Cleaning Up the Great Lakes: The Canada Ontario Agreement 2006 Update
The 2002 Canada Ontario Agreement Respecting the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem (COA) is a five-year agreement between federal and provincial government agencies on restoring and protecting the Lakes, aimed at helping Canada to meet its obligations under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement with the U.S. (GLWQA). The provincial signatories are Ontario’s Ministries of the Environment, Natural Resources, and Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
In our 1999/2000 annual report, the ECO reviewed the province’s performance under the previous COA, signed in 1994, and found that most targets established in the Agreement were not met. In 2002/2003, we reviewed the new COA and found many causes for concern. Among other things, the Agreement lacked firm ongoing commitment to funding and staffing, transparency or independent review of implementation, and a strategy to address non-native invasive species. With the current COA scheduled to expire in March 2007, the ECO is concerned that the parties to this Agreement may again fail to meet their Great Lakes commitments.
Great Lakes, great problems
Human activities – and the chemical pollution, habitat destruction and water consumption they often entail – are growing sources of stress to the ecosystems of the Lakes. Some Great Lakes problems have been aggressively addressed, resulting in real and dramatic improvements; examples include decreased loadings of several persistent toxins (PCBs, DDTs, dioxins) and of phosphorus. However, other environmental issues persist, or have become more serious: some beaches are closed because of bacterial contamination; toxic sediments have not been cleaned up; shoreline habitat has been lost to urbanization and cottage development; invasive species disrupt native ecosystems; and watersheds and airsheds around the Basin continue to load pollution from cities, farms and other industries into the Lakes. The 2002 COA sets out a framework for tackling many of these problems. The 2002 COA contains four Annexes dealing with (1) Areas of Concern, or priority locations for clean-up, (2) pollution, (3) lakewide issues, and (4) monitoring the Lakes and managing information. Each Annex includes a few overarching goals and the results needed to meet the goals. The Agreement also lists 181 activities or deliverables, and notes which party is responsible for each. While a few of the results and deliverables are specific and time-bound (“an 85 per cent reduction in mercury releases com- pared to releases in 1988 by 2005”), many are far less quantifiable commitments – for example, to conduct research, provide opportunities for consultation, develop outreach and education materials, establish issue teams as needed, or provide technical support or (unspecified) funding.
Transparency and public involvement
A key public concern raised during consultations on the 2002 COA was the need for public involvement. The Agreement included the principle of ensuring public and stakeholder participation. Environment Canada assured the ECO in 2002/2003 that it was forming a stakeholder group, and the Environmental Registry decision notice posted by MOE announcing the COA stated that the parties would establish “a stakeholder advisory committee to ensure public involvement, transparency and accountability for activities under the Agreement.” While members of the public are engaged in many specific projects under the COA, no such stakeholder group was created. Instead, a Great Lakes Innovation Committee was set up, with invited academic, industry, municipal, environmental and other representatives, “to bring innovative approaches to over- coming barriers and take advantage of opportunities to make progress on the COA goals and results.” There does not appear to be any mechanism through this committee for ensuring transparency and involvement of the general public.
When the province announced $51.5M to implement the five-year Agreement, it did not clarify to the public how that money was to be allocated, nor was there any public document indicating that provincial and federal funding commitments would be sufficient to meet the commitments of the Agreement. Most of the provincial allocation has by now been spent. It is not clear how much was invested in cleaning up polluted sediments, in funding actions by non-governmental partners, or in offsetting ministries’ own budget constraints to maintain their core programs on Great Lakes protection.
In June 2005, the parties released a COA update to the public, reporting on the 2002/2003 period. The report discussed high-level goals and results, giving examples of activities and anecdotes about successful projects, but it did not provide an accounting of which goals were on track for completion, nor of the 181 specific activities committed to under the Agreement. In contrast, an internal status report finalized in May 2005 – and not released to the public – indicated that the agencies do not expect to achieve some of COA’s goals and results.
The ECO has in the past called for an independent review of COA progress and continues to be concerned about the lack of transparency.
The Great Lakes remediation roller coaster
Other major agreements on protecting the Great Lakes, such as the Canada-U.S. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and the state-provincial Great Lakes Charter Annex implementing agreements, are long-term agreements with specific timelines for meeting their commitments, and provisions for periodic review and possible renegotiation. The COA model, in contrast, has led to a series of time-limited agreements, with gaps between the expiry of one and the signing and funding of the next. Already, during the fifth year of the Agreement, activity under the COA has been winding down: ministries planned fewer COA projects for 2006/2007; community partners were informed that there was no more funding to support collaborative projects such as wetlands research; and government Great Lakes scientists funded through COA were let go or advised to start looking for other work.
Staff in Great Lakes program areas have been reduced to a skeleton crew in many of the responsible ministries. In MOE, for example, not only restoration projects but also core functions such as Great Lakes science, long-term environmental monitoring, and coordination of community clean-up efforts have, due to lack of adequate core staff and funds, been relying heavily on COA resources. Seventy-five per cent of the people of Ontario live and work in the Great Lakes Basin, and Ontarians have the right to expect their government to meet its Great Lakes clean-up commitments. The ECO is concerned by indications that Ontario is neglecting to meet its stewardship obligations to our Great Lakes.
| Recommendation 1:
The ECO recommends that MOE ensure transparency and a mechanism of public involvement and accountability in the new COA agreement. |
| This is an article from the 2005/06 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2006. "Cleaning Up the Great Lakes: The Canada Ontario Agreement." Neglecting our Obligations, ECO Annual Report, 2005-06. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 20-22.
