In May 2004, two applicants requested that the Ministry of the Environment review O.Reg. 73/94, the General Regulation under the Environmental Bill of Rights, to determine whether the Ministry of Education (EDU) should be added as a prescribed ministry under the EBR.

When the EBR was first proclaimed in February 1994, the Ministry of Education was not listed as a prescribed ministry in O.Reg. 73/94, and thus the ministry was not required to develop a Statement of Environmental Values (SEV) nor to post notices on the Registry inviting public comments on proposed decisions for environmentally significant Acts and policies. The applicants believe that this decision has had a negative impact on ministry decision-making related to the financing and support of environmental education and outdoor education.

The applicants drew on a previous 1999 application, described in the 2000/2001 ECO annual report (pages 165-166), though they noted that many things had changed since the original 1999 application was filed. They pointed to research delineating a decline in environmental literacy in Ontario and how this can be linked to real world problems, and referred to a number of research studies conducted between 1999 and 2004. One of the applicants, a university professor at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, was the principal researcher for all of the studies. While the applicants did not provide copies of all of the studies, some of them were available in published journals. The application also provided extensive extracts from the studies.

The key research study referred to by the applicants was a 2001 report on ecological literacy at the secondary school level demonstrating that “students in Ontario are not ecologically literate because they are not being taught ecological education.” The applicants explained that between 1988 and 1998, Environmental Science was a discrete subject in the secondary school program in Ontario with its own provincial curriculum guideline for students in grades 10 and 12. In 1998, the Ministry of Education removed Environmental Science from the secondary school curriculum as single-focus, stand-alone courses. Instead, the ministry decided to integrate or “infuse” environmental concepts into other science and geography courses.

The applicants went on to note that Ontario, once a leader in creating environmental education, has now fallen far behind the major initiatives undertaken by other jurisdictions, and put forward various reasons for the decline. There also is “no subject area” taught in Ontario schools that would make Ontarians “more aware of how we could behave” in an ecologically responsible manner, and there is no program to “provide lifelong ecological literacy to the general public.” The applicants go on to argue that “there are few things we can do as a society to protect the environment better than through public education.”

The applicants recommended the creation of a new discipline called “ecological education”: compulsory, discrete courses at the secondary school level and a sequenced and sensitive curriculum, covering Kindergarten to Grade 12. They suggest that in light of the serious challenges the ecosphere faces in the future, “ecological literacy must become the first imperative.” The applicants cited several examples of problems associated with declining ecological knowledge, including:

• The Walkerton deaths and the O’Connor Inquiry, which demonstrate the consequences of inadequate ecological knowledge. The applicants quoted a 2001 article that stated that “not being aware of the facts about environmental problems indicates a lack of knowledge (i.e., lack of education) and a problem with the failure of our institutions to promote an awareness of that knowledge.”
• Lack of action on the Kyoto Agreement. The applicants contend that the imperatives of climate change should provide a strong motivation to policymakers to improve environmental education programs in Ontario’s schools.
• The continual abysmal assessment of Canada as one of the lowest ranked countries in the OECD in terms of environmental performance.

Ministry response

MOE accepted this review in June 2004, and in October 2005, released the results of its review. After consulting with EDU staff and management, MOE determined that the Ministry of Education should prepare a State of Environmental Values and consider it when making environmentally significant decisions. But MOE recommended that other provisions of the EBR should not apply to EDU. MOE prepared a detailed nine-page analysis and attached seven pages of appendices, offering a wide range of arguments to support its position.

MOE noted that during the course of its review, strong public interest was expressed in making the Ministry of Education subject to the EBR, pointing out that approximately 120 individual letters were written to the ministry. MOE went on to observe that making EDU subject to “at least some provisions of the EBR would acknowledge the potential” for EDU to make environmentally significant decisions and would improve the transparency of those decisions.

However, while recognizing that EDU makes “a small number” of policy decisions relating to curriculum and facilities management that could have a significant effect on the environment, MOE also suggested that most of EDU’s decisions are financial and administrative in nature and thus outside the purview of the EBR. MOE indicated that SEV consideration could improve decisions at EDU, but did not provide much detail on how this would be achieved. Presumably, this detail will be forthcoming once EDU develops its draft SEV.

MOE concluded that EDU should not be subject to the Environmental Registry notice and comment processes of the EBR. MOE’s rationale was that EDU has “processes in place for public participation in curriculum development that largely mirror the requirements of the EBR,” and the EBR “was not intended to duplicate existing processes, as evidenced by specific exemptions contained in the Act....”

MOE also concluded that EDU should not be subject to the EBR application for review process, noting that the Ministry of Education established an ongoing five-year cycle of curriculum review in 2003. This review process is intended to ensure that the curriculum remains current, relevant and is age-appropriate from Kindergarten to Grade 12, pointing out that each year the ministry commences reviews in numerous subject areas. MOE claims these reviews allow lead time for development and updating of curriculum and supporting materials.

Stakeholder reaction to MOE’s decision was mixed. Some stakeholders and one of the applicants viewed the decision as a modest breakthrough. Others saw it as narrow and overwhelmingly negative. Earthroots developed an Action Alert in early November 2005 that requested its members to write to MOE and urge that EDU be prescribed for a full range of EBR rights.

In mid-November 2005, partly in response to concern about its October 2005 decision on this EBR application for review, MOE posted a proposal to amend O.Reg. 73/94, making EDU subject to the SEV provisions of the EBR. The proposal notice seemed to hint that the scope of the application of the EBR to EDU might be expanded when the final decision was made. As of June 2006, MOE had not posted a decision notice.

Building a conservation culture in Ontario

MOE’s response to this application for review failed to mention the Ontario government’s plan to create a “culture of conservation” in the province. In January 2004, the Ontario government created a Conservation Action Team (CAT), comprised of 12 parliamentary assistants from eight Ontario government ministries responsible for a broad range of policy and program areas. CAT has been working on initiatives to promote the government’s conservation initiatives across the province by engaging stakeholders from a variety of sectors to seek out and promote the best in conservation ideas and practices, developing an action plan to help the government meet its conservation targets, and identifying barriers to conservation in existing government policies and programs.

In May 2005, the Ministry of Energy released a report titled Building a Conservation Culture in Ontario. The report was compiled by CAT, based on meetings with more than 300 groups and individuals across Ontario. The report’s recommendations included one to “accelerate the introduction of conservation and sustainability into the Kindergarten to grade 12 curricula by encouraging partnerships between teachers and the Ministries of Education, Energy, Environment, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Food to ensure the school curriculum successfully develops a conservation ethic in children.” (Recommendation 16)

ECO Comment

The ECO, the applicants, several non-governmental organizations, academics and some school boards have for many years been asking the province to make EDU subject to the public participation provisions and the applications for review process under the EBR. To this end, MOE’s recommendation was disappointing and perplexing. The ministry disregarded some of the evidence submitted in support of the application and did not respond to some of the issues raised. Defending EDU’s existing framework for curriculum review, MOE dismissed the applicants’ request to make decisions on environmental and science curriculum subject to EBR processes.

Prescribing EDU for SEV consideration is an important first step, and the ECO welcomes this development. But MOE’s recommendation is also highly unusual, since no other ministry has ever been prescribed only for SEV consideration. To date, all ministries have been prescribed for SEV consideration and for posting proposals for new policies and Acts on the Registry. Both of these requirements were seen as basic elements of the new system of accountability and transparency that was developed by the Task Force on the Environmental Bill of Rights in 1992. Many ministries with smaller environmental protection mandates, such as the Ministries of Labour and Economic Development and Trade, have been prescribed for more than a decade, and it has not been onerous for them to comply with the Registry notice and comment process.

Environmental sustainability is a critical issue for all Ontarians. Sustainability aims to enhance and maintain the life-supporting ecological systems and processes that provide people with clean air , water , soil and aquatic life, and a suitable climate. To sustain a world in which humans and other species can survive and flourish, we must begin to reshape our values and change the dominant paradigm of our culture.

Our informal and formal education systems and the values they promote are at the very heart of our unsustainable lifestyles and practices. If Ontario is to make progress toward sustainability, we must transform our social, cultural, economic and political systems as well as our technical systems. Increased EDU accountability under the EBR and regular commentary by the ECO would be important steps in this transformation.

Several non-government organizations have worked hard for decades to provide leadership in the area of environmental education for sustainability. The ECO believes that making EDU more fully subject to the EBR would send an important message to the boards of education in Ontario and the schools under those boards: that more can and should be done to promote sustainability. As noted in previous annual reports, too many Ontario children and adults have limited contact with nature and natural environments. The ECO believes that education, both formal and informal, is crucial to the transformation that our economy and society must undergo in the next decade. (For a more detailed review of this application, see the Supplement to this report, pages 168-176.)

Recommendation 12: The ECO recommends that the Ontario government move quickly to prescribe the Ministry of Education and that the government consider making the ministry subject to a broader range of EBR rights than those recommended by MOE in October 2005.

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This is an article from the 2005/06 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. Table of Contents Information on the official document and its release.

Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2006. "Prescribing Education: Critical to Future Sustainability." Neglecting our Obligations, ECO Annual Report, 2005-06. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 123-128.