Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

[Northern Light]

Today's Announcement of the Day from the Ford Gov't.....is actually an agreeable one, as far as it goes.

Its an expansion of mobile crisis intervention teams (mental health professionals responding to people in crisis, with police)

Ontario Newsroom

news.ontario.ca

 

[Northern Light]

A report to next week's Toronto Police Service's Board meeting also addresses MCIT expansion.

https://www.tpsb.ca/component/jdownloads/send/32-agendas/650-november-24-2020-agenda

They are aiming for some form of 24/7 coverage as soon as January 2021.

 

[PinkLucy]

From the Canadian Snowbirds Association today

On September 23rd, we notified members of our legal challenge victory against the Ontario Government and the illegal termination of OHIP’s Out-of-Country Travellers Program, which provided emergency out-of-country insurance coverage for Ontario residents. In a unanimous decision, the Ontario Divisional Court struck down part of Ontario Regulation 259 which terminated the reimbursement program.

Today, we are pleased to inform members that the Ontario Government has abandoned their leave to appeal application, meaning that the ruling of the Divisional Court will be final. The Divisional Court’s ruling reinstated OHIP’s Out-of-Country Travellers Program as it existed prior to January 1, 2020. This means that coverage for Ontarians travelling abroad has been restored to the previous levels of $200 to $400 per day for emergency inpatient services and up to $50 per day for emergency outpatient services. The reinstatement of this program puts Ontario back in line with every other province and territory in the country which provides this coverage as is required under the Canada Health Act.

 

[lenaitch]

Today's Announcement of the Day from the Ford Gov't.....is actually an agreeable one, as far as it goes.

Its an expansion of mobile crisis intervention teams (mental health professionals responding to people in crisis, with police)

Ontario Newsroom

news.ontario.ca

View attachment 283396

It's a good step but, as in many things, the devil will be in the details. Admittedly, that level of detail is seldom in press releases. It will be interesting whether the program will be police-based; i.e. similar to Toronto's MCIT, or some kind of separate on-call response after the police have arrived (or perhaps simultaneously if the details of the incident are clear, which they are often not). In smaller and remote areas it would make sense to be the latter.

Folks that have been clamoring for total non-police involvement won't be happy, but I suspect there is a noisy segment that wouldn't be happy regardless.

 

[Northern Light]

It's a good step but, as in many things, the devil will be in the details. Admittedly, that level of detail is seldom in press releases. It will be interesting whether the program will be police-based; i.e. similar to Toronto's MCIT, or some kind of separate on-call response after the police have arrived (or perhaps simultaneously if the details of the incident are clear, which they are often not). In smaller and remote areas it would make sense to be the latter.

Folks that have been clamoring for total non-police involvement won't be happy, but I suspect there is a noisy segment that wouldn't be happy regardless.

Indeed, though I think the report I posted about just below going to next weeks Police Services' Board mtg should give one some hope.

It appears the provincial announcement dovetails w/their program expansion which will remain essentially the same.

The notable change being that they will move to centralized deployment (based out of divisions, but dispatched centrally)

 

[lenaitch]

Indeed, though I think the report I posted about just below going to next weeks Police Services' Board mtg should give one some hope.

It appears the provincial announcement dovetails w/their program expansion which will remain essentially the same.

The notable change being that they will move to centralized deployment (based out of divisions, but dispatched centrally)

Yes, I was looking at the provincial announcement particularly from the perspective of the non-Toronto expansion which, with the exception of Ottawa and Six Nations, will involve the OPP in small deployed locations.

 

[zang]

We only hit 1000 cases in October.

Yeah sorry, it was 1000 nationally.

 

[W. K. Lis]

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[old boy]

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This is being done through Bill 229, Schedule 6. It appears that the the More Homes, More Choice Act, 2019 ( Bill 108) is the vehicle for this assault on local land use planning at the watershed level which has been a partnership between local municipalities and their respective CAs, which has been developed in this province since 1946. A Minister's Zoning Orders ( MZO) would become the sole arbiter for any dispute. Development and some agricultural interests have long complained about red tape caused by conservation measures which have been built up over many years to protect wetlands and watersheds.

 

[lenaitch]

Conservation areas are owned by their respective authorities, although they could be forced to sell them due financial pressures or the government legislating new rules. It might be difficult for CAs to market many of their areas since they are often environmentally protected (again, the government could change the rules).

A few years ago the government announced the closure of several provincial parks. I think two were kept open under partnership agreements. The rest are still parks (in reality, Crown land, just identified and managed differently), just not operating. Whether or not a park could be sold would largely depend on its marketability. It would have to go 'en-block' to a developer or individually by lot, but then the government would have to eat costs like survey, site plan, registration, etc.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Ontario won’t extend Christmas break for schools despite COVID-19 surge

From link.

A day after raising the possibility of a longer Christmas break for Ontario’s schools because of COVID-19, Education Minister Stephen Lecce says the government doesn’t see the need for such a move.

The decision follows consultations with chief medical officer Dr. David Williams and the province’s table of experts on public health measures, Lecce said Wednesday.

He noted 84 per cent of schools have no cases of the virus despite rising levels of COVID-19 across Ontario.

“An extended winter holiday is not necessary at this time, given Ontario’s strong safety protocols, low levels of transmission and safety within our schools,” Lecce said in a written statement.

“Our schools have been remarkably successful at minimizing outbreaks to ensure that our kids stay safe and learning in their classrooms.”

New Democrat MPP Marit Stiles (Davenport) said parents feel whipsawed by the mixed messages from the government.

“What changed from yesterday to today?” she asked reporters. “This is exhausting for parents.”

Stiles added there remains a risk to schools as new cases of COVID-19 increase by more than 1,000 a day, increasing the odds infections will infiltrate deeper into schools. “We have cases in this province skyrocketing,” she said.

Shortly after Lecce floated the idea of a longer Christmas break, Ford had poured cold water on it, saying, “I don’t want to jump the gun here ... it may not happen.”

Stiles said that raises the question of whether Ford is overriding scientific advice from Williams.

Lecce said officials will keep close watch on cases in schools, which reported 109 new infections in students and staff, and cases now in 670 of 4,828 schools. Three were closed because of outbreaks, an increase of two from the previous day.

Meanwhile...




Mayor Bill de Blasio

@NYCMayor

New York City has reached the 3% testing positivity 7-day average threshold. Unfortunately, this means public school buildings will be closed as of tomorrow, Thursday Nov. 19, out an abundance of caution. We must fight back the second wave of COVID-19.

2:19 PM · Nov 18, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

https://twitter.com/x/status/1329142152639733761

 

[W. K. Lis]

Auditor general issues scathing rebuke of Ford government’s environmental policies

From link.

The Ford government is failing to obey environmental laws, often doing so while skirting transparency rules, Ontario’s auditor general found in a scathing series of reports Wednesday.

The province is not collecting enough data to know whether it’s actually conserving protected lands and endangered species, the reports say.

Ontario has opened up protected wilderness areas for resource extraction, and two-thirds of the land in Algonquin Provincial Park can’t be considered “protected” due to commercial logging.


The province also risks missing its 2030 emissions reduction target, in part because it isn’t reducing its use of fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, the Environment Ministry often does not comply with key environmental protection and public disclosure requirements, and Ontario Parks lacks the staff it needs to do its work properly, the reports found.

“It is concerning for us to report on the Environment Ministry’s non-compliance,” wrote auditor general Bonnie Lysyk and Jerry DeMarco, the assistant auditor general and environmental commissioner, in a document titled “Reflections” that was released alongside the reports.

The auditor general is a non-partisan independent watchdog tasked with holding the government of the day accountable for financial responsibility and public transparency.

Ontario used to have a separate independent office responsible for environmental oversight, but the Progressive Conservative government weakened the role’s powers and folded its responsibilities into the Office of the Auditor General in 2019. Now, the environmental watchdog role rests with Lysyk, DeMarco and their team of experts and auditors.


The Ford government has not yet commented on the findings outlined in the reports, which were tabled in the Ontario legislature Wednesday morning and total more than 300 pages.

But the reports contain responses from key government ministries, some of which included pledges to follow up on the auditor general’s recommendations.

Ontario Parks understaffed, while government lacks key data

The first of the auditor general’s reports examined how well the province is taking care of protected lands, finding that Ontario is lagging in key areas. Issues have primarily been caused by a lack of “sufficient” staff, Lysyk and DeMarco wrote.

Ontario Parks ⁠— a branch of the Environment Ministry that oversees provincial parks and conservation reserves ⁠— has just seven ecologists in its staff of 254, the report found.

The agency is also sorely lacking park planners. Just 12 people at the agency have that responsibility, with each one handling between 19 and 97 provincial parks and conservation reserves. (Each park planner had between four and 29 park plans that were in need of replacement, the audit found.)

“The lack of dedicated staff specifically tasked with and accountable for expanding the protected areas network has contributed to Ontario’s slow progress in increasing its protected area network,” the report said.

The report also detailed a laundry list of other failures.


Ontario allows commercial logging in Algonquin Provincial Park, the crown jewel of the province’s park system, and has since the park was established in 1893 ⁠— even though the practice is banned in all other provincial parks. Because of the logging, only one-third of the land in the park can actually be classified as “protected,” the report said, calling the activity “incompatible with biodiversity conservation.”

In other cases, protected lands were inappropriately opened up for resource extraction, even though it was prohibited by provincial law.

The Derby Lake Nature Reserve Wilderness Area, near Kenora, and Eighteen Mile Island Wilderness Area, near Sudbury, were both left open for commercial logging despite the practice being illegal under the Wilderness Areas Act.

“Logging operations by a private company were scheduled to take place within Derby Lake Wilderness Area in 2020 until we brought it to the ministry’s attention and the ministry cancelled the planned logging,” the report said.

Sankey Township Nature Reserve Wilderness Area, near Hearst, had also been opened to claim staking, but the government closed that process when the auditor general flagged it, the report said.

The Environment Ministry doesn’t have any procedures laid out for monitoring wilderness areas to ensure no prohibited activities are happening, the auditor general found.

The ministry is also failing to collect data on species at risk and invasive species, information used to monitor whether hunting, fishing and trapping are sustainable in certain parks and reserves.

The lack of data means the province does not know whether it’s meeting its legal obligations to conserve nature, the report found.

Meanwhile, many of the plans governing protected lands in the province didn’t include measures to help those species recover, even though those areas are home to three-quarters of our species at risk, the report concluded. One-third of the plans reviewed by the auditor general didn’t include any measures to prevent harm caused by invasive species, either.

On one visit to a provincial park ⁠— Sharbot Lake, a picturesque spot for camping and boating in eastern Ontario ⁠— the auditor general spotted gypsy moths, an invasive species that weakens trees. The plan for the park, written in 1988, said park staff used pesticides to combat the pest. But that hadn’t actually happened since 2000.

“We found that the Environment Ministry does not collect sufficient and necessary information,” the report said.

The province also has no overall plan for protecting more land ⁠— something that carries a particular level of risk in population-dense southern Ontario, where only 0.6 per cent of land is protected and less than two per cent of wetlands remain in some areas, the report noted.

“If coverage does not increase, species and their habitat, as well as the benefits we derive from nature, will continue to be lost,” the report said.

It’s also crucial for the Far North, where only 10.4 per cent of land is protected, falling short of the province’s target of 50 per cent. Though six First Nations have expressed interest in creating Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, the Ministry of Natural Resources has not followed up, the report found.

“Biodiversity loss has been ranked as a top-five risk — by likelihood and impact — to economies over the next decade,” the report said.

“Because protected areas in Ontario support thousands of jobs, create millions of dollars in labour income, generate millions of dollars in tax revenue, and contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to the province’s gross domestic product, Ontario needs an effective protected area network to ensure that the positive economic impacts attributed to protected areas continue.”

 

[W. K. Lis]

....

Province’s failure to follow rules ‘risked undermining public confidence’

In Ontario, the Environmental Bill of Rights gives the public the right to participate in environmental decision-making and hold the government to account. It requires the government to consider green values, and to notify and consult the public before taking certain actions.

One of the reports released Wednesday assessed how well the government is following rules laid out in that legislation.

“We found that some ministries made decisions that were not consistent with the purposes of (the Environmental Bill of Rights), were not transparent and risked undermining public confidence in the government’s environmentally significant decisions,” the report said.

Lysyk raised concerns about the Ford government’s level of compliance with the Environmental Bill of Rights in 2019, pointing to the Progressive Conservatives’ move to axe Ontario’s cap-and-trade system.

Though some government ministries “had taken action” to respond to concerns raised in 2019, the government’s overall compliance with the Environmental Bill of Rights has actually worsened, the report found.

Ministries failed to fully meet the criteria of the law in 38 per cent of cases in 2019-20, as opposed to 35 per cent the year before, the report said. The Environment Ministry also failed to lead by example, the report found, with 75 per cent of the auditor general’s review criteria either fully or partially unmet.

“The ministries have an obligation to embrace this legislation and include Ontarians in the decision-making process,” said Lysyk in a statement. “The (Environmental Bill of Rights) is critical in ensuring meaningful public participation and better decisions affecting the environment.”

In 2019, the government failed to give the public “sufficient information and time” before making significant changes that weakened endangered species protections, the report found. The same year, it failed to explain how six forestry-related proposals could further undermine protections for species at risk.

The public wasn’t notified about 42 of the environmentally significant decisions examined by the auditor general until two weeks after they were made, the report found. In cases where public notices did go out, they didn’t actually describe the environmental impact of the proposals.

In other cases, the government has moved to limit public disclosure of environment-related changes, declining to make agencies that deal with environmental matters subject to the bill of rights and reducing the number of notices that are posted on the province’s public Environmental Registry.

The auditor general also flagged the province’s move to temporarily exempt itself from portions of the Environmental Bill of Rights this spring amid COVID-19, allowing the government to make environmental changes without notifying or consulting the public, and without facing appeals.

The exemption didn’t specify that it had to be used for pandemic response. That meant it “effectively cancelled” Ontarians’ ability to weigh in on environmental decision-making, an outcome that “could have been avoided” had the province simply narrowed the scope, the report said.

“While this was understandable under the circumstances, only nine of 276 exempted proposals during that period were urgent and related to COVID-19,” the report found.

The exemption meant the public also lost the right to appeal 197 government decisions on environmentally significant permits and approvals that were not related to COVID-19, even if the province made its final choice after the exemption ended, the report found.

Those permits and approvals would, for example, “allow industrial facilities to discharge pollutants to the air and water in Ontario communities,” the report said.

“The effects on the public of the Environment Ministry’s broad temporary exemption regulation may be felt well into the future.”

The auditor general recommended the ministry repost those proposals for public comments now, but in a response printed in the report, the government declined.

The report also sounded alarms about the government’s move to weaken the public’s ability to participate in the environmental assessment process, a change made over the summer in the omnibus Bill 197. The government did not consult the public before passing the bill.

As previously reported by Canada’s National Observer, the auditor general wrote to the premier’s office before Bill 197 passed warning that the government was legally required to conduct public consultations under the requirements set out in the Environmental Bill of Rights. The government passed the bill anyway, and included a measure that would retroactively exempt the province from that requirement.

The auditor general also recommended the government hold off on implementing environmentally significant portions of Bill 197 until it could hold consultations, the report said. Again, the government declined.

“Not providing an opportunity for the public to comment on environmentally significant proposals can undermine public confidence in government transparency and decision-making.”

One change in Bill 197 took away the public’s right to ask for a full review of certain projects, a measure known as a “bump-up request.”

“As a result (of the change), bump-up requests related to 19 projects were terminated, including proposals to: build a new road through a mature Carolinian woodlot in the Greenbelt; construct municipal infrastructure through an area containing contaminated soil and groundwater; develop a wastewater treatment system that could affect fish and water resources; and rehabilitate mine tailings contaminating a nearby lake,” the report said.

Reports also highlighted carbon emissions and lack of environmental targets

The package of reports released Wednesday also included a look at Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, and an assessment of its environmental goal-setting.

“Our audit found the province risks missing its 2030 emission-reduction target, in part because climate change and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is not yet a cross-government priority,” said Lysyk in a news release.

“We found there is not enough of a focus on reducing fossil fuel use or greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario’s buildings sector at the moment.”

The environment, natural resources and agriculture ministries also need better processes to ensure they are able to monitor issues like biodiversity, species at risk, protected lands and the health of agricultural soil, the report found.

While the Environment Ministry is adequately monitoring air and water, many other programs are lacking standardized protocols that would ensure data is collected consistently and properly, the report found.

“The province spends a lot of time, energy and tax dollars collecting huge amounts of environmental data,” Lysyk said in a statement.

“This data is critical to knowing whether the environment is getting better or worse, and whether environmental goals are being met. However, not tracking it properly hinders the ministries’ and public’s ability to gauge progress.”

 

[old boy]

Conservation areas are owned by their respective authorities, although they could be forced to sell them due financial pressures or the government legislating new rules. It might be difficult for CAs to market many of their areas since they are often environmentally protected (again, the government could change the rules).

A few years ago the government announced the closure of several provincial parks. I think two were kept open under partnership agreements. The rest are still parks (in reality, Crown land, just identified and managed differently), just not operating. Whether or not a park could be sold would largely depend on its marketability. It would have to go 'en-block' to a developer or individually by lot, but then the government would have to eat costs like survey, site plan, registration, etc.

It's interesting to note that the funding for CAs overwhelmingly comes from municipal levies, permits, and public partnerships like tree planting or habitat restoration with very little coming from the province. Yet this level of government is deciding the future role of CAs . There was a public input part to this exercise, and I would bet the farm that the response from local levels was in favour of local level land use planning together with Conservation Authorities to provide the expertise. I'll admit I'm a little biased because I sat on a CA Board in the early nineties and heard the same complaints from developers and some farming interests that I hear today. However, we have more complete science today and a general population which seems to be more in tune with environmental aspects of land use in the climate change era. Arguments to hamstring this level of expertise didn't make sense back then, and it makes even less sense today.

 

[Towered]

Remember all this crap when it comes time to vote in 2022.