Prescribing the Ministry of Education under the EBR
In the time since the Environmental Bill of Rights was enacted in early 1994, the Ministry of Education has not been subject to the Act. In late 1999, the Environmental Commissioner received an application for a review of the need to add the Ministry of Education to the 13 provincial ministries currently subject to the EBR. The applicants suggested that if this ministry were prescribed under the EBR, the public would be able to request a review of the ministry’s decision to remove Environmental Science from Ontario’s secondary school program. (For a full description of this application, see pages 188-189 in the Supplement to this report.)
The Ministry of the Environment, which administers the EBR, agreed to undertake the review. MOE’s review took a year to complete, and concluded that the purposes of the EBR would not be furthered by making the Ministry of Education subject to the Act. MOE’s rationale was that, in practice, few if any of the policies, Acts or regulations of the Ministry of Education would need to be posted on the Registry, nor would they be open to review under the EBR. MOE also noted that the public already has an existing right to send letters to the Minister of Education, requesting changes in policy decision.
The ECO does not agree with MOE’s conclusions. The Ministry of Education is similar to a number of other currently prescribed ministries which do make some decisions that can have an effect on the environment, even though their core mandate is not environmental protection. As well, the right to mail a letter to a minister is not a reasonable replacement for the right to request a review under the EBR. The EBR applications process is a much more transparent, public process including timelines, oversight by the ECO and accountability to the Ontario Legislature and the public. Furthermore, if the Ministry of Education became subject to the EBR, it would have to develop a Statement of Environmental Values and take it into account whenever the minister and ministry staff made environmentally significant decisions – for example, future decisions on curriculum requirements. The ECO concludes that there would be significant advantages in having the Ministry of Education prescribed under the EBR.
The Ministry of Education has a key role in helping to ensure that Ontario students receive a sound environmental education, including a solid grounding in the underlying science and technology issues. Education on environmental issues is important for the following reasons:
- There is a critical need for Ontario’s public to understand complex environmental issues that affect their day-to-day lives. The EBR is predicated on the value of informed public comment on government decision-making.
- Most of Ontario’s population now live in urban locations, and children in urban settings have far less contact with the natural environment on an everyday basis than children of previous generations. They have less daily access to wild areas and wildlife, are much less familiar with their local natural history, and spend much more time focused on indoor activities. Without an appreciation of our natural heritage, new generations may not see the value of protecting it. Therefore, it is important that some of this education be provided through the formal school system.
- Since our habits and lifestyle choices as individuals have an enormous cumulative environmental impact, it is critical that good habits be encouraged early on in areas such as energy and water conservation, pollution prevention and protection of biodiversity. There are many indications that our current consumption patterns are leading to environmental degradation. Thus, if Ontario’s children simply adopt the habit of their parents, the degradation is bound to continue.
- Ministries are implementing an increasing number of environmental monitoring programs that rely on volunteers and volunteer groups to collect and report data on parameters as diverse as cottage lake water quality and bird and amphibian populations. In a similar trend, in April 2001, MOE established a pollution hotline to collect tips from the public on pollution problems. All these approaches rely on a public that is educated on environmental matters.
- In the past five years, the Ministry of Education has assumed a stronger role in curriculum development, partly because the ministry’s Education, Quality and Accountability office administers standardized testing of children at several grade levels. Therefore, the ministry has also taken on a more direct responsibility for curriculum content and delivery, including environmental curriculum.
If the Ministry of Education were prescribed under the EBR, there would be improved transparency on how the ministry is furthering environmental education in Ontario. For example, the public would have the right to request improvements to the ministry’s approach to environmental curriculum. The public might also want to ask for monitoring and reporting on how effectively schools are teaching existing environmental components of the curriculum. Such requests from the public, as well as the ministry’s responses, would be reviewed in the ECO’s annual report to the Ontario Legislature and to the public. Unfortunately, there is currently no transparent mechanism to hold the Ministry of Education accountable for environmental education.
| Recommendation 13:
The ECO recommends that MOE re-examine the need to prescribe the Ministry of Education under the EBR. |
| This is an article from the 2000/01 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2001. "Prescribing the Ministry of Education under the EBR." Having Regard, ECO Annual Report, 2000-01. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 165-166.
