reconciling our priorities reconciling reconciling annual report 2006–2007 our environmental commissioner of ontario environmental commissioner of ontario environmental annual report 2006–2007 priorities This Annual Report is printed on Canadian-made Rolland Enviro100 paper manufactured from 100% post-consumer waste fibre, is Process Chlorine Free (PCF) and used BioGas in its production (an alternative “green energy” source produced from decomposing waste collected from landfill sites) to reduce greenhouse emissions and the depletion of the ozone layer. Rolland Enviro100 saves the harvesting of mature trees, reduces solid waste that would have gone into landfill sites, uses 80% less water than conven- tional paper manufacturing and helps reduce air and water pollution. Certified Processed Chlorine Free 100% Post-Consumer Waste Fibre Recyclable Where facilities Exist Green Energy Source Environmental Commissioner of Ontario 1075 Bay Street, Suite 605 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2B1 Telephone: 416-325-3377 Fax: 416-325-3370 Toll Free: 1-800-701-6454 www.eco.on.ca Disponible en français ISSN 1205-7649 ECO Staff List 2006/2007 ROBERT BLAQUIERE Systems, Webmaster & Case Manager EMILY CHATTEN Policy & Decision Analyst BEV DOTTIN Information Officer DENNIS DRAPER Senior Policy Advisor HAYLEY EASTO Communications & Outreach Coordinator LIZ FARKAS Library Assistant CARRIE HACKETT Resource Centre Librarian GREG JENISH Policy & Decision Analyst MICHELLE KASSEL Policy & Decision Analyst PETER LAPP Executive Assistant LYNDA LUKASIK Policy & Decision Analyst DAVID MCROBERT In-House Counsel/Sr. Policy Advisor RACHEL MELZER Policy & Decision Analyst CYNTHIA ROBINSON Office Administrator NADINE SAWH Case Management Assistant ELLEN SCHWARTZEL Senior Manager – Policy Analysis LISA SHULTZ Policy & Decision Analyst CHRIS WILKINSON Policy & Decision Analyst FIZZZ DESIGN CORP. Designed and Produced by annual report 2006–2007 environmental commissioner of ontario 225 Environmental Commissaire à Commissioner l’environnement of Ontario de l’Ontario Gord Miller, B.Sc., M.Sc. Gord Miller, B.Sc., M.Sc. Commissioner Commissaire November 2007 The Honourable Michael A. Brown Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario Room 180, Legislative Building Legislative Assembly Province of Ontario Queen’s Park Dear Speaker: In accordance with Section 58 of the Environmental Bill of Rights, 1993, I am pleased to present the 2006/2007 annual report of the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario for your submission to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Sincerely, Gord Miller Environmental Commissioner of Ontario 1075 Bay Street, Suite 605 1075, rue Bay, bureau 605 Toronto, Ontario M5S 2B1 Toronto (Ontario) M5S 2B1 Tel: (416) 325-3377 Tél: (416) 325-3377 Fax: (416) 325-3370 Téléc. (416) 325-3370 1-800-701-6454 1-800-701-6454 Table of Contents Commissioner’s Message: Reconciling Our Priorities (is no piece of cake) | 4 Part 1 | The Environmental Bill of Rights | 6 The ECO Recognition Award | 10 Education | 11 Part 2 | Significant Issues | 12 Irreconcilable Priorities: The Challenge of Creating Sustainable Communities in Southern Ontario | 14 Living Sustainably Within a Watershed, OR Pushing Beyond Natural Limits? | 22 Creating a Sustainable Transportation System, OR Paving Over the Landscape? | 28 Protecting Wetlands, OR Draining for Development? | 35 Preserving Natural Areas, OR Extracting Aggregates Wherever They Lie? | 44 Growth and the Environment of Southern Ontario: Some Final Thoughts | 49 Developing Priorities: The Challenge of Creating a Sustainable Planning System in Northern Ontario | 51 A Region of Continental Ecological Importance | 57 The Need to Systematically Plan for the North? | 58 Land Use Planning in the Northern Boreal Initiative (NBI) Area | 60 Forestry and Wood Supply | 61 Reforming Mining Law | 64 Big Picture Approach to Planning | 69 Conserving Woodland Caribou: The Benchmark for Northern Sustainability | 75 Ontario’s Electricity System: The Ministry of Energy Proposes a Massive Overhaul | 81 Updates | 87 The Recreational Fishery: A Risky Streamlining of the Rules? | 87 Ontario Gives a Big Boost to Glass Recycling | 90 Missed Opportunity on Environmental Assessment Reforms? | 92 Reforming the Endangered Species Act | 96 Part 3 | Ministry Environmental Decisions | 98 Protected Areas Law: Ecological Integrity as the First Priority | 99 Planning Act Reforms: Providing Municipalities with New Tools for Sustainability | 107 MNR’s Aggregate Resources Program Manual | 113 annual report 2006–2007 environmental commissioner of ontario 2 The Clean Water Act | 118 The Whitefeather Forest and Adjacent Areas Community-based Land Use Strategy | 124 Interesting Instruments on the Registry | 128 Waste Pelletization – Approval for a New and Controversial Plant | 128 Part 4 | Applications for Review and Investigation | 132 Road Salt: Can Ice-Free Roads and Environmental Protection Be Reconciled? | 136 Our Cratered Landscape: Can Pits and Quarries be Rehabilitated? | 139 Review of the Regulatory Framework for Sewage Biosolids | 144 Can Ecological Integrity and Logging be Reconciled in Our Flagship Parks? | 148 Portlands Energy Centre | 150 Part 5 | The Environmental Registry | 154 Quality of Information | 156 Unposted Decisions | 159 Information Notices | 163 Exception Notices | 165 Late Decision Notices and Undecided Proposals | 166 Part 6 | Ministry Progress | 168 Keeping the EBR in Sync with New Laws and Government Initiatives | 169 Progress Report on Statements of Environmental Values (SEVs) | 176 Ministry Responses to 2005–06 Recommendations | 176 Ministry Cooperation | 186 Part 7 | Appeals, Lawsuits and Whistleblowers | 188 Part 8 | Developing Issues | 196 Flooding Hazards: Prevent and Mitigate, or Compensate and Rehabilitate? | 197 Part 9 | Financial Statement | 202 2006/07 ECO Recommendations | 206 Ministry Comments | 208 Index | 221 annual report 2006–2007 environmental commissioner of ontario 3 A Message from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario reconciling our priorities (is no piece of cake) The expression is to “have one’s cake and eat it too.” It means to desire two incompatible or mutually exclusive things. The curious logic of this proverb is a corruption of the more sensible sixteenth century expression “wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?” The answer to this conundrum in the context of planning Ontario’s landscape is ‘we wolde.’ Cake is a very nice thing. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t like cake. But once it’s eaten, all that’s left are a few crumbs on a plate, an uncomfortably full feeling and, perhaps, an illogical longing for even more cake. The ‘cake’ on the Southern Ontario landscape is the relatively flat land with deep soils underlain by sturdy bedrock that allows us to cheaply dispose of our solid wastes and build great cities and suburbs supported by elaborate infrastructures of roads and pipes and wires. It is the close at hand glacial deposits of sand and gravel, as well as the dolostone bedrock of the Niagara Escarpment, that provides the raw materials used to create many of our buildings and structures. The cake is clean, fresh water that can be drawn from the earth or the streams or those huge reservoirs left as a legacy of the Wisconsin Glaciation we call the Great Lakes. And, it is the use of such aquifers, streams and lakes to assimilate and cleanse the effluents of our society’s wasteful activities and excesses. But, the cake is also other things we desire and feel we deserve. It is the prime agricultural land – so limited in Ontario – that produces our food, supports a farm economy and provides a way of life for so many families. It is the mosaic of forests, wetlands and wild spaces intertwined with that farmland that sustains a rich native flora and fauna, as well as providing an essential staging zone for tens of millions of birds migrating between the tropics and Ontario’s boreal or the arctic beyond. annual report 2006–2007 environmental commissioner of ontario 4 The cake includes the water systems that, beyond their utilitarian value, we want to support healthy aquatic ecosystems. We want the fish in the Great Lakes to be fishable and edible. We want our children to play along streams populated by waterfowl, turtles, frogs and creatures of all types that enrich their experiences and their development. And we want those spring fed cold headwater streams where brook trout lurk under old logs waiting to be coaxed out by just the right fly. The cake is also the vistas – the beauty of the almost uninterrupted forested escarpment stretching from Niagara Falls to the island of Manitou. In Northern Ontario the “cake” may be different, but the incompatible desires are the same. We want the wealth extracted from the forests in the form of lumber, construction sheeting and paper. We want the jobs associated with mining minerals from the earth. And we want to extract the energy potential available as millions of cubic metres of water cascade off the Canadian Shield into the Hudson Bay Lowlands. But at the same time we want to preserve the integrity of the boreal forest, perhaps the last and greatest closed canopy forest left on the planet. We want to ensure that sufficient roadless forested areas remain to provide future generations with the unique spiritual experience of true wilderness that is so fundamental to our Canadian heritage. We want our First Nations in the remote north to have a better life and have full access to the opportunities of our economic system, while at the same time preserving