April 9, 2020

Minister grants extension for submitting
Blue Box Program Transition Plan to RPRA

Dear Blue Box stakeholders,
 
We hope everyone continues to stay safe and healthy as we all adjust to the impacts of the evolving pandemic situation.
 
We announced last week that we postponed the April consultation webinars on Blue Box Program Transition Plan proposals due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

To ensure meaningful consultations can still occur with all Blue Box stakeholders, we asked the Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks for a 60-day extension for submitting the transition plan to the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority (RRPA).  The Minister has since granted Stewardship Ontario's extension request in a letter   received this week.
 
This extension allows us to:
  • Extend the stakeholder feedback deadline on transition plan proposals to July 8, 2020.
  • Submit the transition plan to RPRA no later than August 31, 2020 (rather than June 30, 2020).
The Minister still anticipates RPRA will approve the plan no later than December 31, 2020, meaning there will be no delay in the transition timelines originally set out in the Minister's August 2019 direction letter.
 
We continue to assess the pandemic situation and will reschedule the consultation webinars at an appropriate time. 

The consultation materials we were going to present this week will be made available to stakeholders shortly so that they can be reviewed. Once these materials are available, we will invite stakeholders to send us their questions so that we can respond to them virtually. 

We will also be reaching out to stakeholder group associations to schedule meetings and discuss initial feedback on the materials before the rescheduled consultation webinars.

Please contact us with questions at [email protected] .