EDITORIAL
2 Obiter Dicta
Public Comments under Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights.
Getting to know a low-commitment way to participate in
Ontario’s environmental decisions
-
erin garbet t
As someone who is fai rly set on a career i n
environmental law, I was surprised when the
Environmental Law course didn’t immediately
grab my attention. Not that the cou rse isn’t
a good one, it is. It just didn’t click with me
until over a month in, when I saw the course in
a different way. Rather than expecting a thorough understanding of each aspect of environmental law, I realized that the course provides
a box full of tools for using the law to combat
environmental problems. The tools sometimes
(or most times) don’t work, but they’re there,
waiting for the right person to use them.
The idea of the toolbox got me
thinking about which ones could be used by
the public. As it turns out, a lot of the things we
learned about in environmental law are completely accessible to persons without legal education. Then came another realization: many of
these tools are relatively unknown to those who
don’t go out of their way to learn about them.
Unless you are interested in legal instruments
with the potential to remedy envi ron mental
problems to the point of taking a course or being
actively involved in searching legal instruments,
it is difficult to find tools for your toolbox.
With that, I now endeavour to discuss
(at a very cursory level) a part of one such tool:
Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR).
This is a piece of legislation that many will have
heard of, but few understand. The EBR has often
been described as a paper tiger; as the preamble
describes a substantive right to a healthy environment but the legislation itself provides only
procedural rights. However, the EBR does provide multiples methods for everyone to participate in decisions that have the potential to cause
significant environmental impacts in Ontario.
Specifically, I would like to review the
Environmental Registry and how to comment
on proposed government actions. Other forms
of public participation in the EBR include: application for review of a policy, act, regulation or
instrument, applications to investigate possible
contraventions of environmentally significant
act, regulations, or instruments (note: in this
context “instrument” generally refers to something like a permit or a license), the ability to
sue for public nuisance without special damages
and whistleblower protections. I’m choosing to
a. Osgoode Hall Law School, 0014g
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, on m3j 1p3
e. [email protected]
w. obiter-dicta.ca
t. @obiterdictaoz
focus on the ER and public comments mainly
organization, the Environmental Commissioner
because it involves the smallest time and energy
of Ontario (ECO) recommends individual comcommitment of the mechanisms included in the
ments that provide “original insight, observaEBR.
tions and recommendations.” The cynical part
So, what is this Environmental Registry
of me says that they are pushing for fewer form
and how does one “public comment”? Well, the
comments to lighten their work load, while the
ER is found at this website: https://w w w.ebr.
more optimistic part says that ECO is encouraggov.on.ca/ERS-W EB-Externa l/. Once you get
ing better comments. Perhaps it is a bit of both.
there, you will find yourself looking at fW'