Environmental Commissioner of Ontario

The Environmental Commissioner of Ontario ("ECO") is an office of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Canada. The Commissioner is a public servant and does not report to any single Ministry, but rather to the Legislature itself.

The Commissioner is appointed by the government, on the advice of the Legislature, for a term of five years, and must swear to "faithfully and impartially exercise the functions of the office," which is to uphold and protect the Environmental Bill of Rights.

The office of the Commissioner was created by the New Democratic Party of Ontario government of Bob Rae. Eva Ligeti was appointed Ontario's first Environmental Commissioner in May 1994 by an all party committee of the Legislature. On August 18, 1999, the Progressive Conservative government decided not to renew Ligeti's term. Without any notice, and without consulting any opposition parties, they appointed Ivy Wile as a temporary Commissioner, and made it known that they were considering abolishing the office of Environmental Commissioner.

The current Commissioner is Gord Miller, who was appointed in 2000 by the Mike Harris Progressive Conservative government, then re-appointed in 2005 under the Ontario Liberal Party government of Dalton McGuinty for a second term. He was reappointed to this position in April 2010 for a third five-year term.

In April, 2007, the ECO published its seventh Special Report, "Doing Less with Less: How shortfalls in budget, staffing and in-house expertise are hampering the effectiveness of MOE and MNR." This report details the how two Ontario ministries that bear the main burdens for environmental protection have suffered a gradual but steady erosion of funding, staffing and expertise.

In October, 2008, the ECO released its Annual Report "Getting to K(No)w". The main focus of the Commissioner’s annual report is the current state of the Environmental Assessment Process. He describes it as “a vision lost,” lacking in transparency. The Commissioner explains that flaws in the Environmental Assessment process have been exploited and important issues that may shut down a project are often excluded: “Things get excluded, like the discussion of the need for the project, and the discussion of alternatives that could satisfy that need. The very essence of the Environmental Assessment be scoped out of a process. And that is totally unsatisfactory, yet it remains the case to this day.”

In November 2011, the ECO released its 2010/11 Annual Report Engaging Solutions. Commissioner Miller says there’s no shortage of talk about the problems such as climate change, waste diversion, and the loss of biodiversity. But when it comes to doing something, there doesn’t seem to be a lot actually happening. He also says this lack of action is not accidental. It is actually the goal of critics of environmental protection. We respond to people who say they don’t believe there’s a problem by going back to the research findings to debate and explain it all over again. And then, when it looks like progress is being made, others say the proposed solutions won’t work, or are too costly. And so we go back to the beginning again. “We have to find a way to get to a point of action on these issues” says the Environmental Commissioner. “We don’t see ourselves as having a culture of inaction and procrastination. Yet that would be a fair criticism from any impartial observer.”

To date, the ECO has released 16 annual reports, 5 greenhouse gas progress reports, 4 energy conservation progress reports and 9 special reports.