Limits to Growth in the 2005 Provincial Policy Statement
The issue of future population growth is an enormously significant public policy choice that has received little debate. The current planning system operates on the assumption that the population of communities will increase. The 2005 Provincial Policy Statement ("PPS") does encourage intensification and redevelopment, in addition to limiting the consideration of the expansion or creation of new settlement areas only during the time of comprehensive municipal plan review. However, the underlying assumption of the PPS – in tandem with “growth plans” under the proposed Places to Grow Act – is that Ontario’s population should increase and that that is a sound policy choice.
To meet the needs of current and future residents, the PPS states that “planning authorities shall… maintain at all times the ability to accommodate residential growth for a minimum of 10 years” and “land with servicing capacity sufficient to provide at least a 3 year supply of residential units.” Further, the PPS directs that “sufficient land shall be made available… to accommodate an appropriate range and mix of employment opportunities, housing and other land uses to meet projected needs for a time horizon of up to 20 years.” According to MAH, this capacity will be based on population growth numbers that are established by upper-tier municipalities. In turn, the upper-tier municipalities generate their numbers based on population modelling done by the Ontario government.
The Ministry of Finance produces detailed population projections for Ontario for the 30-year period following every national census. Statistics Canada conducts national censuses every five years. MOF states that “these population projections do not represent Ontario Government policy targets or desired population outcomes; nor do they incorporate explicit economic assumptions. The projections are developed to provide to Ontario ministries, municipalities and other interested users an outlook of population growth for Ontario. . . . The Ministry’s demographic assumptions for growth reflect past trends in all streams of migration and the continuing evolution of long-term fertility and mortality patterns.”
While MOF may take the position that their population models do not constitute policy targets, they are in fact being used as such by other ministries and, by extension, municipalities. The PPS has clearly been designed to incorporate the assumptions and expectations of these population models. More importantly, the PPS obligates individual municipalities to plan for this growth without giving them the ability to develop plans based on minimal or no growth options. For example, it is not by coincidence that Bill 136 is literally entitled the Places to Grow Act. To a degree, this issue does go beyond the powers of the Ontario government as it is the federal government that regulates immigration to Canada.
The fallacy of this approach to planning is that the more the Ministry of Finance predicts certain regions in Ontario will grow in population size, the more municipalities are forced to plan for these increases without being able to set limits to growth. Further, under the Places to Grow Act, MPIR’s growth plans are binding and municipalities may not appeal them.
These policy-driven growth pressures do make the Greenbelt Plan all that more important, as settlement areas outside the Greenbelt are not permitted to expand into it, unless its boundaries are altered during a 10-year review.
This begs a larger question: to what degree can certain regions in Ontario, especially southern Ontario, sustain and assimilate this relatively unchecked growth?
Unchecked growth affects not only a myriad of environmental issues, but can also shape the character of Ontario irrevocably. Moreover, many areas with infrastructure in northern and rural Ontario are in fact experiencing depopulation. The ECO also notes that neither the Ministry of Finance nor the Ministry of Public Infrastructure Renewal are prescribed ministries under the EBR despite the fact that they clearly have environmentally significant roles to play in Ontario’s land use planning system.
| Recommendation 3:
The ECO recommends that MAH undertake public consultation on the government’s population growth modeling and projections in order to provide a transparent context for land use planning decisions. |
| This is an article from the 2004/05 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2005. "2005 Provincial Policy Statement." Planning our Landscape, ECO Annual Report, 2004-05. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 39-47.
