A Statement By Tim Gray, Executive Director of Environmental Defence, a citizens organization dedicated to protecting our environment
Posted March 27th, 2027 on Niagara At Large
Tim Gray, Executive Director at Environmental Defence,
Toronto, Ontario – Tim Gray, Executive Director at Environmental Defence, made the following statement in response to Ontario’s 2026 Provincial Budget:
“The word “environment” only occurs in this budget in conjunction with “economic” or ‘trade” and never as something that the Ontario government plans to protect or in which to invest. This is another missed opportunity to chart a future for the province that aligns with how the rest of the world is moving to address the mounting crises our world faces. Ontario is at risk of being left behind.”
Expert Analysis
Water and Lands
This budget signals that the government’s rhetoric about wanting to “standardize” conservation authorities through amalgamation will disguise reduced protection against flooding, landslides and other environmental harms. The mere $3 million already allocated to the Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency falls far short of what is required even to maintain all current levels of scrutiny and protection provided by the most effective conservation authorities post-merger. The budget document does not seem to be committing anything more.
Housing
Today’s budget reveals, just as experts warned, that Ontario’s push to revive obsolete, inefficient sprawl really has resulted in fewer homes, slower, and will continue to do so in 2026, 2027, and 2028.
Because of the Premier’s refusal to accept that most family homes must be built as mid-rise and multiplex in existing neighbourhoods, his government’s promise of 1.5 million new homes by 2031 now seems virtually impossible.
The choice of a blanket HST rebate, that isn’t limited to mid-rise and multiplex infill, as this budget’s centrepiece housing spend, show the government still won’t admit how it caused these housing crises.
Provincial Parks
Last year, the Ontario government removed the Provincial Park status and staff protection that have allowed the endangered Piping Plover to survive alongside beachgoers at Wasaga Beach. While this budget reiterates a commitment to $2 million for “tourism planning support” it does not seem to fund a municipal replacement for the expert Provincial Park biologists whose support it has removed.
With the Piping Plover set to return in April, and this vital habitat now in the Town’s hands, it appears the Town Council has yet to hire its own full time protection team.
Energy
This budget goes all-in on nuclear expansion, including a newly proposed site at Wesleyville and unproven technology of small modular reactors, while renewables and battery storage are absent. Ontario’s own energy agency found wind, solar and storage can meet our electricity needs at roughly half the nuclear price tag.
A $36/month electricity rebate is not an affordability plan. Shifting costs from the ratebase to the taxbase isn’t a solution, since ratepayers and taxpayers are the same people. The real driver of rising energy costs is a grid increasingly dependent on expensive gas and unproven nuclear megaprojects that won’t deliver power for decades — costs that will land on ratepayers for generations.
Climate change is notably absent from this budget. The only reference to climate change in this budget is a 2% allocation within the Green Bond program. This is a serious omission.
Highways
This budget re-iterates the fiction that Highway 413 is under construction when it is not. The environmental studies and permits necessary to start the destructive highway must first be completed and issued.
It also repeats the fiction that the highway will meaningfully shorten commute times when independent review indicates that it will save drivers in the region only 30 seconds per trip.
Highway 413 is being pushed to enable low density sprawl when a cheaper, faster and more effective solution to traffic management would be to invest in transit and immediately make Highway 407 affordable for truck traffic, thereby making more space for cars on the 401.
This budget also continues to indulge the fantasy that the tunnel under Highway 401 makes sense and will be built.
ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.
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