Head of Ontario species at risk agency resigns over changes to Greenbelt, conservation authorities
The Species Conservation Action Agency collects money from industry wanting to do work that harms the habitats of six species at risk, including the Blanding's Turtle. This week, the head of the agency resigned, citing the Ontario government's changes to environmental protections.
Photo: Flickr
By Emma McIntosh
Dec. 22, 2022
Doug Varty, who stepped down as chair of Ontario’s Species Conservation Action Agency, said the government ‘is not listening to or acting in the best long-term interests of the people’
The Species Conservation Action Agency collects money from industry wanting to do work that harms the habitats of six species at risk, including the Blanding's Turtle. This week, the head of the agency resigned, citing the Ontario government's changes to environmental protections.
Photo: Flickr
By Emma McIntosh
Dec. 22, 2022
NAWHALE
The head of an Ontario government agency aimed at protecting species at risk has resigned in protest of the province’s dismantling of environmental protections to get “More Homes Built Faster.”
The resignation comes less than a year after Premier Doug Ford’s government appointed Doug Varty to chair Ontario’s Species Conservation Action Agency. Varty said in a LinkedIn post Dec. 21 that he was resigning because of the Progressive Conservatives’ changes to land use policy, and because the government “is not listening to or acting in the best long-term interests of the people of this province.”
Since late October, Premier Doug Ford has opened the province’s Greenbelt for development and massively overhauled the environmental scrutiny applied to development, part of a suite of changes his government says is aimed at boosting housing supply.
“Like many Ontarians I have become increasingly disappointed in the recent direction of the Ford government with respect to land/greenbelt protection, watershed protection, sprawl and other related matters,” Varty wrote.
In an interview with The Narwhal, Varty said his resignation had nothing to do with the Species Conservation Action Agency, and everything to do with “personal” concerns that he felt he couldn’t express publicly as the chair of a government agency.
“It just seems to me that we’re sliding backwards in Ontario, when we need to be doing more faster on a bigger scale if we’re going to deal with climate change and biodiversity loss,” he said.
“To see it all disappear and get destroyed, I think would just be a shame. It’s not the sort of legacy I want to leave my children and grandchildren.”
Robert Dodd, a spokesperson for the office of Ontario Environment Minister David Piccini, didn’t address Varty’s critiques when asked by The Narwhal. According to Dodd, Varty had already told the government on Oct. 13, before changes to the Greenbelt were announced, that he wasn’t planning to seek a second term as chair. A new chair will be appointed next year, Dodd added.
“This makes it clear that people who are in leadership positions advising the government just can’t stand to be associated with the things that they’re doing,” Tim Gray, the executive director of the advocacy organization Environmental Defence, said in a phone interview.
“It’s very, very difficult for anyone who cares about the public interest to remain in any kind of leadership role working with the current Ontario government.”
The Ontario government created the Species Conservation Action Agency in 2021 to administer a new provincial fund for species at risk. That fund allows industry to do work that harms the habitats of six species at risk — the butternut tree, Blanding’s turtle populations in the Ontario shield region, and four birds, the barn swallow, bobolink, eastern meadowlark and eastern whip-poor-will — on the condition that they pay into the fund. Critics have called it a “pay to slay” fund.
The head of an Ontario government agency aimed at protecting species at risk has resigned in protest of the province’s dismantling of environmental protections to get “More Homes Built Faster.”
The resignation comes less than a year after Premier Doug Ford’s government appointed Doug Varty to chair Ontario’s Species Conservation Action Agency. Varty said in a LinkedIn post Dec. 21 that he was resigning because of the Progressive Conservatives’ changes to land use policy, and because the government “is not listening to or acting in the best long-term interests of the people of this province.”
Since late October, Premier Doug Ford has opened the province’s Greenbelt for development and massively overhauled the environmental scrutiny applied to development, part of a suite of changes his government says is aimed at boosting housing supply.
“Like many Ontarians I have become increasingly disappointed in the recent direction of the Ford government with respect to land/greenbelt protection, watershed protection, sprawl and other related matters,” Varty wrote.
In an interview with The Narwhal, Varty said his resignation had nothing to do with the Species Conservation Action Agency, and everything to do with “personal” concerns that he felt he couldn’t express publicly as the chair of a government agency.
“It just seems to me that we’re sliding backwards in Ontario, when we need to be doing more faster on a bigger scale if we’re going to deal with climate change and biodiversity loss,” he said.
“To see it all disappear and get destroyed, I think would just be a shame. It’s not the sort of legacy I want to leave my children and grandchildren.”
Robert Dodd, a spokesperson for the office of Ontario Environment Minister David Piccini, didn’t address Varty’s critiques when asked by The Narwhal. According to Dodd, Varty had already told the government on Oct. 13, before changes to the Greenbelt were announced, that he wasn’t planning to seek a second term as chair. A new chair will be appointed next year, Dodd added.
“This makes it clear that people who are in leadership positions advising the government just can’t stand to be associated with the things that they’re doing,” Tim Gray, the executive director of the advocacy organization Environmental Defence, said in a phone interview.
“It’s very, very difficult for anyone who cares about the public interest to remain in any kind of leadership role working with the current Ontario government.”
The Ontario government created the Species Conservation Action Agency in 2021 to administer a new provincial fund for species at risk. That fund allows industry to do work that harms the habitats of six species at risk — the butternut tree, Blanding’s turtle populations in the Ontario shield region, and four birds, the barn swallow, bobolink, eastern meadowlark and eastern whip-poor-will — on the condition that they pay into the fund. Critics have called it a “pay to slay” fund.
A spokesperson for the office of Ontario Environment Minister David Piccini didn’t address Doug Varty’s critiques, telling The Narwhal Varty had already decided not to seek another term before changes to the Greenbelt were announced.
Photo: Government of Ontario / Flickr
In an email sent after this story was published, Dodd said that criticism is “misleading,” and that the government expects the fund to benefit species overall by using the money “with the long-term interests of those species in mind.” Companies and people that propose projects impacting species at risk still have to comply with endangered species law, he added.
The Species Conservation Action Agency is tasked with managing the fund’s money and putting it towards projects that protect and help species at risk elsewhere. In his email, Dodd said the agency “will consider the nature and location of impacts to species at risk and their habitat by proponents paying the charge in its decision-making.”
In early December, The Narwhal reported on a letter sent from Parks Canada to the Ontario government, which said the decision to alter the Greenbelt’s boundaries violated an agreement between the two levels of government about the management of Rouge National Urban Park. Parks Canada highlighted the need to protect species at risk, saying the Blanding’s turtle was of particular concern. “While turtles are released in Rouge National Urban Park, these species move in an unrestricted fashion between the park and the adjacent Greenbelt lands,” the letter said.
Varty’s public condemnation of Ford’s changes comes 11 months after he had lauded the agency on LinkedIn, expressing his excitement as he began his new role as the chair.
“We have a great team launching this agency,” Varty wrote at the time. “I look forward to playing a greater role in protecting species at risk and working with the team at the ministry.”
Varty and the province’s online database of appointees say his term was due to expire on Jan. 26, 2023, along with the rest of the current board. Dodd said Varty’s term expires Dec. 31.
The remaining appointees to the agency’s board of directors include the CEO of the Toronto Zoo; a professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design; and the founding president of the Ontario Waterpower Association, which represents companies involved in hydroelectric power generation.
Two weeks before his resignation, Varty posted about attending a rally outside an MPP’s office to oppose the Ford government’s recent changes to environmental policy. “I am 64 years old, consider myself a conservative and have never participated in a protest and never thought I would,” he wrote.
Speaking to The Narwhal, Varty said he’s the type of person who usually works behind the scenes. “I just decided it was time in life to have that experience and be seen publicly opposing the directions of Bill 23 and other recent developments.”
Varty is a financial and business advisor by trade. He has also been involved with conservation as a board member for the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and as co-chair for Couchiching Conservancy Advisory Council, though he told The Narwhal he is speaking only on behalf of himself.
In 2020, the Ford government’s approach to urban development also triggered the resignations of seven members of Ontario’s Greenbelt Council. The council, a government-appointed expert panel, advises Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark on issues related to the Greenbelt. Its members quit en masse after the government watered down the powers of conservation authorities, agencies that oversee key watersheds in the province.
The Ford government disempowered conservation authorities again earlier this year with Bill 23, part of its recent rush of new housing legislation — a move Varty cited in his LinkedIn post about the resignation.
Varty told The Narwhal he hopes the government will reconsider its decision on the Greenbelt and listen to stakeholders who have expressed concern about Bill 23. It’s not just environmentalists, he added, but also a broad cross-section of people from across the business world who are worried.
“I don’t think they’re listening,” Varty said of the provincial government. “And they should be.”
Updated Dec. 23, 2022, at 12:30 p.m. ET: This story was updated to add more details about the Blanding’s turtle population eligible for work by the Species Conservation Action Agency, and to include additional responses from the Ontario government.
In an email sent after this story was published, Dodd said that criticism is “misleading,” and that the government expects the fund to benefit species overall by using the money “with the long-term interests of those species in mind.” Companies and people that propose projects impacting species at risk still have to comply with endangered species law, he added.
The Species Conservation Action Agency is tasked with managing the fund’s money and putting it towards projects that protect and help species at risk elsewhere. In his email, Dodd said the agency “will consider the nature and location of impacts to species at risk and their habitat by proponents paying the charge in its decision-making.”
In early December, The Narwhal reported on a letter sent from Parks Canada to the Ontario government, which said the decision to alter the Greenbelt’s boundaries violated an agreement between the two levels of government about the management of Rouge National Urban Park. Parks Canada highlighted the need to protect species at risk, saying the Blanding’s turtle was of particular concern. “While turtles are released in Rouge National Urban Park, these species move in an unrestricted fashion between the park and the adjacent Greenbelt lands,” the letter said.
Varty’s public condemnation of Ford’s changes comes 11 months after he had lauded the agency on LinkedIn, expressing his excitement as he began his new role as the chair.
“We have a great team launching this agency,” Varty wrote at the time. “I look forward to playing a greater role in protecting species at risk and working with the team at the ministry.”
Varty and the province’s online database of appointees say his term was due to expire on Jan. 26, 2023, along with the rest of the current board. Dodd said Varty’s term expires Dec. 31.
The remaining appointees to the agency’s board of directors include the CEO of the Toronto Zoo; a professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design; and the founding president of the Ontario Waterpower Association, which represents companies involved in hydroelectric power generation.
Two weeks before his resignation, Varty posted about attending a rally outside an MPP’s office to oppose the Ford government’s recent changes to environmental policy. “I am 64 years old, consider myself a conservative and have never participated in a protest and never thought I would,” he wrote.
Speaking to The Narwhal, Varty said he’s the type of person who usually works behind the scenes. “I just decided it was time in life to have that experience and be seen publicly opposing the directions of Bill 23 and other recent developments.”
Varty is a financial and business advisor by trade. He has also been involved with conservation as a board member for the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and as co-chair for Couchiching Conservancy Advisory Council, though he told The Narwhal he is speaking only on behalf of himself.
In 2020, the Ford government’s approach to urban development also triggered the resignations of seven members of Ontario’s Greenbelt Council. The council, a government-appointed expert panel, advises Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark on issues related to the Greenbelt. Its members quit en masse after the government watered down the powers of conservation authorities, agencies that oversee key watersheds in the province.
The Ford government disempowered conservation authorities again earlier this year with Bill 23, part of its recent rush of new housing legislation — a move Varty cited in his LinkedIn post about the resignation.
Varty told The Narwhal he hopes the government will reconsider its decision on the Greenbelt and listen to stakeholders who have expressed concern about Bill 23. It’s not just environmentalists, he added, but also a broad cross-section of people from across the business world who are worried.
“I don’t think they’re listening,” Varty said of the provincial government. “And they should be.”
Updated Dec. 23, 2022, at 12:30 p.m. ET: This story was updated to add more details about the Blanding’s turtle population eligible for work by the Species Conservation Action Agency, and to include additional responses from the Ontario government.
Yesterday
The Chair of Ontario’s government agency tasked with protecting species at risk has resigned over the wavering provincial leadership around environmental legislation, as Doug Ford and his PC government steams ahead with Bill 23 and the removal of protected Greenbelt lands for development.
Doug Varty’s decision to step down is the latest reaction to the collection of legislation recently passed by the Tories that has tossed aside environmental safeguards in the name of building more homes.
“In my view the province is not listening to or acting in the best long-term interests of the people of this province. As such I have made a personal decision to resign from this public appointment,” Varty wrote in a public statement.
The More Homes Built Faster Act, or Bill 23, aims to expedite the construction of 1.5 million homes over the next 8 years to accommodate projected population growth across the province, primarily in the Golden Horseshoe. The Bill overrides environmental protections, gutting the mandate of conservation authorities. The PC’s also introduced, and recently passed, a piece of legislation to remove 15 parcels of land from the Greenbelt totalling 7,400 acres and replace it with 9,400 acres of land elsewhere — experts have said the additional lands will do nothing to prevent the ecological devastation caused by the encroachment into the Greenbelt.
Ford and his cabinet colleagues responsible for environmental stewardship have repeatedly ignored the concerns of environmental, housing and community activists, and the public who have gathered en masse to protest these pieces of legislation. Nearly 30,000 almost exclusively negative public consultation comments were submitted in reference to the Greenbelt legislation before the end of the public consultation period on December 4. The PC government ignored the will of residents and passed the legislation anyway.
Varty was appointed as Chair of the Ontario Species Conservation Action Agency in February. It is a board-governed provincial body responsible for administering the Species at Risk Management Fund. It was formed in 2021 with the purpose of protecting species at risk, making investments to do so using a designated fund and ensuring habitats for select at risk species are safeguarded through the agency’s actions and investments.
In October, before the passing of Bill 23 and changes to the Greenbelt legislation, Varty had told the government he was not planning to seek a second term. Eleven months after being appointed, he has now left the position.
“My resignation has nothing to do with this new agency or its mandate, but rather like many Ontarians I have become increasingly disappointed in the recent direction of the Ford government with respect to land/greenbelt protection, watershed protection, sprawl and other related matters,” he wrote.
This is not the first time Ford’s demand to create sprawling development has led to a resignation. In 2020, seven members of Ontario’s Greenbelt Council — a government appointed expert panel that advises the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing on matters related to the Greenbelt — quit after the provincial government watered down the mandate of conservation authorities.
Tim Gray, the Executive Director of Environmental Defence, went public on Twitter with support for Varty writing “Thanks to Doug for standing up for our future”.
Varty is part of the mass of Ontarians angry about the heavy hand of the provincial government which has imposed these legislative changes that planners have called the most significant land use moves in the history of the province. Two weeks before his resignation, Varty publicly posted on LinkedIn about joining a protest against Bill 23 and the Greenbelt changes outside of an Orillia MPP’s constituency office.
“I am 64 years old, consider myself a conservative and have never participated in a protest and never thought I would,” he wrote. “It is time to listen to the people of this province!”
Educating council members might be the key to saving Ontario’s natural spaces from Doug Ford’s housing agenda
Newly elected Brampton Councillor Navjit Kaur Brar was a respiratory therapist before running for local office. Rookie Mississauga Councillor Martin Reid has a master’s degree in social work. Caledon’s new Ward 6 Councillor, Cosimo Napoli, helped run his family’s home monitoring business prior to running for municipal government.
They had virtually no experience in the complex world of land use and development, but are suddenly responsible for decision making that has far-reaching consequences. They will profoundly impact numerous generations to come.
Currently, under the Doug Ford PC government at Queen’s Park, the adage that “municipalities are creatures of the province” is reverberating across Ontario’s 444 cities and towns. Its plan to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031 will put some of the most sensitive greenspaces and valuable agricultural lands at risk. The strategy has been aggressively pushed by the powerful subdivision development lobby, its battery of lawyers and the various consultants who often take over municipal planning meetings.
People like Brar, Reid and Cosimo represent the last line of defence to protect some of the most critical parts of Ontario that remain undeveloped.
But what happens when the whims of provincial leaders and the special interests they support run contrary to the responsibilities of a local councillor? Or go against the needs of the constituents who elected them to city hall?
The decisions by Ford and his government to push through Bill 23, strip away power from municipal councils and remove 7,400 acres from the once protected Greenbelt came weeks after the October municipal election, forcing many newly elected councils to either learn complex planning and land use policy on the fly, or succumb to the whims of people who don’t represent their community’s best interests.
To do their job effectively, local councillors rely on the expertise of staff members inside city hall. Their recommendations and reports distill and analyze important information to help elected officials make the best decisions on behalf of the residents who expect to be represented. Ford has upended this system. Planning and finance staff in municipalities across Ontario have scrambled to understand the implications of the PC government’s unprecedented move to curtail municipal authority in order to dramatically expand urban boundaries for sprawl-style development.
Trying to educate council members with zero experience is the monumental task facing staff, who themselves are struggling to understand the changes being forced upon cities and towns.
“Bill 23 represents the single most significant transformation of Ontario’s planning system that I’ve seen in my 36-year career in the field,” Paul Lowes, the president of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute (OPPI), stated in a written submission to the Province.
The OPPI, which includes roughly 4,600 planners, is supportive of the PC government’s goal to solve the housing affordability crisis, but has significant concerns with the new legislation. The removal of power from conservation authorities, which are mandated to support local councils as part of their shared responsibility to protect watersheds and sensitive ecosystems, was a key criticism.
“Municipalities are kind of going in blind in rural areas, especially in places outside of the GTA, a lot of the municipal councils don't have the expertise, or the funds to be able to have staff that will do the job that conservation has already,” Margaret Prophet, Executive Director of the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition (SCGC), said.
When development applications are brought to conservation authorities, they pass through multiple hands before receiving approval. Conservation authorities are staffed with a variety of experts including biologists, hydrologists and GIS technicians who are well versed in the geography of the area. Hiring this kind of staff at local municipalities would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This is where the SCGC comes in.
Prior to the 2018 municipal election, Prophet and her colleagues at the SCGC saw a need to fill a gap within the municipal political system. It seemed as if there was a disconnect in the community. Organizations and leaders were not always acting in the best interest of the people they served.
Out of this, the Community Leaders for a Sustainable Simcoe (CLASS) was created; a collection of community organizations who pledge to act in the best interest of the people they serve, with a strong focus on sustainable communities and the environment.
It is arguable that with the recent passing of Bill 23 and the changes to the Greenbelt legislation, the importance of having municipal leaders who know how to take action on these environmental issues is increasing now more than ever. But the problem is council members, especially new council members, are often ill informed on issues of importance to their communities. In today’s political climate, a heavy reliance on city staff is not always the answer as more and more become tainted by outside interests.
“There was more of a need and more of a request from local councillors to get involved,” Prophet said.
As a result, the SCGC began working with EcoSpark, an environmental charity that focuses on connecting people to their local natural environment through education, to host events province wide that served as an educational tool for councillors on issues of importance often relating to the natural world.
In the aftermath of Bill 23, at the end of November, the SCGC hosted their very first event (featuring former MP and mayor of Toronto David Crombie) a webinar which brought together municipal leaders from across the province.
“We talked a lot about what does leadership look like now in a void of provincial support in a lot of ways? What does it mean to have an agenda that you want to be climate focused and environmentally focused?” Prophet said. “But when it came to audience questions, by and large, a lot of municipal councilors were like ‘what are we going to do about Bill 23? How do we respond to it? How do we maintain autonomy as a municipal council? How do we best represent our constituents?’”
These are questions that have come up in council chambers across the province since the Ford government blindsided Ontario with piece after piece of legislation. It is not uncommon for councils to whip through hard discussions, taking everything presented by staff at face value and voting as a group. However, it is no longer sufficient for those on council to instinctively take recommendations from staff without asking the important questions.
Debbie Gordon, of Save the Maskinonge, recalled attending council meetings with another advocate when working to protect the Oak Ridges Moraine and Greenbelt in York Region. She was astonished by the lack of education of the council members.
“I would go to council meetings and I could tell the councillors didn't know what she was talking about,” she said. “They don't know why it's important. They believe you that you tell them it's important. But they don't know why it’s important.”
This is why Prophet’s work is so vital. She is striving to create a council where municipal leaders have the expertise to make these decisions in the best interest of their communities.
For years, conservation authorities have played a critical role for local officials, informing them about complex watershed management techniques and providing crucial information about applications for development in sensitive areas of their jurisdiction. Bill 23 dismantles this support system by cutting out conservation authorities from much of their traditional role, barring them from communicating with local officials and staff regarding development applications. The Bill also severely weakened the remaining power of these organizations — the PCs' previous attack, Schedule 6, in 2020 left them gutted — and removes the ability of these watershed stewards to regulate or refuse development applications on the basis of “pollution” or “conservation of land”.
“We believe the proposed changes could negatively impact watershed management at a critical time when we need to do more to tackle the increasing impacts of climate change on our communities,” Lowes wrote in his submission to the Province.
One of the questions that has emerged is if not the conservation authorities, “who is going to do the work?” Who will be the body responsible for protecting the natural environment?
The answer is not clear cut, but it appears much of that responsibility will fall on individual municipalities. The problem: they do not have the resources or the expertise to protect some of the most critical ecosystems in the province.
Aside from the gutting of conservation authorities, there are other areas where Bill 23 will place a greater emphasis on the role of individual municipalities: downloading planning authority from upper-tier municipalities to lower-tier municipalities and changes to development charges.
On November 2, eight days after Bill 23 was first introduced, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) released a statement on its opposition to the legislation. “While AMO would like to support the province’s housing objectives, it cannot support changes that largely place the burden of carrying the costs associated with development onto municipalities”.
Under Bill 23, the planning authority of the Region of York, Peel, Durham, Halton, Niagara, Waterloo and the County of Simcoe will be removed. Lower-tier municipalities within these regions will be responsible for implementing the Region’s Official Plan as well as developing an Official Plan of their own, subject to the approval of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH). This has increased the responsibility of the municipalities tenfold.
“The Regional Official Plan, which has been approved with modifications by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, will become the responsibility of local municipalities in conjunction with their own Official Plans,” documents from the Region of Peel highlight. “The intent is that local municipal Official Plans will incorporate Regional Official Plan policies within their jurisdiction. In the interim, Planning Act decisions will be made by local municipalities having regard for both documents with the Regional Official Plan prevailing in the event of conflict.”
The same will ring true for the other six upper-tier municipalities whose planning authority will be removed.
“By removing the Region’s ‘planning responsibilities’ Bill 23 has the potential to eliminate the critical coordination function that the Region currently manages for the local municipalities within Peel. Failure to properly coordinate infrastructure delivery could have costly unintended consequences from both a planning and financial perspective,” the document continues.
Larger municipalities like Brampton and Mississauga have more capacity to undertake Planning Act responsibilities. They have a greater number of staff and more intellectual and financial resources. Smaller municipalities however, like Caledon, or even smaller ones like Tiny in Simcoe County with a population of just over 11,000, would not have the number of staff needed to ensure that not only these Official Plans are attended to, but are carried out in a sustainable manner.
Bill 23 will also impact development charges, fees collected by the municipality from builders to help pay for the cost of associated infrastructure such as roads, sewage systems, stormwater management etc. Under Bill 23, upper-tier municipalities will no longer be able to collect development charges. The Region of Peel estimates the revenue shortfall could be as much as $2 billion over the next decade. That could increase to as much as $6 billion if Bill 23’s housing targets are met.
Municipalities will not be able to collect development charges for affordable housing units. Without these revenue streams, municipalities will be strapped for the necessary funds needed to provide crucial infrastructure which could lead to higher tax costs, or the abandoning of affordable housing plans that taxpayers, ultimately, would have to pay for.
“What we worry about is that it's going to result in fewer affordable housing solutions for people in this area and across the province,” Prophet said.
With municipalities juggling deficits, they are less likely to pay for the expertise and resources needed to handle additional responsibilities previously managed by conservation authorities.
In the days following COP15 in Montreal, which just concluded, municipalities are now facind global pressure to cooperate with other levels of government to protect biodiversity. Ford’s sweeping legislative moves have shown different levels of government are often at odds with each other on environmental issues.
Mississauga is one of two Ontario municipalities to sign the Montreal Pledge so far (along with Toronto) cementing its commitment to protecting biodiversity. While this is a positive step forward for the city, it places even greater responsibility on its elected officials, many of whom are brand new to the job and have next to no knowledge and little experience around these complex issues.
But suddenly, thanks to Doug Ford, they are the last gatekeepers of the environment.
“In a lot of ways [the changes under Bill 23] put more responsibilities on municipal councils,” Prophet said. “In some ways they take away their autonomy, and in a lot of ways they've reduced their ability to handle their responsibilities.”
Email: rachel.morgan@thepointer.com
Twitter: @rachelnadia_
Rachel Morgan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer
Newly elected Brampton Councillor Navjit Kaur Brar was a respiratory therapist before running for local office. Rookie Mississauga Councillor Martin Reid has a master’s degree in social work. Caledon’s new Ward 6 Councillor, Cosimo Napoli, helped run his family’s home monitoring business prior to running for municipal government.
They had virtually no experience in the complex world of land use and development, but are suddenly responsible for decision making that has far-reaching consequences. They will profoundly impact numerous generations to come.
Currently, under the Doug Ford PC government at Queen’s Park, the adage that “municipalities are creatures of the province” is reverberating across Ontario’s 444 cities and towns. Its plan to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031 will put some of the most sensitive greenspaces and valuable agricultural lands at risk. The strategy has been aggressively pushed by the powerful subdivision development lobby, its battery of lawyers and the various consultants who often take over municipal planning meetings.
People like Brar, Reid and Cosimo represent the last line of defence to protect some of the most critical parts of Ontario that remain undeveloped.
But what happens when the whims of provincial leaders and the special interests they support run contrary to the responsibilities of a local councillor? Or go against the needs of the constituents who elected them to city hall?
The decisions by Ford and his government to push through Bill 23, strip away power from municipal councils and remove 7,400 acres from the once protected Greenbelt came weeks after the October municipal election, forcing many newly elected councils to either learn complex planning and land use policy on the fly, or succumb to the whims of people who don’t represent their community’s best interests.
To do their job effectively, local councillors rely on the expertise of staff members inside city hall. Their recommendations and reports distill and analyze important information to help elected officials make the best decisions on behalf of the residents who expect to be represented. Ford has upended this system. Planning and finance staff in municipalities across Ontario have scrambled to understand the implications of the PC government’s unprecedented move to curtail municipal authority in order to dramatically expand urban boundaries for sprawl-style development.
Trying to educate council members with zero experience is the monumental task facing staff, who themselves are struggling to understand the changes being forced upon cities and towns.
“Bill 23 represents the single most significant transformation of Ontario’s planning system that I’ve seen in my 36-year career in the field,” Paul Lowes, the president of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute (OPPI), stated in a written submission to the Province.
The OPPI, which includes roughly 4,600 planners, is supportive of the PC government’s goal to solve the housing affordability crisis, but has significant concerns with the new legislation. The removal of power from conservation authorities, which are mandated to support local councils as part of their shared responsibility to protect watersheds and sensitive ecosystems, was a key criticism.
“Municipalities are kind of going in blind in rural areas, especially in places outside of the GTA, a lot of the municipal councils don't have the expertise, or the funds to be able to have staff that will do the job that conservation has already,” Margaret Prophet, Executive Director of the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition (SCGC), said.
When development applications are brought to conservation authorities, they pass through multiple hands before receiving approval. Conservation authorities are staffed with a variety of experts including biologists, hydrologists and GIS technicians who are well versed in the geography of the area. Hiring this kind of staff at local municipalities would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This is where the SCGC comes in.
Prior to the 2018 municipal election, Prophet and her colleagues at the SCGC saw a need to fill a gap within the municipal political system. It seemed as if there was a disconnect in the community. Organizations and leaders were not always acting in the best interest of the people they served.
Out of this, the Community Leaders for a Sustainable Simcoe (CLASS) was created; a collection of community organizations who pledge to act in the best interest of the people they serve, with a strong focus on sustainable communities and the environment.
It is arguable that with the recent passing of Bill 23 and the changes to the Greenbelt legislation, the importance of having municipal leaders who know how to take action on these environmental issues is increasing now more than ever. But the problem is council members, especially new council members, are often ill informed on issues of importance to their communities. In today’s political climate, a heavy reliance on city staff is not always the answer as more and more become tainted by outside interests.
“There was more of a need and more of a request from local councillors to get involved,” Prophet said.
As a result, the SCGC began working with EcoSpark, an environmental charity that focuses on connecting people to their local natural environment through education, to host events province wide that served as an educational tool for councillors on issues of importance often relating to the natural world.
In the aftermath of Bill 23, at the end of November, the SCGC hosted their very first event (featuring former MP and mayor of Toronto David Crombie) a webinar which brought together municipal leaders from across the province.
“We talked a lot about what does leadership look like now in a void of provincial support in a lot of ways? What does it mean to have an agenda that you want to be climate focused and environmentally focused?” Prophet said. “But when it came to audience questions, by and large, a lot of municipal councilors were like ‘what are we going to do about Bill 23? How do we respond to it? How do we maintain autonomy as a municipal council? How do we best represent our constituents?’”
These are questions that have come up in council chambers across the province since the Ford government blindsided Ontario with piece after piece of legislation. It is not uncommon for councils to whip through hard discussions, taking everything presented by staff at face value and voting as a group. However, it is no longer sufficient for those on council to instinctively take recommendations from staff without asking the important questions.
Debbie Gordon, of Save the Maskinonge, recalled attending council meetings with another advocate when working to protect the Oak Ridges Moraine and Greenbelt in York Region. She was astonished by the lack of education of the council members.
“I would go to council meetings and I could tell the councillors didn't know what she was talking about,” she said. “They don't know why it's important. They believe you that you tell them it's important. But they don't know why it’s important.”
This is why Prophet’s work is so vital. She is striving to create a council where municipal leaders have the expertise to make these decisions in the best interest of their communities.
For years, conservation authorities have played a critical role for local officials, informing them about complex watershed management techniques and providing crucial information about applications for development in sensitive areas of their jurisdiction. Bill 23 dismantles this support system by cutting out conservation authorities from much of their traditional role, barring them from communicating with local officials and staff regarding development applications. The Bill also severely weakened the remaining power of these organizations — the PCs' previous attack, Schedule 6, in 2020 left them gutted — and removes the ability of these watershed stewards to regulate or refuse development applications on the basis of “pollution” or “conservation of land”.
“We believe the proposed changes could negatively impact watershed management at a critical time when we need to do more to tackle the increasing impacts of climate change on our communities,” Lowes wrote in his submission to the Province.
One of the questions that has emerged is if not the conservation authorities, “who is going to do the work?” Who will be the body responsible for protecting the natural environment?
The answer is not clear cut, but it appears much of that responsibility will fall on individual municipalities. The problem: they do not have the resources or the expertise to protect some of the most critical ecosystems in the province.
Aside from the gutting of conservation authorities, there are other areas where Bill 23 will place a greater emphasis on the role of individual municipalities: downloading planning authority from upper-tier municipalities to lower-tier municipalities and changes to development charges.
On November 2, eight days after Bill 23 was first introduced, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) released a statement on its opposition to the legislation. “While AMO would like to support the province’s housing objectives, it cannot support changes that largely place the burden of carrying the costs associated with development onto municipalities”.
Under Bill 23, the planning authority of the Region of York, Peel, Durham, Halton, Niagara, Waterloo and the County of Simcoe will be removed. Lower-tier municipalities within these regions will be responsible for implementing the Region’s Official Plan as well as developing an Official Plan of their own, subject to the approval of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH). This has increased the responsibility of the municipalities tenfold.
“The Regional Official Plan, which has been approved with modifications by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, will become the responsibility of local municipalities in conjunction with their own Official Plans,” documents from the Region of Peel highlight. “The intent is that local municipal Official Plans will incorporate Regional Official Plan policies within their jurisdiction. In the interim, Planning Act decisions will be made by local municipalities having regard for both documents with the Regional Official Plan prevailing in the event of conflict.”
The same will ring true for the other six upper-tier municipalities whose planning authority will be removed.
“By removing the Region’s ‘planning responsibilities’ Bill 23 has the potential to eliminate the critical coordination function that the Region currently manages for the local municipalities within Peel. Failure to properly coordinate infrastructure delivery could have costly unintended consequences from both a planning and financial perspective,” the document continues.
Larger municipalities like Brampton and Mississauga have more capacity to undertake Planning Act responsibilities. They have a greater number of staff and more intellectual and financial resources. Smaller municipalities however, like Caledon, or even smaller ones like Tiny in Simcoe County with a population of just over 11,000, would not have the number of staff needed to ensure that not only these Official Plans are attended to, but are carried out in a sustainable manner.
Bill 23 will also impact development charges, fees collected by the municipality from builders to help pay for the cost of associated infrastructure such as roads, sewage systems, stormwater management etc. Under Bill 23, upper-tier municipalities will no longer be able to collect development charges. The Region of Peel estimates the revenue shortfall could be as much as $2 billion over the next decade. That could increase to as much as $6 billion if Bill 23’s housing targets are met.
Municipalities will not be able to collect development charges for affordable housing units. Without these revenue streams, municipalities will be strapped for the necessary funds needed to provide crucial infrastructure which could lead to higher tax costs, or the abandoning of affordable housing plans that taxpayers, ultimately, would have to pay for.
“What we worry about is that it's going to result in fewer affordable housing solutions for people in this area and across the province,” Prophet said.
With municipalities juggling deficits, they are less likely to pay for the expertise and resources needed to handle additional responsibilities previously managed by conservation authorities.
In the days following COP15 in Montreal, which just concluded, municipalities are now facind global pressure to cooperate with other levels of government to protect biodiversity. Ford’s sweeping legislative moves have shown different levels of government are often at odds with each other on environmental issues.
Mississauga is one of two Ontario municipalities to sign the Montreal Pledge so far (along with Toronto) cementing its commitment to protecting biodiversity. While this is a positive step forward for the city, it places even greater responsibility on its elected officials, many of whom are brand new to the job and have next to no knowledge and little experience around these complex issues.
But suddenly, thanks to Doug Ford, they are the last gatekeepers of the environment.
“In a lot of ways [the changes under Bill 23] put more responsibilities on municipal councils,” Prophet said. “In some ways they take away their autonomy, and in a lot of ways they've reduced their ability to handle their responsibilities.”
Email: rachel.morgan@thepointer.com
Twitter: @rachelnadia_
Rachel Morgan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer
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