Heather Wright/The Independent

There are big concerns about the Ontario’s plans to roll back environmental rights and remove municipalities right to approve large new landfills.

On its first day back at the Ontario Legislature after a 21-week summer break, the Ford government introduced Bill 140. It strips the rights of municipalities to approve large, new landfills in their communities.

Right now, the Environmental Assessment Act requires any landfill company to get the approval for a new site from municipalities within 3.5 kilometres of where they intended to build before it finishes its Environmental Assessment process. The bill, which is open for public comment on the Environmental Registry of Ontario, removes that.

“No other jurisdiction has a mandatory municipal support requirement for landfill proposals,” says the province in the ERO posting. “Ontario continues to recognize the importance of local input. Municipalities can still express their views to landfill proponents and the Ministry during consultation that continues to be required during the EA process.”

The province says the move would create “more certainty for new proposals for large landfills to come forward.”

Bill 140 also removes all the current public participation rules under the Environmental Bill of Rights including making sure the Minister of the Environment takes “every reasonable step” to ensure environmental values are considered in decisions which might significantly affect the environment.

“The measures we are bringing forward in this bill would modernize environmental oversight, reduce duplication and help build the waste management capacity Ontario critically needs, all while maintaining the strong protections that safeguard our air, land and water,” said Minister Todd McCarthy in a news release. Adding, the changes protect the
environment while keeping Ontario competitive.

Not everyone agrees.

“The Ontario government is proposing to take away your right to protect your community from environmental harm. If passed, Bill 140 would eliminate important and long-held rights of Ontarians to influence environmental decisions and seek investigations of suspected pollution violations,” says Richard Lindgren of the Canadian Environmental Law Association in a statement.

He adds the bill would make it harder for communities to “protect themselves and hold the governments accountable.”

Carolyn Townsend of Environmental Defense Canada says the province is “gutting” the Environmental Bill of Rights, “letting the government create, change or erase regulations and policies that impact public health, the environment or public safety, effective immediately, with no mandatory advance posting on the Environment Registry of Ontario.”

Townsend says developers could move in quickly and “by the time the change is known, some of the damage…would already be done.”

That, she says, can lead to corruption. Ontario Nature points out Bill 140 will repeal the right to review or investigate government decisions affecting the environment and Ontario’s right to sue.

“The rights of Ontarians to participate in environmental decision-making and seek accountability for environmental harms are not red tape. Bill 140 takes away those rights and must be withdrawn or significantly amended,” says Tony Morris, Conservation Policy and Campaigns Director.

The changes are raising alarm bells in Dresden, where citizens have been trying to stop the expansion of a formerly dormant landfill less than one kilometre from town.

Dresden Together says it is monitoring the new bill, adding the previous council supported Dresden’s fight against expansion and it is hopeful the newly-elected mayor and council “will continue that support as this situation unfolds.”

The ERO is accepting public comment on the changes until Nov. 26.