Opening Remarks
⏱9:00 am to 9:15 am 15 minutes:

Key Note Address followed by Energy and Sustainability Panel
⏱9:15 am to 10:45 am 90 minutes: 

As the public policy landscape evolves, with a focus on meeting the energy requirements of an increasingly electricity dependent society, assessments play a role in both realizing projects in a timely manner and ensuring that projects that are not well designed are not developed.

1. Evaluating Sustainable Design Alternatives in the Nuclear Industry
With a significant portion of our energy supply relying on nuclear power generation, it is imperative that nuclear infrastructure is sustainably designed to withstand the impacts of climate change and protect the vital operations on which our communities and industries rely.

2. The ITC Lake Erie Connector: How Good Environmental Assessment (EA) Process Resulted in a Little Known Project
There are several positive impacts from a corporate, political, and societal perspective including economic and grid resiliency benefits and potential to reduce Ontario’s GHG emissions by 2 to 3 million tonnes annually. The presentation will focus on the outcome of the assessment process, including the alternatives analysis.

3. Sustainability-Based Guidance for Assessing Canadian Coal Phase-Out Policy
Consistent with the Impact Assessment Act’s requirements for considering the extent to which a proposed project would “contribute to sustainability,” the proposed criteria integrate attention to the full suite of factors and interactions affecting potential contributions to sustainability, including matters related to just transition and ecological integrity.

Government update followed by updates on the Ring of Fire 
⏱11:00 am to 12:30 pm 90 minutes

The ongoing efforts to modernize Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Act is contrasted by ongoing project-level assessments in the Ring of Fire:

1. Update on Modernizing Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Act
An overview will be provided by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.

2. Indigenous-Driven Infrastructure Development: Insights from Proponent First Nations on Road Development in the Ring of Fire area
Two northern Ontario First Nations, Marten Falls First Nation (MFFN) and Webequie First Nation (WFN), are leading the development of multiple road projects within the Ring of Fire area and their traditional territories as proponents. Insight will be provided into MFFN’s and WFN’s experiences as project proponents and what their status as proponents means for building capacities to facilitate their long-term visions for community development and self-determination.

3. Invitation to [Indigenous Women’s] Voices in Impact Assessment
The Invitation to Voices Project’s objective is to build Indigenous women’s capacity to participate in impact assessments (IAs) through a multi-phase research and training process. The presentation will highlight barriers that intersectional identities have historically faced while participating in IAs and identify strategies to ensure that the voices of Indigenous women and gender diverse people are intentionally and authentically included in such spaces moving forwards.

4. Health Impact Assessment in the Federal Impact Assessment Process: A Value Added
Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is an evidence-based systematic framework that uses a health lens to assess the potential positive and negative impacts of a project or policy on community health and the distribution of those impacts within the community. In federal assessments, the Tailored Impact Statement Guidelines (TISG) provide a proponent with direction and requirements for the Impact Statement. The HIA process outlined in this presentation has been aligned to the IA process and uses terminology in keeping with the TISG. This presentation will also provide a high-level overview of the Webequie Supply Road Project HIA.

Collectively improving the discipline of socioeconomic impact assessment
⏱ 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm 90 minutes:

Despite the broad definition of “environment” in Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Act, experiences with socioeconomic assessment is a growing field that is rich in opportunities to add value to assessments.

1. Gender in Sustainability Assessment: State of Practice and Future Opportunities
It is important to consider where gender considerations can most effectively be integrated into assessment processes. Five historic cases of best practice in Canada will be discussed: the Berger Report, the Mackenzie Valley Gas Project, the Lower Churchill Assessment, the Voisey’s Bay Mine, and the Whites Point Quarry Assessment. These cases all represent sustainability based, next generation assessment processes. The presentation will focus on how gender has and has not been included in best practice asses sment, as well as potential methods of better including intersectional gender analysis into sustainability-based criteria for future application.

2. Collaborative Social Research: A Holistic SocioEconomic Study for the Webequie Supply Road Project
This presentation will explore how the Webequie Supply Road Socio-economic Baseline Study contributes to the Webequie First Nation’s Social License to Operate. Through this study, the Project Team, in collaboration with Webequie First Nation, will investigate their community’s social and economic well-being. Through this Indigenous-led process the Baseline Study goes beyond typical Environmental Assessment requirements by integrating Indigenous Knowledge and an awareness of the colonial histories which have impacted the social and economic well-being of the community today.
Theoretical frameworks such as Gender Based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) have informed the Baseline Study and will be explored in the presentation.

3. Challenging Epistemic Barriers to Collaborative Socio Economic Baseline Development: Engaging Indigenous
and Western Knowledge Systems
Socio-economic baseline data gathering poses epistemic and methodological challenges, as regulatory requirements and publicly available data can be fundamentally antithetical to Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Drawing on a combined 15 years of experience working with and learning from Indigenous Peoples in Canada and India, we offer insights on developing socio-economic baselines that reconcile differing worldviews. This supports clients in successfully representing holistic socio-economic and health baseline conditions, while protecting and sustaining the knowledge and practices of Indigenous Nations and Peoples.

4. Equity, Practicality and Inclusive Research: GBA+ Analysis in Socio-economic Baseline Studies
Requirements to interweave GBA Plus with socioeconomic baseline gathering requires reframing so as to better identify the experiences of individuals within the study area based on their intersecting identities. This presentation questions how socio-economic baselines can incorporate GBA Plus while following sound methodological practices.

Does land use planning and environmental assessment intersect to add value in Ontario?
⏱3:15 pm to 4:45 pm 90 minutes

Closing Remarks
⏱4:45 pm to 5:00 pm 15 minutes

How do environmental assessments resolve differing points of view transparently, fairly, and in an evidence-based manner?

1. Landfill Planning in Ontario – the Past, the Present and the Likely Messy Future
An overview of landfill EAs in the Province of Ontario will reflect on the past including pivotal Hearing decisions and attempts at the Willing Host Siting Approach. An overview of current challenges will include the demand and the right provisions. An overview of the messy future will focus on limited landfill capacity and significant barriers to approving new landfills.