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ARTICLE · 25 MARCH 2013

Changing The Landscape Of Ontario’s Environmental Approvals Process

Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
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The Ontario Ministry of the Environment has made sweeping amendments to the Ontario Environmental Protection Act and the Ontario Water Resources Act through the omnibus Open for Business Act, which received Royal Assent on October 25, 2010.

CanadaEnvironment
Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
Jennifer Fairfax
Jennifer Fairfax
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Executive Summary

The Ontario Ministry of the Environment (the MOE) has made sweeping amendments to the Ontario Environmental Protection Act (the EPA) and the Ontario Water Resources Act (OWRA) through the omnibus Open for Business Act (the OBA), which received Royal Assent on October 25, 2010.  The OBA seeks to incorporate a two-tiered risk-based approach to environmental approvals. It aims to reduce the administrative burden on businesses by establishing an online public registry for "lower-risk" activities, while strengthening and streamlining environmental approvals for "higher-risk" activities. However, as no regulations have yet been released under the OBA, and nothing in the act actually defines or uses such risk-based terminology, it is difficult to anticipate what those "lower-risk" and "higher-risk" activities will be. That said, a key amendment from the perspective of businesses is the ability for a business to apply for, and for the Director to issue, a

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