International coalition calls for end to political interference
TORONTO, NEW YORK, MEXICO CITY
An international coalition of academics, environmental, and conservation groups today called on the governments of the U.S.A., Mexico, and Canada to stop interfering with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), an environmental watchdog agency created under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The coalition alleges that the conduct of the environment ministers of each country is interfering with the CEC, and particularly its core citizen complaint procedure.
“We are deeply concerned by increasingly blatant government interference in the operations of this important environmental watchdog,” said Albert Koehl, lawyer with Ecojustice, Canada’s largest environmental law organization.
The CEC was established in 1994 to quell fears that NAFTA would lead to business leaving the U.S. because of lax environmental enforcement elsewhere. A side agreement to NAFTA was negotiated which included the establishment of the CEC along with a novel and promising provision that allowed citizens to request investigations into a country's failure to enforce its own environmental laws.
The OMB hearing on the Westhill Development has been delayed for at least six months due to an appeal process initiated by Rod Northey, a lawyer who has been representing four families in Aurora whose properties would be negatively impacted by this development.
A consolidated hearing would be a tremendous asset to the case, as it would require a panel consisting of people with more environmental expertise than a standard OMB proceeding. This is vital for a case with such significant environmental and hydrological implications. The motion for a consolidated hearing was rejected in the middle of March, but Mr. Northey recently appealed to the court for its failure to require a consolidated hearing, and the Board has decided to adjourn the hearing pending the resolution of the court case. This means that the earliest the hearing will commence is October.
A federal judge in Toronto has put the brakes - temporarily - on a proposed cull of cormorants on Middle Island, prompting two animal protection groups opposing the cull to claim a minor victory.
The judge ruled that no cull can happen until a federal judge says so.
"Today's order is literally 'Do not touch those birds until a judge can review these matters,'" Zoocheck Canada's campaign director Julie Woodyer said Wednesday.
TheStar.com - GTA - Aurora loses round to golf backers Province's board rejects town's bid to include moraine experts in development review
Phinjo Gombu Staff Reporter, The Toronto Star
The mayor of Aurora and a lawyer for residents opposed to a controversial condo-golf complex on the Oak Ridges Moraine are slamming a decision by the Ontario Municipal Board not to hold a special joint hearing with the province's environmental review panel.
No wonder Pickering airport plan has new wings – transit review was done by airport authority
by Josh Garfinkel Now Magazine
Environmental victories have a particularly short shelf life in Ontario. Our collective long-term memory is so weak, we don’t notice when governments, responding to pressure from industry groups, insert loopholes in laws designed to protect the environment.
Town council opposition to development plan on Oak Ridges land pleases green advocates
Phinjo Gombu Staff Reporter, The Toronto Star
The Town of Aurora has voted to oppose a controversial golf course and condominium complex, contested by residents and environmentalists, that would have been situated on the environmentally sensitive Oak Ridges Moraine.
The 7-1 council vote came after a late-night meeting that involved last-minute pleas from residents, environmentalists and the developer, Lebovic Homes, about the future of the proposed 18-hole golf course and 75-unit condominium complex on Leslie St. just north of Bloomington Rd.
Grandfathered subdivisions and proposals for four golf courses in the development pipeline
Phinjo Gombu Staff Reporter, The Toronto Star
The rolling hills of the Oak Ridges Moraine on which Deanna Ramsay's family farm sits include a soaring cell phone tower and a small, four-hectare woodlot of original Carolinian forest filled with sugar maple, white ash, pine and beech trees.
Environmentalists hoped the Liberals would rein in developers devouring greenspace outside Toronto.
But instead of pushing the powerful development industry to construct livable communities, the Libs have given them a wink and a nudge to let them know it’s business as usual on the 905 frontier.
A damning report, recently released by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation for North America (CEC), has indicated that timber harvest in Ontario is destroying the habitat of one of the province's iconic woodland bird species, the Pileated Woodpecker. The Ministry of Natural Resources has vowed to protect the bird, and yet Ontario's forestry policies are contributing to the species' decline.
TORONTO — Astronaut and scientist Dr. Roberta Bondar will lead the first-ever review of how the environment and conservation are taught in Ontario schools, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne announced today.
