Ontario's Premier Accountability Dashboard · Queen's Park Watch
Terence Hubbard
Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
President of the federal Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. In October 2025, Hubbard rejected the designation request for the York1 Dresden landfill, despite the IAAC acknowledging the project "may cause adverse effects" to fisheries, migratory birds, and species at risk. His ruling cited existing federal laws — the Fisheries Act, Species at Risk Act, and Environmental Protection Act — as adequate protection. The same laws had been cited by the Ontario government as justification for removing provincial environmental assessment requirements. CELA counsel Richard Lindgren called the decision "disappointing and inconsistent."
Connected Scandals
The Ford government promised a comprehensive environmental assessment for a proposed landfill directly upstream from Canada's only population of the salamander mussel — then buried the reversal inside omnibus Bill 5 after winning a byelection on the promise, exempting a company whose owners donated $200,000 to the PCs from all provincial environmental review, leaving 33 species at risk in one of Canada's most biodiverse rivers with no provincial protection.
As President of the IAAC, rejected the federal designation request for the York1 landfill in October 2025 — the only remaining avenue for independent environmental review of a project the Ontario government had already exempted from all provincial assessment.