Environmental Assessment: A Vision Lost
From Eco Issues
Environmental assessment (EA) is one of those grey, blurry areas of modern bureaucratic practice: often misunderstood, sometimes misused, but mostly ignored by the average citizen. Yet environmental assessment has a crucial role to play in our lives; it should be society’s pre-eminent tool to carry out farsighted planning for public infrastructure in the name of the public good. Unfortunately, Ontario has been long burdened with an EA system where the hard questions are not being asked, and the most important decisions aren’t being made – or at least are not being made in a transparent, integrated way. The province has increasingly stepped away from some key EA decision-making responsibilities, and the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) is not adequately meeting its vital procedural oversight role. As a result, the EA process retains little credibility with those members of the public who have had to tangle with its complexities.
The ECO is contacted regularly by individuals and groups frustrated by their EA misadventures. It would not be too forceful to say that Ontario’s EA process is broken. This ought to concern not only academics and environmentalists, but also the business community, the development-oriented ministries and everyday Ontarians hoping to see their province move forward on a sustainable path. We have lost the old vision for EA; a new vision is urgently needed.
| In 2008, the ECO undertook an analysis of emerging challenges facing the Environmental Assessment Act. The following articles are included: | |
| |
| This is an article from the 2007/08 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2008. "Environmental Assessment: a vision lost." Getting to K(No)w, ECO Annual Report, 2007-08. Toronto: The Queen's Printer for Ontario. 28.
