A Policy Window Opens: Strategic Environmental Assessment in York Region, Ontario, Canada (original) (raw)
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Efficacy of Strategic Environmental Assessment in Canada
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Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) has been practiced in Canada since the early 1970s. However, its added value to policies plans and programs (PPPs) has yet to be fully realized. Consequently, many planners and decision makers are skeptical about the benefits of SEA, in part because of the lack of cases to indicate its added value to PPP development or downstream assessment. Much of the SEA evaluation research to date has focused on the procedural requirements and process elements of SEA rather than on its outputs and outcomes. The overall purpose of this research was to examine the efficacy of SEA and "SEA like" processes in Canada. The research examined how SEA practices have influenced PPP development, decisionmaking and subsequent actions in Canada. Data were collected using SEA efficacy evaluation criteria through semi-structured interviews with experts and non-experts across Canada based on their experience with and perspectives on the 'impact' of SEA. There has not been any study into the efficacy of SEA that is based on its added value. Most studies so far have focused on SEA inputs and process rather than outputs and broader outcomes in Canada. This research contributed not only to SEA efficacy studies, but also to improved SEA application and value added for PPP development in Canada.
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Recent calls in Australia have addressed the need for better integration of planning processes. The consequent effort made by government has been, and still is, reshaping the way urban and regional planning and sustainability are managed. Focusing on planning practices at the local and regional levels, we investigate how environmental sustainability is pursued from an institutional perspective. Specifically, we analyse the way that planning in Australian cities aims to achieve sustainable strategies and reflect on the relationship with ‘Strategic Environmental Assessment’. This paper has four goals. First, sustainable planning practices at the local and regional levels are analysed considering the legislative and organizational frameworks of each state. The goal is to identify through an analysis of planning documents how much discretion is given to local councils to address sustainable strategies. Second, we focus on two regional and four cities in Queensland, to outline strengths ...
Strengthening Strategic Environmental Assessment in Canada: An Evaluation of Three Basic Options
Journal of Environmental Law and Practice, 2010
Canada has a long and diverse but largely disappointing record in integrating environmental and sustainability considerations into the development of policies, plans, programs and other strategic undertakings. For over 25 years, the federal government has had a policy-based strategic environmental assessment (SEA) process. In 2003, the deficiencies of this process led the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development to recommend establishment of a legislated framework for mandatory SEA before the 2010 Parliamentary review of environmental assessment. Governments since then have not acted on this recommendation but have promised to strengthen federal SEA. In this paper, we examine the three basic options for strengthening federal SEA — a law-based option, a policy-guided option and a combined law and policy approach — using criteria drawn from international assessment literature and reviews of Canadian and international SEA experience. In the Canadian context, the combined approach appears to be most promising. Accordingly, we provide a broad outline of how an integrated law and policy-based SEA regime could be structured to satisfy the criteria and deliver a workable union of firmness and flexibility.
Sustainability
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the United Nations calls upon all signatory countries to localize its goals through National and Regional Sustainable Development Strategies (SDS). As in Italy the SDS constitute the framework of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of Plans and Programmes (P/P), the question arises as to whether the SEA can represent a fundamental tool for SDS. Although the mutual relationship between 2030 Agenda goals and SEA is recognized in the literature, there is a lack of focus on SDS and SEA. The SEA monitoring system is an essential instrument to redirect P/P trajectories, although it represents a constant weakness of the SEA process. Opening a discussion about the relationship between SDS and SEA, the present contribution aims at assessing SEA monitoring potential in mediating the 2030 Agenda SDS’s objectives into P/P. To this end, the study delves into the SEA monitoring structure through a qualitative and comparative approach, the fe...