentious relationship between the Doug Ford government and conservation authorities.

Basit was pleasantly surprised. Just four months prior, the government had sent Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities — who operate more than 500 conservation areas, and oversee everything from wildlife management to floodplain mapping and monitoring, to watershed protections and more — a letter ordering a “wind down” of all unnecessary programming, as part of its broad efforts to eliminate Ontario’s deficit. 

The letter identified these activities as zip-lining, maple syrup festivals, kayaking, photography and wedding permits — all sorely needed revenue-generating activities.

“For far too long, our conservation authorities have strayed from their mandate. That’s why we have flooding in basements,” Government House Leader Paul Calandra said in a November 2020 question period when asked about this move. “What we’re doing is strengthening conservation authorities to … bring it back to its core mandate.”

At no point did the government acknowledge that earlier that year it had slashed conservation authorities’ funding for flood management programs — part of their core mandate — in half.

“It was just odd to get that out of the blue,” Basit said of the letter. “It was very surprising and unreasonable. The concern was that this signaled some sort of intent to use legislative tools to force conservation authorities to basically stop working.” 

Basit and fellow conservation heads came together to write a letter of their own to the premier, one that was also signed by almost every mayor across the province. In it, they outlined their deep concern. This note and the public outcry that followed nudged the province to back off a bit, taking time to consult with all 36 conservation authorities. Basit even went to Yurek’s Bay Street office to have a frank conversation about the actual improvements and changes the conservation authorities needed. Despite all this, the bill passed as is.

For Basit, the phone call that came four months after this meeting, asking him to head a working group for these regulations, was a rare act of “sincerity” and “a willingness to collaborate” from the Ontario government — a complete 180 degree-shift from an otherwise tense and imperfect relationship. For many in the conservation space, the working group would be the very first time they had a clear channel of communication with a Ford government minister, a space to explain the impact of some of the proposed environment and conservation changes. 

Since January, the Conservation Authorities Working Group has biweekly brought together conservation experts, developers, urban planners, agricultural representatives and two consecutive provincial environment ministers. They’ve combed through the nuts and bolts of the new regulations that were buried deep within omnibus budget Bill 229 — regulations that led to the mass resignation of seven members of the Ontario Greenbelt Council who are appointed to advise the environment minister on land management in the Greenbelt area that overlaps several conservation authorities. These new rules, known as Schedule 6, were posited to modernize and streamline the mandate of conservation authorities, but in reality would have made their work more complicated and less effective.

For example, one of the key roles of a conservation authority is to provide independent oversight and review of development over floodplains and wetlands. Schedule 6 empowers the minister of natural resources and forestry to approve any development project with no input from them.

In the lead up to the passage of the bill, government ministers used troubling language to justify the need for the proposed changes, most of which relegated environmental protections below economic and development interests. In November 2020, Yurek told the legislature that the changes were needed because “conservation authorities were going beyond the rules and regulations of the province and instituting their own rules.” In fact, since 1946 conservation authorities have been empowered by provincial legislation to, first and foremost, protect Ontario’s natural environments. That has included having significant input in development proposals that may negatively impact wetlands or floodplains. 

With cities like Caledon and Brampton, which have the highest growth trajectories in the Greater Toronto Area, already exploding into their agriculturally rich regions, conservation authorities are facing increasing pressure to yield to development despite its impact on natural environments.

Despite the tense lead-up, Basit said the working group has been “constructive.” He set the tone for their work early on, by asking everyone to focus on problem-solving over politics: the group had to learn to move past their anger that the government had passed the legislation and work to refine the way the regulations would be implemented to make them as effective and feasible as possible. Its main task was to clearly define the work of conservation authorities so that funding negotiations are easier and future pushback is limited.

The feedback about the working group is overwhelmingly positive. Kim Gavine, head of Conservation Ontario, the group that represents all 36 conservation authorities, said the group discussions are “honest, productive.” Sommer Casgrain-Robertson, general manager of the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, said the group “has completely changed our working relationship with the provincial government.” Carl Jorgensen, head of Conservation Sudbury, said the collaboration and its results were “refreshing.” 

In October, the government released the initial phase of regulations that, for the first time, clearly lay out all the work conservation authorities do, without being overly prescriptive. Casgrain-Robertson said one of the biggest outcomes of the group was “just raising the knowledge level of the ministry about conservation authorities, what we do, how we operate.” Two more phases of regulations still need to be worked through, which get into more technical things like what programs they can charge fees for and how they will administer their authority over development permits around key natural environments. 

Members of the working group who spoke to The Narwhal said that a lot of credit for the success of the working group goes to Yurek, who made himself fully available to their sessions every two weeks. (Yurek’s office declined to speak to The Narwhal for this story.)

Halfway through the process, a cabinet shuffle led to a change at the helm when David Piccini took over as environment minister, but group members say no momentum was lost. In fact, Piccini delivered some bonus victories.

David Piccini steps in as Ontario’s environment minister

In an interview with The Narwhal, Piccini said he was mindful to “immerse” himself and “nerd out” over the history and work of conservation authorities so he could be a collaborative member of the group. 

That history and work is vast. Ontario’s conservation authorities were created almost 75 years ago in response to concern about the environmental impact of a growing population. Collectively, all 36 conservation authorities are the second largest land-owner in the province after the Crown, in charge of 150,000 hectares of land. They are the envy of conservators around the world because each authority takes care of a whole watershed rather than areas dictated by municipal borders. After the disastrous impact of Hurricane Hazel in 1954, conservation authorities took on the work of flood-mitigation efforts. After the Walkerton tragedy in 2002, they have also been responsible for implementing the Clean Water Act. 

Conservation Ontario describes them as agencies that aim to balance “human, environmental and economic needs” in collaboration with all levels of government, landowners and many other organizations. Many describe the work of conservation authorities as akin to giving the natural world a seat at the table.

“I come from a rural community so I know how important conservation authorities are,” said Piccini, who represents the riding of Northumberland-Peterborough South. Even before he became environment minister, Piccini co-hosted an engagement session in his riding with Yurek to discuss the new regulations. He said that he heard from his constituents about the challenges of a growing community that wants continued access to and protection of the natural environment.

Piccini said he and his dog Max are frequent users of the trail system managed by conservation authorities. It’s a system he saw was being used more and more by Ontarians during pandemic lockdowns, which is why he pushed to include passive recreation — hiking, fishing, canoeing and even maple syrup events, once seen as “unnecessary programming” by his government — as one of the mandatory services conservation authorities provide.

In listening to the working group’s conversations about passive recreation, Piccini said he learned that managing them was done differently around the province. Adding it to the list of core programs would mean conservation authorities don’t have to explain and defend these programs at every budget meeting with a municipality.

“Maintaining public access to nature, regardless of background, regardless of where you are in life, everyone should get to go out and enjoy our trail system,” Piccini said. 

To guarantee this, he sees the province’s future role with conservation authorities as that of a collaborator.“You’ve got to listen, and you’ve got to engage,” he said. “I think we found the right balance here of the province engaging with the working group, different players and different competencies, but also empowering municipalities to make informed decisions.”

“I’ve been doing this job for 17 years and I’ve worked with lots of governments … and both of these ministers have been really involved in this, which has been extremely helpful,” Basit said. “They’ve been very blunt about what they’ve heard but they’ve also given me an opportunity to work with them and explain the context and then made final decisions.“ 

While Basit says that the “heavy lifting” is over, there’s still more work to be done. 

What the new Ontario conservation authority regulations say — or don’t say

One of the main points of contention in the new regulations was that government officials didn’t seem clear about what exactly conservation authorities should do, what should be funded by various levels of government and what should be left to conservation authorities to fundraise or generate revenue for. 

To address this, the working group helped the government create three clearly defined categories of programs and services. The first are mandatory programs that are in line with provincial priorities like the protection of core watersheds and drinking water sources, and the mitigation of natural hazard risks. 

The second two categories pertain to more local programs, like tree-planting, water quality monitoring and stewardship programs. This will require each conservation authority to develop agreements with each municipality in its region, detailing what is being offered, at what cost and how it will help the community. These agreements, a brand new requirement, need to be finalized by 2024. 

As onerous as it sounds for 36 conservation authorities to develop agreements with 444 Ontario municipalities, Basit said these are “administrative exercises” that will ensure transparency and stronger long-term relationships. While the province only provides less than eight per cent of a conservation authority’s budget, municipalities make up over 50 per cent, with the remainder coming from self-generated revenue and federal grants. Now, Basit said there is “a template for conservation authorities and municipalities to really understand each other.” 

“Over the years, conservation authorities have grown and prospered, many of them to a point where people sort of took them for granted,” Jorgenson said. “I think this process is going to paint a clearer picture that the programs are important and reported in the right way.”

For some, this exercise will be easier than others. Jorgenson only has to deal with one large municipality, Sudbury, while someone like Basit may have to deal with four or five. Some conservation authorities have to work with dozens of municipalities. “We all speak the same language and we generally do the same thing, but we’re all really different,” Jorgenson said. While some watersheds have massive flooding problems, others face soil erosion or deep deforestation. Jorgenson said these proposed agreements will ensure all conservation authorities are on the same page while giving them the flexibility they need to respond differently to their individual challenges. 

Casgrain-Robertson, of Rideau Valley, said the working group really pushed for regulations that struck a balance between clear objectives and flexibility — and that the province delivered. The onus is now on conservation authorities to make a strong case about what programs are needed and how they’ll deliver them, in order to end up with strong agreements with municipalities.

Ontario Liberal environment critic Lucille Collard said she’s concerned creating these agreements will “take away from [conservation authorities’] ability to do what they are supposed to be mandated for.” 

“I don’t think that conservation authorities’ main strength is negotiation, which is going to be what’s needed in trying to get these agreements with other municipalities,” she said.

Basit said it’s not “a hindrance,” as conservation authorities currently have to present their entire budget to municipal councils every year, with the goal of maintaining or increasing their funding. These multi-year agreements would remove the need to do that. “In a way, it gives us certainty,” he said. 

Seeing how complicated this could be, Piccini agreed to extend the deadline for these agreements from March 2023 to 2024, to factor for elections and drawn-out negotiations. 

“I don’t want to rush decisions,” Piccini told The Narwhal. “We want municipalities to support them, to work with them, to make the most informed decision. So this gave everyone a runway.” 

That runway, however, comes with a lot of uncertainty.

Critics still concerned about funding for Ontario conservation authorities

A lingering problem some see with these agreements is that they don’t guarantee funding in line with what conservation authorities need to face the climate emergency. In theory, municipalities can choose not to sign a funding agreement with a conservation authority. Basit said conservation authorities largely have good relationships with municipalities that just have to be codified on paper, others are less sure.Victor Doyle, a former provincial planner credited as one of the architects of the Greenbelt, is concerned the new regulations don’t seriously acknowledge all the funding that conservation authorities need to provide the three categories of programs and services.

In the 1990s, the Mike Harris government cut provincial funding to conservation authorities from $50 million to $8 million per year divided amongst them. This led to conservation authorities having to reduce their staff between 20 and 60 per cent, according to the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, and that funding has never been replenished. There has been no major new funding and no adjustment for inflation. Municipalities shoulder most of the costs while also benefiting from the revenue of development those authorities oversee. 

“So there’s no certainty that conservation authorities will be funded to the level needed to operate in a meaningful way,” Doyle said. “These regulations seem to be part of this broader systemic weakening of the conservation authorities, brought about by the influence of the development sector on both the province and municipal politicians.” 

Others skeptics mention the Ford government’s track record on environment issues, which include dismantling or watering down dozens of conservation and clean energy programs. The working group has asked but has not received clarity on the power of the minister to dismiss a conservation authority’s recommendation on development. The minister of natural resources did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for more information on this regulation. Piccini also didn’t provide a clear answer on this, noting only that conservation authorities “play an important role in supporting the local municipalities in their plans for growth.”

“No amount of regulation is going to overcome the fact that conservation authorities’ ability to use science and evidence-based decision-making to protect us from flooding and protect our drinking water has been completely undermined by this government,” Mike Schreiner, leader of the Ontario Greens, said. 

But conservation authority heads say the lesson learned from the last 11 months with the working group is that meaningful engagement and collaboration works. 

“What’s making us feel so much better about the future of conservation authorities is that we now have a partnership with the provincial government, which is what we always wanted,” Casgrain-Robertson said. “Our goal was never to be opposed to any sort of change. We were open to change. We just wanted to be able to work with the government to make sure that changes were done in a way that was responsible, and that would lead to us being able to do our work in a better way.”

“I’m hopeful that the regulations were written in a flexible enough manner that we’ll be able to adopt at a local level in a way that lets us continue to be effective watershed managers,” she said. 

Basit notes the province is seeing greater climate challenges while its population is also increasing and its infrastructure ages. Many of the dams and flood control works that conservation authorities are responsible for were built in the 1950s. Meanwhile, natural hazards are only becoming more frequent and destructive — as seen in B.C. last week and in flooding in Ontario over the past few springs.

“I think it’s more important today than it ever has been in our history that we work closely together with all levels of government,,” Basit said. “I’m really hoping that now that the province has clarified the rules, we can actually start working towards those things.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Four days into his job as premier, Doug Ford announced the end of Ontario’s $3 billion cap-and-trade climate program as his government’s first policy decision. Since then, the Progressive Conservatives have made dramatic changes to the province’s environmental policy. The changes affect everything from endangered species to renewable energy to development, and critics say most are harmful to wildlife and natural spaces, as well as counterintuitive given the scale of the climate crisis.

The government disagrees. “Ontario is a leader in clean, green growth in Canada and around the world, and our government takes environmental protection very seriously,” Andrew Kennedy, a spokesperson for the ministry of environment, said in an emailed statement to The Narwhal. “We are proud to lead Ontario at the front line of Canada’s climate change response.”

The Narwhal is tracking how Premier Ford and the Progressive Conservatives have shaped Ontario’s environmental policy landscape. This is our list from the government’s first term: for new updates since its June 2022 election victory, go here.

1. The Progressive Conservatives prevented Ontarians from weighing in on policy by failing to follow the Environmental Bill of Rights

For three years in a row, the Ford government has come under fire from Ontario’s Auditor General for not following the province’s Environmental Bill of Rights, a law that requires the government to be transparent about environmental changes and gives citizens the right to weigh in.

In November 2021, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk took her criticism one step further and accused the government of “deliberately” undermining its own rules.

Lysyk pointed to the Ford government’s decision to temporarily suspend key sections of the Environmental Bill of Rights during the first wave of COVID-19, saying it led to “less transparency and accountability.” The province also failed to abide by the Environmental Bill of Rights when it passed changes to environmental assessments without consulting the public. 

In response, Piccini said the government is being transparent, and has worked to clear outdated notices from the online registry where it posts environmental changes for consultation. 

“We have dedicated an educational webpage and ongoing public education campaign on the Environmental Bill of Rights, appreciate the Auditor General’s comments and are going to continue to take meaningful action,” he said.

2. Doug Ford’s government slashed funding for Indigenous conservation efforts and other environmental initiatives

The Ford government’s first year in office was marked by its dramatic cuts to spending for, well, pretty much everything. But the Progressive Conservatives made some of their largest cuts to environmental initiatives.

One huge move was to eliminate about 70 per cent of provincial funding for the Anishinabek/Ontario Fisheries Resource Centre, a non-profit that helps more than three dozen Indigenous communities protect endangered wildlife and natural resources. And as part of broader cuts to legal aid clinics, the government dropped its funding to the Canadian Environmental Law Association by 30 per cent. The association is a non-profit, public-interest law group. In 2019, the Progressive Conservatives also ended all financial support for the Ontario Biodiversity Council, a group of volunteer stakeholders and scientists who report to the public about the state of biodiversity in the province.

The Ford government also slashed the budget of the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks by about a third in 2019. Those cuts resulted in the Environment Ministry cutting the staff responsible for inspections and enforcement for hazardous spills by nine per cent, Ontario’s Auditor General found in November 2021. 

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, which also oversees some aspects of the environment, lost 14 per cent of its funding.

3. Accelerated plans for two highways through Ontario’s protected Greenbelt

The Ford government has revived two major highway proposals that would carve through the protected forests, farmlands and wetlands of the Greenbelt. Both are old ideas that were dropped by previous governments.

Highway 413, which would connect the Toronto suburbs of Milton and Vaughan, is the most controversial. Also called the GTA West Corridor, it would harm 2,000 acres of farmland, cut through 85 waterways, damage 220 wetlands and disrupt the habitats of 10 species-at-risk. The former Liberal government axed the idea after a study showed the new highway would save drivers less than a minute. (The Ford government disputes this and said it would save drivers half an hour, but hasn’t shared any data to back up the figure.)

The other highway is the Bradford Bypass, which would connect Highways 400 and 404 north of Toronto. It would run through the Holland Marsh, a portion of the Greenbelt known for its sensitive wetlands and fertile soil. 

The project last received an environmental assessment in 1997 — that review found the highway could pollute groundwater, surface water and the air. The Ford government has exempted both highways from undergoing another full review before construction begins. 

Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney has argued that the new roads would reduce pollution by eliminating emissions from idling cars stuck in traffic. Critics point to decades of research showing that new roads actually don’t resolve traffic problems in the long run, instead attracting new cars. In May 2021, after being asked by environmentalists, the federal government announced that it would do its own assessment of the Highway 413 proposal.

4. Ontario’s environment minister, David Piccini, formed a youth environment council

In July, Piccini launched a new youth environment council to give high schoolers a space to give input to the government on climate change and other key issues.

The council is a key project for Piccini, who said he was interested in ways to better engage young people when he was first appointed to his role as environment minister in June 2021. 

“As the youngest environment minister in Ontario’s history I am excited to launch this new youth environment council to ensure our next generation are at the table to help find solutions to some of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time such as climate change and conservation,” Piccini said in a press release announcing the initiative. The move received praise from environmentalists and youth advocates.

Applications for the council closed in August 2021. Its members haven’t yet been announced, but Environment Ministry spokesperson Kennedy said Piccini is looking forward to meetings in 2022, and is planning them with COVID-19 safety protocols in mind. 

5. Disempowered and then rebuilt Ontario’s conservation authorities 

In August 2019, without any warning, notice or consultation, the Ford government ordered the province’s 36 conservation authorities to “wind down” all activities that did not relate to their “core mandate,” though exactly what that meant was unspecified. 

Unique to Ontario, conservation authorities manage local watersheds with the goal of protecting communities against flooding and erosion, and intervene in controversial development cases that propose to pave over wetlands and other natural habitats. The order to “wind down” came after the government cut provincial funding for natural hazard management by 50 per cent months earlier. The government said it would do a full review of all legislation that gave powers to these authorities with the intention of giving greater control to individual municipalities on issues of conservation.

The proposed legislation was tabled over a year after the order and passed in December 2020. It would gut conservation authorities’ ability to protect crucial waterways and wetlands, some of which run through the protected Greenbelt area around Toronto. The bill would shift the power of approval for development applications from local conservation authorities to the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry. In response, seven members of the Greenbelt Council resigned, including chair David Crombie, a former Progressive Conservative MP and Toronto mayor.

In a surprising turn of events, the government created a working group that brought together developers, urban planners, agricultural representatives and two consecutive provincial environment ministers to discuss how best to implement the new regulations. Together, they seem to have mended a long-broken relationship. 

6. Doug Ford appointed a Greenbelt Council chair who voted against the Greenbelt 

After the Ford government’s move to take powers away from conservation authorities resulted in the resignation of seven members of Ontario’s Greenbelt Council in protest, the province needed to appoint a new chair. The man for the job, the Ford government decided, was retired Progressive Conservative MPP Norm Sterling. 

It was a controversial move — not least because in 2005, Sterling voted against the creation of the Greenbelt. An environment minister in the PC government led by Mike Harris, Sterling was an MPP for 30 years, and has a nuanced legacy. He was resistant to implementing climate measures in the Kyoto Protocol and oversaw cuts to the environment ministry that were later found to have contributed to the Walkerton E. coli outbreak in 2000.  

But he also helped write the Niagara Escarpment Plan, Canada’s first large-scale land conservation policy, and implemented Drive Clean, a since-cancelled program aimed at controlling emissions from cars and trucks. When he left politics in 2011, he garnered praise from across the aisle. 

Sterling’s April 2021 appointment to the Greenbelt Council was met with concern from environmentalists and opposition parties. The council reports to Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark, who defended Sterling’s record.

“Mr. Sterling brings important experience to the Greenbelt Council, and I am confident that under his leadership there will be incredible work done to support growing the Greenbelt,” Clark said at the time.

7. Scrapped the Drive Clean program

On April 1, 2019,  the federal government’s carbon price came into effect. That same day, the Ontario government cancelled what it described as the “outdated, ineffective” Drive Clean program. Introduced in 1999, this was a mandatory emissions test for light-duty passenger vehicles meant to identify and repair cars and trucks that polluted excessively. It was considered an important tool in curbing emissions from transportation vehicles, which account for over a third of the province’s greenhouse gas emissions. The program is credited with preventing 400,000 tonnes of pollutants, but as industry standards for vehicles improved, the Drive Clean program became less relevant, with a steady annual decrease in the number of vehicles that failed the test.

At the time that Ford’s then-environment minister, Rod Phillips, said the program had outgrown “its usefulness,” less than five per cent of the approximately two million vehicles tested annually failed. “It’s history, it’s done, it’s gone,” Ford said, adding that the move would save taxpayers more than $40 million a year and “end hours of frustration and wasted time caused by unnecessary tests.” Heavy diesel commercial motor vehicles continue to require an emissions test, but the government was criticized for not introducing another program that would seriously address the majority of Ontario’s transportation emissions.

8. Repealed the Toxics Reduction Act

As of December 31, 2021, the Toxics Reduction Act will no longer be in place. Along with the federal National Pollutant Release Inventory Program, the 2009 legislation was designed to curb the use, creation and release of toxic substances in specific sectors to voluntarily develop toxics reduction plans and report yearly. 

According to the Ford government, the Toxics Reduction Act was “ineffective and has not achieved meaningful reductions.” That’s not true: according to a 2017 Minister of Environment and Energy report on Toxics Reductions, between 2015 and 2016 the legislation contributed to a seven per cent decrease in the use of toxic substances, a nine per cent decrease in the amount of toxic substances contained in products between 2015 and 2016, and a two per cent reduction of toxic substances released in the environment. 

Despite that, the act was repealed in April 2019 by the passage of an omnibus “Open for Business” bill aimed at “reducing regulatory burdens in 12 sectors.” 

9. Cancelled the 50 Million Tree Program 

Another casualty of the Ford government’s 2019 budget was $4.7 million in annual funding  allotted to the 50 Million Tree Program run by the non-profit Forests Ontario. The goal of the program was to plant 50 million trees by 2025. The program subsidized the costs of planting individual trees as well as creating brand new forests, to encourage communities and private landowners to do so. In 2019, Forests Ontario reported that the program contributes $12.7 million annually to Ontario’s GDP, creates more than 300 full-time seasonal jobs and captures and removes 19,000 tonnes of carbon every year. New forests provide other benefits, such as improving biodiversity and creating recreational opportunities. 

The Ford government argued the funding wasn’t being used well, finding that in the 11 years since its inception, Forests Ontario had planted only 27 million trees: the group responded that funding hadn’t increased with the rising costs of planting.  The government also noted that the forestry industry had planted over a million trees since 2005, to which Forests Ontario, responded that logging companies were legally obligated to replant what they cut. 

According to Forests Ontario, the non-profit organization that administers the program, the provincial government funded tree-planting in southern Ontario for more than a century until Ford came to power. Fun fact: before the Progressive Conservatives formed government, Tory MPP Ted Arnott wanted to triple the program’s goal at one point and plant even more trees. As speaker of the legislature, he couldn’t object when the budget to cut the program was passed.

The program was temporarily saved when the federal government committed to a $15-million investment over four years, enough to plant 10 million more trees. 

10. Doug Ford ripped out, and then re-introduced, electric vehicle policies

After coming into power in 2018, the Ford government scrapped an existing buyer incentive program, which provided up to $14,000 on the purchase of an electric vehicle. (For comparison, buyer incentives exist in eight provinces and territories.) Ford also removed a $2.5 million incentive program that helped homeowners install their own charging equipment. The government also deleted electric vehicle charging station requirements in Ontario’s building code and ripped out a couple dozen public electric vehicle charging stations that had already been installed. 

Since November 2020, the government has shifted gears — pressured by a series of industry shifts including charging station projects from provincial power companies and utilities and efforts by major automakers to retool assembly plants to exclusively build electric vehicles. 

Phase Two of the government’s Driving Prosperity pledges to meet four key targets by 2030: “reposition vehicle and parts production for the car of the future, establish and support a battery supply chain ecosystem, innovate in every stage of development, invest in Ontario’s auto workers.” The plan states the government’s goal is to see 400,000 electric vehicles manufactured in the province in the same time frame and also establish a new electric vehicle and hybrid assembly plant. The plan also relies heavily on taking advantage of critical minerals found in the Ring of Fire, which has spurred questions about the economic and social welfare benefits to First Nations communities in the region. 

11. Launched Ontario’s first-ever multi-sector climate change impact assessment

The climate change impact assessment is a key part of the province’s 2018 Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan. As a first step, in 2019, Ontario established an advisory panel to provide the minister of the environment, conservation and parks with advice on the implementation of the province’s climate change actions. The two-year assessment itself formally began in August 2020 with the goal “to better understand where and how climate change is likely to affect communities, critical infrastructure, economies and the natural environment, while helping to strengthen the province’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.” 

The assessment will be led by the independent Ottawa-based non-profit Climate Risk Institute, who will review climate data, land use patterns and socio-economic projections, and also consult Indigenous communities, municipalities, the public and “key economic sectors” in the process. Results are expected in 2022. 

12. Doug Ford dismantled Ontario’s cap-and-trade program

Right after taking office in the summer of 2018, Ford sent out a press release announcing the end of cap-and-trade: he inaccurately deemed it “government cash grabs,” when, in fact, the funds collected were largely earmarked for other climate-related projects. The program allowed companies to buy and sell credits to pollute, the idea being that the added cost would incentivize businesses to pollute less. Nobel-prize winning economists William Nordhaus and Paul Romer, as well as much scientific research, tout the cap-and-trade program as the most cost-effective and efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global heating.

The emissions-trading scheme has often been mischaracterized as a “carbon tax” by members of the Ford government. On Oct. 31, 2018, the legislation killing cap-and-trade passed, MPP Sam Oosterhoff led the PC caucus in a cover version of “Monster Mash:” “We stopped the tax/We stopped the carbon tax,” he declared in a spooky voice. In the summer of 2019, the government introduced mandatory stickers for all gas pump operators that said “the federal carbon tax will cost you:” the proposed fine for not displaying them was up to $10,000 a day. The stickers showed the federally-mandated carbon price adding 4.4 cents per litre to the price of gasoline, but did not include information about available rebates or the costs associated with rising emissions. In 2020, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice deemed the stickers unconstitutional following a Canadian Civil Liberties Association challenge.

The decision to end cap-and-trade spelled the end of a $100 million budget for school repairs, a $337 million Green Ontario Fund that offered people rebates to retrofit their homes and businesses with energy-saving technologies, and 227 clean energy programs that included 120 commuter cycling programs in 120 jurisdictions across the province, 41 sustainable social housing programs and 20 retrofit projects for social housing apartments.

In October 2019, Ontario’s Superior Court determined the Ford government acted illegally when it killed the program without first carrying out the required public consultations. Earlier this year, the Ford government lost again in the Supreme Court of Canada when it challenged the federal government’s efforts to implement a carbon price in the absence of Ontario having its own pollution pricing program. In the wake of that decision, the province has introduced a weak carbon pricing standard that sets pricing thresholds by facility, not industry. 

13. Ford weakened clean energy programs and investments

A week after ending the cap-and-trade program, the Ford government cancelled 758 renewable energy contracts, including hydroelectric, solar and wind farms that were mid-construction. The first to be axed was the White Pines Wind Project in Milford, Ont., which was 10 years in the making and characterized by Ford as “those terrible, terrible wind turbines.” The second was the Nation Rise wind farm in North Stormont, Ont. In May 2020, a court overturned the province’s decision and allowed construction of the project to resume.

The complete list also included solar rooftops on schools, libraries, community and municipal buildings. Then-Energy Minister Greg Rickford said the cuts would save provincial ratepayers $790 million, a figure industry officials disputed and said would disproportionately hurt local and First Nations communities. The PC government spent more than $230 million to cancel these projects, a decision Ford said he was “proud” of. 

In an Oct. 29, 2021 statement to The Narwhal, Palmer Lockridge, a spokesperson for Ontario’s minister of energy, said these “wasteful” contracts “would have driven up electricity bills, not only making life more expensive, but also hindering other progressive actions to reduce emissions such as electrification which benefit from affordable electricity rates.” He said the government is working on “a range of initiatives informed by feedback through the environmental registry.” This includes a project in London that explores “how a community can work together to generate renewable energy, protect the environment and lower electricity costs.” 

In April 2021, the Ford government introduced a bill that would deprioritize renewable energy by repealing measures that made it easier to build new clean power projects. The province said it’s “no longer appropriate” to prioritize clean energy because “Ontario has built a clean energy supply.” Kennedy, spokesperson for the minister of environment, said the government will release the province’s low-carbon hydrogen strategy “soon.” 

14. The Progressive Conservatives bought Ontario gas plants

Most of Ontario’s electricity comes from emissions-free hydro-electric and nuclear power, which makes for a relatively clean system — the province does use some natural gas, but the fossil fuel makes up a small portion of the mix. In 2020, however, the province spent $2.8 billion to buy three natural gas plants that the Ford government is planning to fire up more often over the next decade as nuclear plants go offline for refurbishment — a move that could erase a third of the emissions reductions Ontario achieved by phasing out coal. 

There is a need to find new energy sources as Ontario’s aging nuclear plants go offline for refurbishment, and gas plants can fire up quickly to meet sudden demand, such as during summer heat waves. Ontario’s Independent Electricity Systems Operator has said in the past that the province needs the plants to maintain flexibility, and was even more frank in a report released Oct. 7, 2021 stating that it wouldn’t be feasible to phase out gas plants by 2030 while meeting the province’s energy needs. Critics say the government should be focused on renewable energy sources instead. 

15. Doug Ford’s government axed the environmental commissioner

In the fall of 2018, on the 25th anniversary of the creation of the position, the Ford government eliminated the office of the environmental commissioner, an independent provincial watchdog that held the government accountable on its environmental actions or inactions. The position was created under the Environmental Bill of Rights, and tasked with monitoring the government’s compliance with environmental laws and reporting annually on the government’s progress on its greenhouse gas reduction targets. The position was then, and last, held by Dianne Saxe (now a Green Party of Ontario candidate), who revealed that over 1,300 tonnes of sewage had been dumped into Ontario waterways in 2017 just days before her office was axed. 

The bill of rights also allowed any two Ontario residents to apply to the commissioner’s office to ask it to review any law, regulation or decision by the government pertaining to the protection of the environment. That accountability mechanism was stripped, just as the Ford government was enacting one environmental cut after another. Now, those appeals go directly to the Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks and some of the accountability work of the environment commissioner’s office has been folded into the office of the auditor general. The government did not provide The Narwhal with an update on how the new appeal process is working. 

16. Overhauled Ontario’s blue box system

In June 2021, Ford’s then-environment minister Jeff Yurek finalized a massive rewrite of Ontario’s recycling program, into what environment ministry spokesperson Kennedy describes as a “common sense new blue box program with the highest diversion rate targets in North America” that “will save taxpayers money, keep recyclables out of landfills, and deliver standardized services to all corners of the province, including First Nations.” 

The new rules, to be phased in from 2023 to 2025, standardized the process across the province — before, it happened through more than 250 local programs, each with different specifications. The changes also mean companies that produce plastic must fully pay for recycling programs, shifting costs away from municipalities.

Municipalities and the recycling industry praised the rewrite, which allows more materials to be recycled and for blue box services to be expanded to rural communities, apartment buildings, long-term care homes, schools and municipal parks. Standardizing the system could save an estimated $156 million annually, the province said. Environmentalists said they were concerned the new program’s targets weren’t high enough. 

17. Weakened protections for endangered species in Ontario

The Ford government has watered down protections for endangered species twice. The first set of changes, included in the omnibus Bill 108 — dubbed the More Homes, More Choice Act — were aimed at making it easier for the development industry to pursue projects even if they would likely harm species at risk. The legislation, passed in May 2019, allows the province to delay protecting endangered species, weakens protections for species with populations outside of Ontario, opened up the chance for non-scientific experts to join the provincial committee that classifies species at risk, and eliminated a requirement that the environment minister consult an independent expert on how certain actions could affect endangered species.  It also created a “pay to slay” fund, officially known as the Species at Risk Conservation Trust, that would allow developers to destroy key habitats if they pay fees, which are meant to be used to help the species recover elsewhere. 

Kennedy told The Narwhal that the trust, and the agency that oversees it, “will have the expertise to invest in strategic, large-scale, and co-ordinated actions to support positive outcomes for certain species at risk.” Environmentalists disagree: the charity Ontario Nature argues it gives developers “free rein to bulldoze, dig up, cut down and pave over the habitats of our most vulnerable plants and animals.”

The next year, in June 2020, the Ford government extended a long-running rule that exempts forestry companies from abiding by Ontario’s Endangered Species Act. Instead, those companies follow a logging-specific set of rules that attempt to minimize the impact industrial activity could have on species at risk, but do not support their recovery.

Ontario isn’t collecting enough data to know whether it is actually conserving endangered species, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk found last year. The same report also found that many of the provincial plans governing protected lands didn’t include measures to safeguard endangered species — even though those areas are home to three-quarters of Ontario’s species-at-risk.

18. Doug Ford fired Ontario’s first chief scientist

In another move that happened a matter of days after he was sworn in, Ford fired Ontario’s first chief scientist. Dr. Molly Shoichet, a biomedical engineer who teaches at the University of Toronto, had been in the role for six months. The previous Liberal government had meant for the chief scientist to advise the government, and to make sure all of its relevant policy decisions were rooted in science. 

At the time, Ford’s office said it was seeking a “suitable and qualified replacement.” Shoichet told The Globe and Mail she believed it wasn’t about her, “but rather an out-with-the-old and in-with-the-new” decision. As of Oct. 2021, the role has not been filled. The government did not respond to a request for information on why she was fired and when the position would be filled. 

19. The Ford government overhauled Ontario’s environmental assessments

In July 2020, the Ford government passed Bill 197, legislation meant to facilitate economic recovery from the devastation of COVID-19. Buried in the bill was a major overhaul to Ontario’s environmental assessment law. Environmental assessments are pivotal to development proposals, helping the government determine whether a project might have negative impacts on surrounding green space, wildlife and watersheds. At the time, Ford said “we aren’t going to dodge” the process, but make it “quicker and smarter.” 

Critics say the bill actually made the regime tremendously weaker. Public-sector projects used to be subject to environmental assessments automatically — now proposals only need one if the government decides it should take place. Citizens also used to have a mechanism to ask the environment minister to conduct a full assessment on projects that would otherwise be exempt, but Bill 197 eliminated that possibility.  

The Ford government passed the bill before consulting the public, which Lysyk said was “not compliant” with rules in Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights. The province is writing a list to guide decisions about whether environmental assessments are needed.Kennedy wrote the government is “grateful” to Lysyk “for her shared goals for Ontario’s actions on climate and the environment; she and her team have been more than capable with respect to accountability and oversight.” He added: “oversight is also at the heart of our environmental assessment program, which supports strong environmental oversight and focuses resources on high-impact projects.”

20. Fast-tracked development, including in Ontario’s Greenbelt

As the first wave of COVID-19 took hold in Ontario, the Ford government dramatically ramped up its use of a special land zoning power called an MZO, or minister’s zoning order. The directives allow the ministry of municipal affairs, now headed by Steve Clark, to decide how a piece of land can be used, overriding the local planning process and any existing zoning to clear the way for a project to go ahead. The orders cannot be appealed. Up until 2018, governments tended to use them for emergency situations: in 2012, when the Liberal government headed by Dalton McGuinty used an MZO to relocate a grocery store in Elliot Lake, Ont. when the town’s only one was destroyed by the collapse of a mall roof.

Ford’s government used five in 2019 — which Clark followed up by issuing 32 of the orders in 2020, more than twice the number the previous Liberal government issued over its 15 years in power. He’s issued 19 so far in 2021. The PC government has also twice strengthened its minister’s zoning order powers through legislation. The province has said it only uses MZOs on provincially-owned land, or at the request of municipalities.

In a statement, Zoe Knowles, spokesperson for the Ontario minister of municipal affairs and housing, said MZOs “are an important part of our government’s policy toolkit to help critical local projects located outside of the Greenbelt move at the pace Ontarians need and deserve.”“It’s important to remember that an MZO kick-starts the zoning process by ensuring red tape does not get in the way of much-needed local projects,” Knowles wrote, adding that municipalities have final say on development plan approvals, permits and more. (While this is true, any amendments to Greenbelt designations must be approved by the province.) “It is our expectation that municipalities do their due diligence and to conduct proper consultation in their communities, including with conservation authorities and other impacted stakeholders.”

Knowles also said the government has pledged not to issue MZOs for developments on the Greenbelt, but in fact, Clark did approve an MZO for provincially-owned Greenbelt land in Aurora, Ont., which allowed for more intense development. The government has also committed to add two acres to the protected zone for every acre provincewide that is developed through an MZO, Knowles said. 

In many cases, the government has used these orders to override environmental concerns: 14 times from 2019 to 2020, an analysis by National Observer found. That included a case where an MZO allowed developers to pave over a protected wetland to build a Walmart warehouse in Vaughan, Ont. In several other cases, the orders have opened up farmland for development — a trend critics say is concerning because it contributes to urban sprawl, often eliminating green space that acts as a carbon sink or lessening Ontario’s ability to grow food locally. 

21. Doug Ford is dilly-dallying on cutting heat-trapping pollution

Ontario isn’t taking its 2030 climate targets seriously enough, Lysyk warned in Nov. 2020. In an audit, her office found that the Ford government had not made emissions reduction a “cross-government priority” and is not reducing emissions from fossil fuel-use in buildings, the province’s third-largest source of greenhouse gases. Under the Paris Agreement, Ontario must reduce its emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade. 

At the time, Yurek said the government was still committed to the goal, but it would be a “difficult path to go forward” and that Ontario has a “long way to go.” The government did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment on this. 

22. The Ontario government will track the dirty issue of soil waste from construction sites

The words “excess soil management” aren’t exactly the most thrilling. But the dirty issue of what to do about leftover soil excavated from construction sites is one that has caused more than a few dust-ups in Ontario’s recent history. 

In many cases, construction of shiny new condo towers requires multi-storey parking garages that are dug into the ground. Some of the dirt coming from such sites is clean and can be re-used. But some is contaminated. 

In 2014, a Toronto Star investigation showed booming construction in the city was digging up huge amounts of contaminated soil, and the Ontario government was failing to properly track where the dirt was dumped. Experts warned that the pollution could harm prime farmland, including some in Ontario’s Greenbelt. The Liberal government of the day launched a review looking at the need for a provincial policy and released a draft regulation in 2018, but conflicts over the crud continued. 

In 2015, the Township of Scugog, about an hour’s drive northeast of Toronto, said it would no longer allow the dumping of 200 truckloads per day of soil on a private site after it discovered samples of the dirt were contaminated with lead and benzene. In Hamilton, a lawsuit filed in 2021 alleged that the municipality conspired with a since-slain mobster to dump thousands of loads of dirt on a rural property in 2018. The claims of the suit, which haven’t been tested in court, allege the soil was contaminated with mercury and other chemicals that cause cancer. The City of Hamilton has denied the allegations. 

In 2019, the Progressive Conservative government passed revamped regulations around soil disposal. The new rules, which began coming into effect last year, require developers to register the amount of soil being moved from construction sites and where they plan to put it. Developers also must test the dirt for contaminants and report the results. The regulation also barred clean soil from being sent to landfill and included standards for re-using the dirt. 

The government said the changes would make it easier for soil to be used again, instead of having developers pay to dump it, and increase accountability for those moving contaminated dirt. The news was met with praise from local officials in Hamilton, and residents near the contaminated site now at the centre of the lawsuit.

Though the second round of changes was supposed to kick in on Jan. 1, 2022, the province has proposed pushing that back a year to give industry more time to understand the rules.

23. Ford goes another round in the Ring of Fire with the Critical Minerals Strategy

The Ford government’s pursuit of minerals in the Far North of Ontario is shaping up to be a major election issue in 2022. It was in 2018 too — back then, Ford pledged to build access roads to mineral deposits in a remote region of the Hudson Bay Lowlands, the Ring of Fire, even if he had to hop on a bulldozer himself. (He’s the latest in a long line of Ontario politicians to make similar promises; none have succeeded so far.)

The Ring of Fire is still a major part of the equation. But on March 17, the Progressive Conservative government also released its broader Critical Minerals Strategy, a five-year plan aimed at capitalizing on growing demand for minerals like nickel, cobalt, lithium and platinum. These are crucial in clean technology like electric car batteries, tying in with the Ford government’s about-face on electric vehicles. 

Some key deposits are in the Ring of Fire, though the value is unproven. But other deposits elsewhere in the province are being mined already. 

In the strategy, the government outlines a roadmap to boost mining, already a huge industry in Ontario, and mineral processing at manufacturing facilities in the south, which it says could add $3.5 billion to the province’s economy. It also earmarked $29 million in funding to support junior mining companies doing exploration, and to create a fund to support research on extraction and processing in the north.

But the path forward may not be so smooth, especially when it comes to the Ring of Fire. There are no permanent roads to the remote region, which also lacks basic infrastructure. It would take an estimated $1.6 billion to construct an access road over the boggy peatlands, which are difficult to build on, and although the Ford government has touted past provincial investments, it still hasn’t secured the federal funds that it says would make the project possible. The federal and provincial governments are working together on several impact assessments for the region that are slated to take years. 

The Ring of Fire’s rich peatlands are a huge carbon sink — disturbing them would have worrying implications for the fight against climate change, and could harm wildlife habitat and downstream communities.

At the same time, many First Nations communities in Ontario’s Far North are coping with the overlapping crises of COVID-19, poverty, youth suicides and decades-old boil-water advisories. Nations near the Ring of Fire don’t agree on the best way forward and whether access roads or mining should be part of it. 

Marten Falls and Webequie First Nations are backing efforts to build access roads, saying the infrastructure could help improve the quality of life in their communities.

In April 2021, Attawapiskat, Fort Albany and Neskantaga First Nations raised concerns about the assessment process, declaring a moratorium on development in the Ring of Fire until the provincial and federal governments ensure First Nations have a fair say and can fully examine how development will affect the region. Neskantaga also filed a lawsuit against the Ontario government in November 2021, asking a court to “create ground rules” for consultation with Indigenous communities in a meaningful way.

CBC has reported that lawyers and advocates for First Nations in northern Ontario have raised red flags about the Critical Minerals Strategy, saying they’re worried the province is pushing forward without consulting Indigenous communities and tackling environmental concerns. 

When asked by CBC about conflict between the new strategy and environmental concerns around mining, Northern Development, Mines, Natural Resources and Forestry Minister Greg Rickford pointed instead to the potential environmental benefits of clean technology.

“Without mining there is no such thing as a green economy,” Rickford said. “Without those critical minerals, you will not be able to drive a clean, green automobile of the future.” 

24. A new transportation plan and a boost for drivers

The Ford government has been steadfast in its vision for a car-based future throughout its four year term — prioritizing roads even as it invests in transit. In March, Ford dropped a massive $82 billion transit and transportation plan for the next two decades that mentions “bus service” only six times, versus 107 mentions of “highway.” It’s a ratio that has been consistent throughout Ford’s tenure: he has expanded highways with a promise of unclogging congestion and scrapped highway tolls on two roads in Durham Region, east of Toronto, all in an effort to win over drivers across the province. “We’re pouring money into infrastructure, making sure that people get from point A to point B,”  Ford said in announcing the plan. “People don’t want to be sitting in gridlock, we’re going to make sure we continue building highways and roads and bridges.”

Onlookers say the right solutions are not being engaged to reduce gridlock or move people faster. For example, in February, the Ford government announced it was returning $1 billion to the province’s more than 8.3 million drivers by cancelling licence plate renewal fees. Economists and transit users alike say this money could have funded temporary reductions in transit fares and increased rapid bus service lanes, which cost less than $100 million to implement. 

While the government did announce $28 billion for four new transit lines in Toronto and one in Hamilton, and extended GO Train commuter services, these projects are mostly underground so that they don’t take away from car lanes, and will take decades to build. These transit projects are also not a major element of the Ford government’s plans to reduce transportation emissions, the largest source of emissions in Ontario. According to their new transportation plan 90 per cent of these reductions will come from transitioning to electric vehicles by 2051 — the new look of Ford’s car-based transportation future. 

25. Ontario’s Ministry of Education released a new science curriculum for elementary students 

It’s been 15 years since the last revisions to Ontario’s elementary school science curriculum, so it’s about time for a new one. The Education Ministry released it at the beginning of March, saying in a press release that the goal is to align public school students’ education “with the province’s economic needs.” As outlined, that means a heavy focus on coding, artificial intelligence and other computer sciences, as well as lessons on how science is relevant to daily life, especially for students considering the skilled trades. 

While technology is unquestionably the focus, the new elementary curriculum is more detailed than the last in its consideration of environmental stressors. Climate change is a specific area of study across grades — lessons are meant to be age-appropriate and explore mitigation as well as causes, as well as impart “hope and optimism” while helping students figure out “how they can make the most environmentally responsible decisions possible.” There is also an overarching emphasis on “food literacy”: students in grade 3 are meant to discuss the “benefits and limitations” of local food, while the Grade 7 curriculum will explore how different forms of agriculture interact with various ecosystems. 

The new curriculum also reflects the Ford government’s current approach to education about Indigenous people and practices, an area that it has been criticized on during its tenure. Soon after the Progressive Conservatives came into power in 2018, summer meetings about revising the curriculum to include Indigenous language instruction and other updates recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were cancelled. Then, last fall, the Education Ministry promised to strengthen lessons on Indigenous topics for Grades 1 through 3 citing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a reason. 

Throughout the elementary grades, the new science curriculum makes multiple mentions of First Nations, Inuit and Métis ideas and communities. Starting next September, students in Grade 6 are meant to learn about the effect of “electrical energy generation” technologies, including on First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities; notably, a number of First Nations in Ontario are unhappy with proposals for long-term disposal of nuclear waste on their territories. By the end of Grade 8, students are meant to “demonstrate an understanding of First Nations, Métis and Inuit knowledges and values about water, connections to water and ways of managing water resources sustainably.” 

While changes to the Grade 9 curriculum were announced at the same time, at press time they were not detailed on the Ministry of Education’s high school curriculum website. 

26. Doug Ford declared a Day of Action on Litter

Whether you love it or hate it, Ontario’s Official Day of Action on Litter has become a flashpoint for critics of the Ford government’s environmental policies.

In October 2019, the Ford government designated the second Tuesday of May an annual litter clean-up day. But so far, the “action” part hasn’t actually happened — both in 2020 and in 2021, Ontario was under stay-at-home orders due to COVID-19 for Litter Day, meaning no in-person clean-ups were possible. (Between lockdowns, MPPs have participated in other local litter clean-up days.)

“These are extraordinary times with our focus entirely on staying safe and stopping the spread, but we must never forget the importance of preserving our environment,” a government press release quoted then-environment minister Jeff Yurek as saying in 2020.

“When the time is right, our government will work with communities and our partners to organize litter clean-up days across the province.”

In 2021, under lockdown again, the government changed focus: Yurek said the event would be focused on “raising awareness of the impacts of waste in the environment.” 

The Progressive Conservatives have touted Litter Day as proof the government is delivering on pledges in its much-criticized climate plan, which promised to keep parks and waterways clear of waste.

Critics have said the day of action perpetuates the myth that individuals alone can fix larger systemic issues with single-use plastics and other consumer pollution. They also say the annual events fail to make a difference when the government is rolling back other environmental protections.

“We do have Litter Day, but we don’t have a credible climate change plan,” Ontario NDP environment critic Sandy Shaw said at Queens Park last October. 

27. Added land to Ontario’s Greenbelt, but not as much as promised

The Ford government announced plans to expand Ontario’s Greenbelt in early 2021. Later that year, it pledged to add two acres of land to the protected area for every acre developed using Minister’s Zoning Orders, a controversial power that allows the province to fast-track projects without holding public consultations. 

But when the government announced an updated version of its Greenbelt expansion plan in spring 2022, it was a pared-down version that didn’t appear to deliver on the land-swap pledge. 

Originally, the Progressive Conservatives had suggested including the Paris-Galt Moraine, a rock formation to the west of Toronto. But the government dropped that plan — and also said it had faced pushback on it from developers and the aggregate sector. 

The new additions are instead a series of urban river valleys, all already having some level of protection. The government wouldn’t say how many acres it encompasses, so it’s unclear whether it’s enough to make up for the province’s dozens of Minister’s Zoning Orders. But on a map, the proposed additions look relatively small.

The Progressive Conservatives said they were still exploring ways to grow the Greenbelt more in the future. 

28. Encouraged sprawl by rewriting the Growth Plan 

In June 2020, the Ontario government rewrote the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the master document guiding how municipalities plan to use their land in the Greater Toronto Area, Hamilton and Niagara. These weren’t minor tweaks — the changes have led to a series of battles with municipalities over the push and pull between greenspace and development.

The new document asked municipalities to plan an extra decade ahead of what’s customary, tasking them to set aside land for the next three decades of expected growth. With the region changing so quickly, it’s very difficult to predict what cities will need in 30 years, critics said. The updated growth plan also included population projections that critics said were overinflated, and leaned heavily towards single-family homes with big footprints over denser developments, like mid-rise apartments. The Ford government has said it’s working to increase southern Ontario’s supply of housing and to deliver the types of homes it believes people want. 

The result: some municipalities have said it’s difficult to follow the new rules without opening up farmland and greenspace for development — which is controversial because farmland, like greenspace, is an important carbon sink that also plays a vital role in local ecology and food security. Halton Region and the City of Hamilton have decided to push back, choosing to freeze their urban boundaries in place and accommodate new growth by making their communities more dense. Peel Region, however, voted to expand its urban boundaries by over 10,000 acres.

29. Proposed a clean energy registry, after cancelling several clean energy programs

In January 2021, Energy Minister Todd Smith asked the Independent Electricity System Operator, the Crown corporation that runs Ontario’s electricity market, to “assess options” for a voluntary clean energy registry. This registry would allow for the sale of clean energy credits, a carbon offset scheme, that could be purchased by corporations or governments looking to meet their emissions-reduction targets. According to the minister’s directive, the money would subsidize electricity prices. 

The scheme is trying to create a market that takes advantage of Ontario’s 94 per cent emissions-free grid. According to experts, there are few climate rewards from this scheme unless the money is reinvested in expanding clean energy projects and other emissions-reduction efforts. 

The Narwhal learned that a version of this scheme was already in place: Ontario Power Generation, the province’s largest power generator and a Crown corporation, has been selling versions of clean energy credits outside of a government-approved framework since 2013. But many in the industry, including other clean energy generators that don’t currently have access to this revenue stream, say they weren’t aware of the program until earlier this year. 

The proposal is a sharp turn for the Ford government, which has already spent $230 million to cancel renewable energy projects, including a $100 million wind farm. It also cancelled a $3 billion cap-and-trade program that could have generated a market for such credits. 

30. Disappeared the Ontario Carbon Trust 

The Ford government’s first and only climate plan — the 2018 Made-in-Ontario plan — proposed the creation of a $400 million carbon trust aimed at encouraging companies to invest in clean technologies and low-cost emissions-reduction initiatives. The trust was meant to account for four per cent of the government’s overall emissions reductions and “unlock over $1 billion of private capital.”

But the Ontario Carbon Trust never manifested. It was never mentioned again, whether in successive budgets or climate-related communications, including the Progressive Conservative’s latest emissions-reduction plan (which they say is not a plan). An independent board was meant to be set up to form the trust but never was.When asked, a Ministry of Finance spokesperson told The Narwhal the trust is still in the works under a different name. “The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks continues to consider the design and mandate of the Emissions Reduction Fund (previously described as the Ontario Carbon Trust),” the spokesperson said. The Narwhal is awaiting more information. 

31. Pushed for more logging of Ontario’s forests   

In September 2018, the Ford government released a provincial forestry plan that would double logging volumes across Ontario’s 71 million hectares of forest — an area equivalent to Germany, Italy and the Netherlands combined — by 2030. 

“Ontario is utilizing only half of the wood that it could sustainably harvest,” the 36-page provincial strategy said. Citing an increase in demand for multi-family homes and sustainable highrises, the plan said more logging could create new jobs in the sector. 

32. Doug Ford made future energy planning a real (natural) gas

Soon after taking office, the Progressive Conservative government announced a plan to connect more Ontarians to the network of natural gas pipelines for heating. The first two phases of the Natural Gas Expansion Project will connect nearly 18,000 more homes and businesses: projects mostly span southern Ontario, including several First Nations, as well as a smattering of locations in the north. The vast majority are being carried out by Enbridge Gas.

The cost of the expansion project is being spread among existing gas users through a $1 monthly charge and new customers through a surcharge of 23 cents per cubic metre of gas. That’s in addition to a $1.7 million grant from the Ontario Energy Board, the regulator of natural gas and electricity in the province, and $234 million from the province for phase two specifically. 

Switching from furnace oil or propane will, according to Enbridge, save customers more than half of their heating costs.

Back in 2018, the project pitch was all about cost savings. “By cancelling the cap-and-trade carbon tax, we have already acted to bring natural gas prices down for Ontario families and businesses. Now we are taking the next step to ensure that the benefits of natural gas expansion are shared throughout the entire province,” Doug Ford said at the time. He didn’t mention that funds from cap-and-trade were earmarked for retrofit projects to reduce gas consumption, and therefore customers’ bills.

At the same time as this expansion, the province is also exploring natural gas reduction options.  In the April budget, the Ford government announced a pilot project to install electric heat pumps in homes in a few cities, which “would be expected to reduce a household’s natural gas consumption by up to 40 per cent and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30 per cent,” according to Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith.

That’s not necessarily true, however: since Ford slashed renewable energy projects early in his tenure, the trajectory of Ontario’s electricity grid means that, in the future, those heat pumps could be running off natural gas.

— With files from Denise Balkissoon and Elaine Anselmi

Updated Dec. 20, 2021: This article was updated to add new items. Updated March 24, 2022, at 7 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include items 22 to 26. Updated May 25, 2022 at 9:45 a.m. ET: This story was updated to include items 27 to 32. Updated March 14, 2023 at 11:10 a.m. ET: This story was updated to correct the year the Ontario government passed legislation affecting conservation authorities.

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford believes his road to re-election in 2022 is a highway. 

“While the Liberals and NDP constantly fight our infrastructure projects that reduce gridlock and get Ontarians to where they need to be, we are the party that gets things built,” read an email blast sent out Oct. 13 by Ford’s Progressive Conservatives.

But over the past year, Ford’s two major highway projects — Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass — have come under increasing scrutiny amid concerns about their environmental impact and who could benefit if they’re built. Both are old proposals that the Progressive Conservatives revived and fast-tracked: previous governments had shelved them in the 2000s as a growing body of evidence began to show that new roads don’t actually reduce traffic congestion. 

The tension came to a head last week. On the heels of a Torstar/National Observer investigation showing that the Ford government is seeking to re-route the Bradford Bypass around a golf course co-owned by the father of a Progressive Conservative MPP, the province announced that for the first time, it had earmarked funding to advance Highway 413 and the bypass. 

“We are ready to build bigger,” Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy said. 

Critics were swift to condemn the move: “The premier thinks the road to recovery from COVID-19 is paving over paradise,” Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner said.

Here’s what you need to know about Ford’s highway plans and the controversy swirling around them.

‘Congestion is a real problem’

The controversy over Ford’s highway plans is rooted in a deep divide over how best to fix the Greater Toronto’s Area’s congested road system. On average, drivers lose 142 hours — or about six days — to traffic jams annually, a report found in early 2020. 

For a long time, governments, particularly in North America, sought to unclog roads by building more routes. Over the last few decades, however, studies have shown that more roads simply attract more drivers, instead of solving the problem. This is called “induced demand:” soon enough, the new lanes tend to become just as congested as the old ones.

In population-dense southern Ontario, gridlock is forecast to worsen over the coming decades as more people move to the region. The Ford government says it believes highways are the best way to fix that — and by focusing on the issue ahead of the election, it’s betting that voters who rely on cars to get around will agree.

“Congestion is a real problem, and members of the opposition just want to keep their heads in the sand and not recognize this reality that plagues people — drivers, commuters, families, workers, farmers,” Ford’s Transportation Minister, Caroline Mulroney, said at Queen’s Park on Nov. 2.

“It’s been a problem for decades. It’s a problem today. As Ontario welcomes millions of new people every five years, the problem is only going to get worse.”

But the Greater Toronto Area’s transportation woes are going to be a lot more complex to solve, said Victor Doyle, a former provincial planner. Studies he saw during his time working for the government show that it would be impossible to build enough lanes to actually accommodate demand for car-based travel in the next 30 years, and that’s not accounting for highway-induced demand.

 “Thinking that these two little fragments of highway are going to solve our congestion problems in a rapidly growing city region of 10 million people is just a joke,” he said.

The federal government is intervening on Highway 413 

The Ford government’s first major highway project is the 413. It was first sketched out decades ago as part of an expressway that would ring from the Niagara region to the Toronto suburb of Vaughan. More recently, the 60-km route — also called the GTA West Corridor — would connect Vaughan with Milton, to the west. The PCs put it back on the table in late 2018. 

Months earlier, the previous Liberal government had shelved the project, which has a price tag between $6 billion and $10 billion, after an independent panel concluded it would save drivers less than a minute daily. (The Ford government argues it would actually save them half an hour.) 

Another concern was the 413’s environmental impact: the highway would cross the Greenbelt, a zone of protected land ringing around the Greater Toronto Area. Its route would harm 2,000 acres of farmland, cut through 85 waterways, damage 220 wetlands and disrupt the habitats of 10 species-at-risk.

At the time, there was a lot of talk about how the government should better protect the Greenbelt, increase access to public transit and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Doyle said. “Highways just weren’t the answer to our congestion problems,” he said.

The year after the PCs revived the idea, they promised to “streamline” the environmental assessment for Highway 413, which would allow the province to allow work on bridges and other early construction to begin before the review is completed. In 2020, they also passed a bill to water down Ontario’s environmental assessment regime overall. 

Grassroots opposition to the 413 started to simmer over the winter. By the spring, it had hit a boiling point. Under pressure from residents, a flurry of municipalities along the route — and even some local conservatives —  pulled their support for the 413. In April, an investigation by Torstar and National Observer found eight powerful developers, many of them prolific PC donors, owned over 3,300 acres of land near the highway’s proposed path, which could skyrocket in value if the highway was built. Some of the developers had hired lobbyists with ties to the PCs, including Mulroney’s former campaign chair.

In the meantime, environmentalists had asked the federal government to step in and assess the 413 and the Bradford Bypass, a 16-km connection between Highways 400 and 404. The federal environment minister at the time, Jonathan Wilkinson, announced in May that Ottawa would intervene on the 413, citing concerns whether the provincial process would address environmental concerns. The process is more rigorous than what the Ontario government had planned, and could delay the highway for months or possibly years. 

The provincial NDP, Liberals and Greens have all called for Highway 413 to be axed — again. All the while, Ford has maintained that the project will go ahead. “It’s going to save a tremendous amount of time,” he said at Queen’s Park in October 2021.

Highway 413 continued to generate backlash in the weeks leading up to the 2022 Ontario election. On April 18, The Star reported that the government’s chosen route for Highway 413 would cut through the protected Nashville Conservation Reserve, avoiding a future development project. The province made the decision in 2020 against the advice of consultants who warned that path would maximize damage to Ontario’s Greenbelt and and “undermine the credibility” of the highway.

The Bradford Bypass goes ‘behind closed doors’

Like Highway 413, the Bradford Bypass is an idea that dates back several decades. It’s also located in Toronto’s outer suburbs, and it would also run through the Greenbelt. But the bypass is markedly different, too: the municipalities along the route remain staunchly in favour, the federal government decided not to intervene and it comes with a unique set of environmental concerns. 

“They’re kind of a bit like apples and oranges,” Doyle said. “I wouldn’t say one is worse than the other. They’re both bad from an environmental perspective.”

The bypass would connect the two often-congested main routes drivers use to go north from Toronto. Many locals — accustomed to bumper-to-bumper traffic, especially on summer Fridays as city residents pass through en route to cottage country — have supported the project since its inception. Mulroney has said the new highway would cost $800 million to build, while the Toronto Region Board of Trade has estimated it would be roughly $1.5 billion.

In the 2000s, the Dalton McGuinty Liberal government shelved the bypass amid promises to increase access to public transit. McGuinty’s successor,  Kathleen Wynne, put the highway back into long-range plans in 2017, but the project didn’t move forward until the PCs formed government.

Ford and Mulroney announced the bypass was back on the books at Bradford’s Carrot Fest in 2019. “I give all the credit to Caroline [Mulroney],” the premier said, calling the transportation minister an “absolute champion.” The government has said the highway would save drivers up to 35 minutes on average for the length of the route.

The route would cut through the Holland Marsh section of the Greenbelt, which is nicknamed “Ontario’s vegetable patch” for its fertile soil. Settlers drained much of the marsh for agriculture in the 1920s; the highway would cut through the narrowest point of its remaining wetlands, which are supposed to be protected from development. It would also cross 27 waterways, including the Holland River, which drains into the already-threatened Lake Simcoe.

The bypass last received an environmental assessment in 1997, before the Greenbelt existed and before policies protecting the climate and Lake Simcoe were written. That review found that road salt from the highway could contaminate groundwater and the Lake Simcoe watershed, and that air pollution from the road could be higher than what’s recommended by current standards. It also noted that the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation, which is based on Lake Simcoe, had raised concerns about archaeological sites along the route. 

The Ford government has exempted the project from undergoing another full review, though it has said it is updating the old assessment with a fresh round of studies. As with Highway 413, the province may put shovels in the ground before the studies are complete.  

“The exemption from the Environmental Assessment Act doesn’t give me any confidence that we’re dealing with a high level of scrutiny,” Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition executive director Margaret Prophet said.

“They’re choosing to go more behind closed doors.”

The Torstar/National Observer investigation into the government’s ties to the golf course being spared by the bypass was published on Oct. 31. The golf course is co-owned by MPP Stan Cho’s father. The route change was proposed in April — a few months later, Cho, who represents Willowdale in Toronto, became associate minister of transportation. 

The government said Cho had declared a conflict of interest and neither he nor Mulroney applied pressure or directed ministry staff to alter the highway’s path. It also said the proposed route change was meant to avoid an archaeological site and minimize impact to the Holland River, and was done by ministry staff working with external consultants.

The story touched off a firestorm at Queen’s Park.

“Why should anyone trust the integrity of this government’s transportation planning decisions, when they seem to be driven by the private interests of landowners with ties to the PC Party?” NDP MPP Catherine Fife asked in question period the next morning.

Ford fired back, calling the bypass “exactly the type of project this province needs.”

“The Liberals and NDP are against building roads. They’re against building highways,” the premier said. “If it was up to them, they’d vote against a cow pasture… We’re a party of building infrastructure, and we’ll get this province moving again.”

On Nov. 2, the provincial NDP also surfaced a photo of Cho and Mulroney visiting the golf course in March, a month before the government proposed rerouting the bypass. The party filed a complaint with Ontario’s integrity cOn Nov. 2, the provincial NDP also surfaced a photo of Cho and Mulroney visiting the golf course in March, a month before the government proposed rerouting the bypass. The party filed a complaint with Ontario’s integrity commissioner the same day, alleging that Cho, Mulroney and Ford had breached ethics guidelines. The government denied the allegations, and the commissioner later cleared them of any wrongdoing.

In response, Mulroney defended the government, reiterating that she hadn’t consulted with Cho about the route. “Minister Cho and his family, immigrants to Canada, have worked hard to contribute greatly to our community,” she added.

“They are success stories that should be celebrated. The depictions of the Chos as anything but success stories is unacceptable.”

What happens next on Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass

On Nov. 4, the provincial government announced it was upping its investments in its highway program, which includes Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass. It plans to spend $8.6 billion until 2023-2024, which likely would not be enough to finish both projects. At the same time, the Tories pledged to spend even more on public transit.

A coalition of local groups asked a second time for the federal government to conduct its own assessment of the Bradford Bypass. The law allows multiple requests if there’s new information — the groups argued that because the Ford government exempted the highway from the provincial environmental assessment process since the last request from environmental groups, circumstances had changed. 

They also argued that the Torstar/National Observer investigation into the project caused “escalating public concern,” which is one of the criteria Ottawa could use if it decided to conduct its own review. The groups hoped federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault — a former climate activist whose mandate letter specifically called on him to protect Lake Simcoe — would be more open to stepping in, but he declined the request on Feb. 10. 

The minister’s office did not directly answer when asked whether the decision conflicted with his mandate letter. The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada said in a statement that the project would still be subject to provincial studies and the federal Fisheries Act, which applies to construction and maintenance near any fish-bearing water.

Though the Ford government is continuing to push forward with the project, its opponents are still trying other avenues to stop it. On March 14, 2022 seven environmental and community groups filed a court challenge of Guilbeault’s decision, alleging that it was not based on evidence: included among them are Environmental Defence, Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition and Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition, all represented by Ecojustice.

Federal Court Judge Angela Furlanetto sided with the groups on April 20, 2022, finding that Guilbeault’s decision didn’t meet the “threshold for transparency, intelligibility and justification and is unreasonable as a result.” However, Furlanetto stopped short of throwing out the minister’s choice out entirely, meaning that it remains valid.

Zoryana Cherwick, a spokesperson for Ecojustice, said the judgement may clear the way for the environmental and community groups make a third request for the federal environment minister to look at the Bradford Bypass. Guilbeault’s office didn’t immediately answer a request for comment.

Prophet said it’s clear no more big highways should be built if the Ontario government wants to protect waterways and the climate.

“We have done such a good job of brainwashing the average person (to believe) that highways are a net benefit to all of us, which isn’t the case,” she said. “It’s just not right.”

Updated March 21, 2022, at 12:30 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include news that seven environmental and community groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to challenge Guilbeault’s decision not to subject the Bradford Bypass to a federal review.

Updated Nov. 16, 2021, at 1:39 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include the second public request for a federal assessment of the Bradford Bypass, and the NDP request to the Auditor General to investigate the planning and procurement processes of both highways.

Updated on Feb. 15, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. ET: This story was updated to include the results of the integrity commissioner’s investigation into the routing of the Bradford Bypass, and details of the federal government’s second decision not to intervene with the project.

Updated on April 26, 2022 at 11:53 a.m. ET: This story was updated to include news that the government decided to route Highway 413 through a conservation reserve against the advice of consultants.

Updated on April 25, 2023 at 3:20 p.m. ET: This story was updated to include news of a Federal Court decision on a challenge of Guilbeault’s decision not to give the Bradford Bypass an impact assessment.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A few days before the Ontario government delivered its latest economic update, the provincial environment minister was at COP26, the annual international summit where world leaders address the global climate crisis.

The minister, David Piccini, spent his time in Glasgow discussing the climate crisis and “using this opportunity to build international partnerships for Ontario’s clean industry,” his office said. 

As the conference wrapped up its first week, the Ford government served up a fall economic statement that was scant on investments in climate action.

The fall economic statement is a precursor to the province’s annual budget, outlining how Premier Doug Ford wants to shape the province’s economic recovery from COVID-19 as Ontario gears up for its next election in 2022.

There were only four explicit mentions of climate change measures in the 198-page document, titled “Build Ontario.” Instead, its topline items are the construction of two highways — mentioned 58 times — that critics say would be environmentally destructive, as well as a contentious road to the Ring of Fire region in far Northern Ontario, which the Ford government is hoping to open up for mining.  

When pressed by The Narwhal about the lack of climate details in the document, Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy said the government is “doing a lot” for the environment, without offering specifics.

“We’re going to continue to focus on lowering carbon emissions,” he said. “One of the ways you do that is by building public transit and getting cars off the road. One of the ways you do that is by investing in electric vehicles.” 

“We’re cleaning up parks, we’re cleaning up water, we’re cleaning up rivers and lakes, and we’re not going to relent in that regard,” Bethlenfalvy added.

The investment in new roads would put more money into Canada’s second largest sources of greenhouse gas pollution. The transportation sector makes up more than 25 per cent of the country’s total annual emissions in 2019, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. This total is slightly less than the oil and gas sector, which made up just over 26 per cent of the country’s annual greenhouse gas pollution in 2019.

Bethlenfalvy sees the prospect of new roads and highway infrastructure differently.

“It’s a plan that dreams big but then lays out a clear path to take us there,” he said. “We are ready to build bigger. We are ready to build faster than ever before.”

Critics are unimpressed with the financial statement, noting it offers few investments in green initiatives that would help reduce environmental impacts. “The premier thinks the road to recovery from COVID-19 is paving over paradise,” said Mike Schreiner, Ontario Green Party leader. 

“Ontario needs to invest in a green and caring recovery that puts people first, not highways that benefit a handful of wealthy land speculators.” 

We are ready to build bigger. We are ready to build faster than ever before.

Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy

Two paragraphs titled “Protecting the environment for future generations” made broad and vague pledges about how the government is “acting” to fight climate change. This includes financing public transit, weather-resistant infrastructure and energy efficiency and conservation projects through Green Bonds. But these initiatives don’t involve new funding commitments. 

“A tiny paragraph on climate change, can you imagine that?” Liberal MPP Mitzie Hunter said in response. “You’ve chosen instead to double down on highways and bypasses.” 

The financial document also noted the government was “growing the Greenbelt,” an often-mentioned promise that has yet to be laid out in detail. There’s also mention of  “funding a portion of the cost of non-hydro renewable electricity contracts,” which, according to the 2020 provincial budget, will shift approximately 85 per cent of the cost of electricity generated under the green energy contracts from consumers to the province.

Since coming into power, the Ford government has cut a series of environmental and economic policies including cap-and-trade carbon pricing, endangered species protections, wind farms, the environmental commissioner’s office and more. The government has also said time and time again that it is serious about climate action.

A plan for Ontario highways and the Ring of Fire

Ford’s economic recovery plan hinges on the construction of the 413 and the Bradford Bypass, both of which would pass through the protected Greenbelt. The 413 would connect the Toronto suburbs of Vaughan and Milton; the bypass would run a shorter path between the two main highways leading north of Toronto. The government has said new highways would relieve congestion issues, although studies have shown that more roads don’t reduce traffic. 

The government wants “shovels in the ground today,” Bethlenfalvy said, adding that neither project would be tolled. “We are saying yes to highways that will get Ontarians out of gridlock.” 

For the first time Thursday, the government allocated funding for the projects — its last budget didn’t earmark funds for them at all — although it remained mum about the full costs of building the highways. 

The PCs are upping the investments in its highway program to move both projects forward, to the tune of $2.6 billion more this year and $1.6 billion over the following five years. The program includes the 413, the bypass, bridge work and other highway expansion projects, and of the $1.6 billion, $474 million would go to bridges, not new highways. 

Overall, the government said it has set aside $8.6 billion for highway infrastructure until 2023-2024, which likely wouldn’t be enough to get the projects built in their entirety. The 413 alone is projected to cost between $6 billion and $10 billion and the bypass would cost at least $800 million, though the government declined to confirm cost estimates Thursday.

Horwath accused the government of pushing the highways forward to benefit developers over climate concerns. Access to highways tends to drive up land values.

“There’s no doubt that the Highway 413 and the Bradford bypass are motivated for political ambition,” Horwath said.

The government pledges multiple times in the document to reduce gridlock through the construction of critical infrastructure such as transit. The province plans to spend nearly three times as much on transit (subways, trains and light-rail projects) over highways over the next 10 years. The government also promises to invest $40 million to boost manufacturing jobs for workers, without specifying how many of these will be clean or green jobs.

But these investments and promises were made previously.

The new document also says mining development in the Ring of Fire region in Northern Ontario south of Hudson Bay will drive the province’s economic recovery out of the pandemic. Deposits of minerals from the region could be used to make batteries for electric cars — in the fall economic statement, the government said it wants Ontario to be “one of North America’s premier juridictions for responsibly sourced critical minerals.” But it doesn’t allocate any new funding for the task, asking instead for the federal government to match the $1-billion Ontario has already pledged. 

So far, various governments’ efforts to mine the Ring of Fire haven’t worked out. The area is located more than 500 km northeast of Thunder Bay in the James Bay lowlands. There are no permanent roads to it — the land is boggy, difficult to build on and lacks electricity. Governments have claimed the deposits in the Ring of Fire could be worth $60 billion, but that total is based on unverified information, and questions remain about whether the minerals there would be worth the cost of reaching them. 

“It is time to get the road to the Ring of Fire built,” Bethlenfalvy said Thursday. “We hope the federal government is prepared to come to the table… We hope the opposition parties will stop saying no to the Ring of Fire.” 

While some First Nations in the area support development, others have called for a moratorium on it, and projects there are undergoing several lengthy environmental assessments. Much of the region is peatland, a vital carbon sink and a sensitive habitat. 

Though the government used the fall economic statement as an opportunity to re-up its plan to expand the Greenbelt, originally announced earlier this year, it didn’t allocate funding for it.

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Ontarians should be concerned by the vast changes that are being made to provincial environmental legislation as they will have serious consequences on the natural spaces we cherish.

In an overarching attempt to “modernize” Ontario’s environmental plan, Premier Doug Ford and his government have made moves to pave the way for development across the province by reducing so-called “red tape.” The government is undercutting the Endangered Species Act and the Environmental Assessment Act, and limiting community engagement in northern Ontario planning decisions by repealing the Far North Act.

Despite the staggering rollbacks, these changes have received little attention in the mainstream media. Under the umbrella of these “modernization” efforts, the common thread of reducing red tape for business and development ventures is apparent in the Ford government’s proposed changes.

The (critically) Endangered Species Act

The Endangered Species Act aims to protect and enhance Ontario’s biodiversity. It relies on scientific evidence to identify important species and habitats in need of added protection, and it regulates activities through permits.

For example, the peregrine falcon recovery strategy identifies historical, unoccupied, current and newly discovered cliff nests, and nests built on human-created structures as peregrine falcon habitat, protecting a range of one to three kilometres.

Environmental organizations praised the original act as a “gold standard in species at risk legislation” because it regulates activities based on their benefit to species. With habitat degradation and loss as the prevailing causes of wildlife decline in Ontario, regulating development is important to ensure species have large and continuous habitats.

The Ford government’s changes will minimize the Ministry of Natural Resource’s capacity to monitor the cumulative impacts of projects such as housing development, resource extraction and road building, and to plan effectively at regional scales. The legislative changes would give the minister undue flexibility along with the authority to suspend protective actions up to three years for newly listed species at risk.

Under the proposed approach, Ontario would no longer be responsible for species with wide geographic ranges that extend beyond the province’s borders. Instead, the Endangered Species Act would consider the overall condition of a species no matter where it lived.

For example, the Blanding’s turtle is endangered in Ontario but thriving in Nebraska, so an updated Ontario provincial policy would offer the species no protection. It would also ignore the role that ecological corridors play in connecting patches of habitat that have become fragmented.

As well, when new species or habitat protections are added to the Species At Risk Ontario (SARO) list, existing permit-holders would be able to proceed with operations for 12 months before amending their permit. Currently, operations cease under these circumstances. These changes would undermine the act’s integrity by advancing the interests of developers, rather than prioritizing the protection of Ontario’s biodiversity.

The Far North Act goes south

The Far North Act, originally implemented in 2010, provided a mechanism for joint land-use planning processes between First Nations and Ontario. Although the Far North Act faced challenges, the current proposal to repeal the act prioritizes “reducing red-tape and restrictions on important economic development projects.”

It fails to recognize Indigenous jurisdiction and abandons Ontario’s environmental protection and conservation goals, including climate change mitigation strategies, in Ontario’s Far North, which covers 42 per cent of Ontario’s land mass and where 90 per cent of the population are from First Nations.

Antiquating the environmental assessment act

Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Act was introduced in 1976. In 2016, the Auditor General of Ontario noted that the province is the only jurisdiction in Canada that does not require environmental assessments for private-sector projects, such as mining or chemical manufacturing, which can have long-term environmental impacts, including impacts on water quality and aquatic ecosystems. The report also highlighted that the cumulative effects of multiple projects are not usually assessed.

Rather than addressing these shortcomings, the Ford government has criticized the act for being “burdensome, discouraging job-creators from coming to Ontario to do business.”

The proposal to modernize the act aims to streamline the process for developers, exempting low-risk activities from environmental assessments and re-categorizing what activities will be considered low-risk.

For example, the transfer of public land to private ownership is currently categorized as a medium-risk activity, and the proposal suggests this should instead be categorized as low-risk. This would mean public land transfers to private hands would no longer go through a mandatory environmental assessment.

Allowing private projects to slip under the radar of regional planning efforts places the burden of environmental costs and cumulative effects on communities already disproportionately impacted by industrial activities.

Open for risky business

Moving too quickly on major development projects while not acting quickly enough to protect endangered species and ecosystems may instead streamline irreversible consequences.

Amid the clear cutting of this legislative landscape, the general need for increased transparency and public engagement on these matters stands stark.

Ford’s resolve to shift decision-making authority away from First Nations in the Far North and reduce dependence on science-based decision-making subjects environmental protection to political will and political “advisory roles” at arm’s length from conservation.

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Ontario’s electoral watchdog has been asked to probe whether Canada’s largest oil and gas lobby group broke the law during the recent election campaign.

Two organizations recently filed a formal request for Ontario’s Chief Electoral Officer to launch an investigation into an election advertising blitz by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), Canada’s largest oil and gas lobby group.

The ad campaign targeted voters in 13 Ontario “Liberal swing ridings,” according to a flyer distributed by CAPP officials at a government-sponsored summit in Vaughan, near Toronto. The campaign ended a few days before the June 7, 2018 election that brought Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives to power.

Greenpeace Canada and Democracy Watch have laid out details of CAPP’s campaign in Ontario, which included billboards in “high visibility locations” in the Toronto area and 400,000 pieces of pro-pipeline literature sent to households via Canada Post.

The campaign, which ran between April 8 and May 29, was uncovered in June by an ongoing National Observer / Toronto Star / Global News investigation.

Ontario’s Election Finances Act requires registration as a third-party advertiser if an individual or entity that is not a candidate or political party spends $500 or more on ads that address issues raised by parties or candidates.

The political spending has to occur during the six months before the election campaign period, which would be Nov. 9, 2017 to May 9, 2018, or during the election campaign period, which was May 9 to June 7.

In their submission to Elections Ontario, the two organizations called CAPP’s ground campaign an attempt “clearly aimed at affecting voters support for 8 political parties” that was “unprecedented.”

According to Elections Ontario’s policies, the next step is for Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essensa to acknowledge receipt to the person or body in question, if he decides to investigate.

Ontario PC, oilpatch campaign too similar, say groups

The ads in question did not identify CAPP as the main funder. They were fronted by a group called Canada’s Energy Citizens, which was created and managed by CAPP to drive public support for oilpatch-friendly policies in Canada.

Neither CAPP nor Canada’s Energy Citizens were registered as third-party advertisers for the recent election campaign.

The advertising material urges Canadians to “tell your federal MP to support the Trans Mountain Pipeline” alongside the message, “Is Canada closed for business?”

The messaging, according to the complaint, touched on provincial election issues, such as carbon pricing and whether environmental regulations are affecting business in Ontario.

Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative party campaigned against carbon pricing throughout the election, and is in the process of repealing the province’s cap and trade system.

An example of the messaging in the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producer’s campaign in Ontario in April and May 2018. Image courtesy of CAPP

Parallel to the time CAPP’s “closed for business” billboards were displayed in the Toronto region and on social media, Ford was campaigning that he would be “going down to the border and putting up a big neon sign saying ‘Ontario is open for business.’ ”

“I’m concerned that we’re seeing an increasingly desperate oil industry importing into Canada the front groups and big-money politics that have been deployed so effectively in the United States to delay action on climate change,” said Keith Stewart, a senior strategist with Greenpeace Canada who is one of the complainants.

“Gutting Ontario’s climate plan might prop up their profits for a few more years, but at what cost?”

CAPP spokeswoman Chelsie Klassen said they had not heard of the official request for investigation. “We haven’t been notified of any requests and will not speculate,” she wrote in an e-mail, declining further comment.

Previously, Klassen told National Observer CAPP’s campaign “aligned with the federal decision on a federally-regulated pipeline deemed in the national interest, targeting federal Members of Parliament, not candidates of the Ontario election.”

The period in which the ad campaign ran, April 8 to May 29, was the same period in which the federal government was deciding on the fate of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.

But Stewart argues CAPP’s campaign only took place in Ontario Liberal swing ridings.

In the Elections Ontario complaint, Stewart cites social media posted from Canada’s Energy Citizens urging the public to contact both federal and provincial representatives about concerns pertaining to energy issues and Canada’s business operations.

For example, an April 30 tweet on ‘competitiveness’ from Energy Citizens issued a call to action for individuals to contact “all levels of government” to address “competitiveness.”

Some of the tweets used the #onpoli hashtag, Stewart said, were therefore targeting people interested in Ontario politics.

“It is also worth noting that there were five twitter postings from Energy Citizens attacking carbon pricing on June 5 and 6, immediately prior to the Ontario election,” he added in this submission.

Chelsie Klassen, Media Relations Manager for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers introduces president and CEO Tim McMillan at a press conference in the Charles Lynch Press Theatre in the Parliament of Canada in Ottawa to talk about its economic report for A Global Vision for Canadian Oil and Natural Gas, on Monday, February 26th, 2018. Photo: Alex Tétreault / National Observer

Elections Ontario ‘must strongly enforce the law’

Both groups believe CAPP’s lobbying efforts meet the definition of “political advertising” stated by Elections Ontario. The groups also believe the oilpatch exceeded the allotted spending amount for such a campaign.

According to Ontario’s Election Finances Act, each ad is required to identify both who is running the ad, and who paid for it. Ad spending cannot exceed $600,000 overall (or $24,000 in any riding) during the pre-campaign period or $100,000 overall (or $4,000 per riding) during the campaign period.

“The disclosure requirements and spending limits are there to prevent big businesses and other wealthy interests from undermining fair and democratic elections,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of the Ottawa-based Democracy Watch.

“Elections Ontario must strongly enforce the law and not create any technical loopholes that can be exploited by these wealthy interests.”

Both Conacher and Stewart note that CAPP’s efforts to directly target “13 Liberal swing ridings” indicates “a strategy that includes both partisan considerations and an interest in affecting electoral outcomes.”

Previously, electoral experts told National Observer Ontario and the federal government have identical ridings (outside of four ridings in the far north, where two federal electoral districts have been divided into four provincial electoral districts), and voters commonly confuse federal and provincial jurisdiction.

“As a result, it is clear that the campaign was not within the normal parameters of promotion of a program or activity — it was clearly an explicitly political advertising campaign,” write Conacher and Stewart in their joint request for investigation.

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