The Ontario government has a lot of work to do to improve its environmental record, according to a new report by the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (ECO).
The "Engaging Solutions: Annual Report 2010/2011", tabled by ECO Gord Miller in the Ontario Legislature on November 29, 2011, finds that the Ontario government is not doing enough to:
-clean up the Great Lakes
-provide the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) - the two ministries mandated to protect Ontario's environment and natural resources - with the resources they need to carry out their mandates effectively.
With respect to the remediation of the Great Lakes, the report notes that lengthy negotiations between the Ontario and federal governments to extend the Canada-Ontario Agreement Respecting the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem, which is set to expire in June 2012, threaten to paralyze progress towards further cleanup.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government has pledged $2.2 billion over five years to clean up the Great Lakes, says the report.
Regarding MOE and MNR funding, the report finds that, though the Ontario government has passed notable environmental legislation, such as the Lake Simcoe Protection Act, 2008, the Endangered Species Act, 2007 and the Green Energy Act, 2009, it has not provided the MOE and MNR with the additional resources they need to oversee and monitor these laws while also covering their other core responsibilities.
In fact, the two ministries have seen their operating budgets cut considerably since the early 1990s.
From 1992 to 2011, the MOE's budget was cut by 45 per cent, while the MNR's budget was slashed by 22 per cent, says the report.
These budget decreases, coupled with steadily growing responsibilities, have brought about a "crisis of capacity" in those two ministries, says the report.
"Capacity is stretched too thin on core responsibilities," says the report.
For example, Ontario has a full suite of regulatory and policy tools it can use to clean up the Great Lakes, but the MOE and MNR don't have the capacity to apply them, says the report.
The MOE has also not published an overview of performance parameters for municipal wastewater treatment plants since 1993, says the report.
As well, the MOE has been struggling with tens of thousands of outdated Certificates of Approval, which has allowed facilities to ignore current environmental standards, says the report.
"Funding has to be sufficient for the MOE and MNR to carry out their obligations and responsibilities, including enforcement," says Ellen Greenwood, board member of the Ontario Environment Industry Association.
To improve Ontario's environmental record, the report recommends that the Ontario government gradually rebuild the MOE and MNR and "spend considerably more than one cent of its tax dollar on protecting our environment and our natural heritage."
The province should also, among other things, curb agricultural runoff, ban Asian carp imports, and unleash the potential of the Clean Water Act, 2006 to protect Great Lakes waters, says the report.
Other recommendations include:
-requiring stormwater management facility owners or operators to monitor and maintain all stormwater management infrastructure in Ontario
-reviewing and publicly reporting on the sufficiency of the regulatory framework to protect water resources and the natural environment from shale gas extraction
-reviewing and updating the province's outdated Municipal-Industrial Strategy for Abatement program.
The report is available at http://www.eco.on.ca/uploads/Reports-Annual/2010_11/Final-English-Bookmarked-2010-AR.pdf