How to access online services for environmental permissions

There are two ways to sign-in through your My Ontario Account to access online services for environmental permissions:

  • Log in with a user ID and password.
  • Log in with a sign-in partner.

If this is your first time accessing environmental permissions online, follow the steps for the option you prefer.

Option 1: log in with a user ID and password

  1. On the Online services for environmental permissions landing page, select Access Environmental Permissions.
  2. Beside Don’t have an account?, click Create Account. Enter your email address and create a password. Agree to the Terms of Service and click Create Account. The system will send you an email asking you to verify your account.
  3. Verify your account by clicking Start Activation in the email. You will have one hour to click this button. If you don’t see the email in your inbox, check your junk or spam folder.
  4. After you select Start Activation you will be prompted to select Complete Activation.
  5. Once you have completed activation, you will be brought to online services for environmental permissions. Learn more about the ministry account profiles and how to set up your profile.

Option 2: log in with a sign-in partner

  1. On the Online services for environmental permissions landing page, select Access Environmental Permissions.
  2. Click the Sign-in Partner button, then select English or French.
  3. Select a sign in partner from the list provided.
  4. Enter your sign in information
    • If you chose a banking sign in partner, an online banking session is not opened as part of this process. No confidential information will be shared with Sign-in Partner, or the Ontario Government.
    • You will also be asked to Accept or Decline the Terms and Conditions to continue.
  5. Provide your email address and select Continue.
  6. A verification code will be sent to your email. You will have five minutes to verify your email.  Check your email and enter the verification code. Agree to the Terms of Service and select Continue.
  7. You will receive confirmation that your account has been activated. In the future, you can use the sign-in partner. You may also use your auto-generated My Ontario Account by clicking on the Forgot Password link and setting up a new password.
  8. Once you have selected Continue, you will be brought to online services for environmental permissions. Learn more about the ministry account profiles and how to set up your profile.

If you have an existing ministry account and an existing ONe-key ID

If you created a ministry account prior to July 18, 2020 and have not used it since this date, you will need to create a new My Ontario Account and link it to your ministry account. Learn more about account recovery.

Ministry account profiles

To access online services for environmental permissions you will need to register for a ministry account. Once you set up your profile, you can:

  • apply or register for environmental permissions
  • submit supplementary information as required by legislation or regulation

There are three types of profiles you can register for under your ministry account:

  1. Business
  2. Individual
  3. Representative

Business profile

A business profile is required by every company or organization that needs to submit an environmental permission or a post-approval report for their business. This includes:

  • sole proprietor
  • partnership
  • corporation
  • co-operative
  • municipality
  • not-for-profit organization

There can only be one ministry account and business profile per company. The business accountable person must have legal authority to bind the company and will be required to attest to the information in the submission.

We recommend discussing who in your organization will create your ministry account and business profile and who will have a representative profile. A business profile can have multiple representative profiles linked to it.

If your organization is medium or large and has multiple departments that may need to obtain an environmental permission, you should consider using a central office to create the business profile.

Learn more about what you need to set up your business profile.

If you have someone working on your behalf, such as a consultant or member of your business, you can connect your business profile to their representative profile. Learn more about how to manage your representatives.

Individual profile

An Individual profile is required if you need to submit an environmental permission under your personal name. For example, to apply for a pesticide exterminator licence or a Permit to Take Water (PTTW).

Learn about what you need to set up your individual profile.

If you have someone working on your behalf, such as a consultant, you can connect your individual profile to their representative profile. Learn more about how to manage your representatives.

Representative profile

A representative profile is required for a consultant, qualified person or employee working on behalf of a business or individual.

You must have your own ministry account and representative profile if you are a consultant, qualified person or employee.

Once you create your ministry account and representative profile, a business or individual will be able to link their account to your account. As a representative you can perform tasks based on the roles that have been assigned to you.

Learn more about what you need to set up your representative profile.

How to set up your profile

On the online services for environmental permissions page, review the information and select Continue. Agree to the terms and conditions and select Continue.

You will be asked question(s) to help you create your ministry account and set up the correct business, representative or individual profile. Based on your selections, the system will determine your profile type.

If an account already exists for the credentials you provided, you will be prompted to complete a profile reset or profile recovery to regain access to your profile. Learn more about profile reset and profile recovery.

What you need to set up your business profile

Here is a checklist of items to keep handy as you complete the profile setup process:

  • Physical address and mailing address information.
  • Legal name of the business (as registered with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). The legal name is case sensitive).
  • Nine-digit business number (as registered with the CRA, if applicable).
  • Postal code of the physical address (as registered with CRA. Enter all capitals with no spaces).
  • Business ownership type (as registered with the CRA).
  • Information for the business accountable person, including name, email and phone number.
  • Information for the contact person (if different than the business accountable person), including name, email, and phone number.

A 9 digit Business Number (GST/HST Number) is issued by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) for businesses that qualify. If you qualify for a Business Number, you will need to register your business with the CRA at 1-800-959-5525 or online before you enroll with the ministry.

What you need to set up your individual profile

Here is a checklist of items to keep handy as you complete the profile setup process:

  • your personal contact information, including name, email and phone number
  • your physical address and mailing address

The physical address refers to the location of your administration, corporate or head office (business office). If your business office is represented by more than one adjacent address, the civic or survey address should represent the physical location of your front door main entrance.

What you need to set up your representative profile

Here is a checklist of items to keep handy as you complete the profile setup process:

  • your personal contact information including name, email and phone number
  • your physical address and mailing address

The physical address refers to the location of your administration, corporate or head office (business office). If your business office is represented by more than one adjacent address, the civic or survey address should represent the physical location of your front door main entrance.

Manage your representatives

If you have a business or individual profile, you can assign different roles to representatives to work on your behalf.

This means you can have different representatives carry out different tasks related to your submission. For example, one representative could complete part of the application, while another can pay the required fees.

You can also assign a representative to have full access to your account which includes the ability to assign the Authorized Representative role to others.

Roles available for representatives

You can assign representatives the following roles in the system, depending on the level of access you want them to have.

Please note that representatives given the authority to attest must have the authority to legally bind the company.

Delegated Authority:

  • has full access to your ministry account and can:
    • add, manage or remove other Authorized Representatives
    • create, update, view, attest and/or delete environmental permissions and Sites (such as Brownfields, ECA, PTTW, EASR or Pesticides)
    • pay for environmental permissions

A representative with delegated authority can view all applications, submissions, registrations, permits and licenses associated with the account, but does not have permission to edit business information in the business profile.

For example, you may want an employee to have delegated authority to complete administrative tasks, such as authorizing other representatives, on behalf of the business profile.

If you do not want your representative to have full access to your ministry account, select the Authorized Representative role and customize their authority to your needs.

Authorized Representative:

  • has customized access to your ministry account and can perform tasks according to the roles granted on behalf of a business or individual. This can include creating, updating, viewing, assigning, attesting and/or deleting

An Authorized Representative with customized access can only view applications, submissions, registrations, permits and licences that are created by the Authorized Representative or have been assigned to them.

For example, a business or individual may want their consultant to create an EASR registration, but not have the ability to attest to the registration or see other applications related to their business.

Financial Authority:

  • has financial access to pay the registration or application fees

The Financial Authority can be given to an individual that has permission to pay the registration or application fees. For example, an employee working on behalf of the business may be responsible for the administrative aspect of submitting and tracking payments.

How to add representatives

In order to assign roles to a representative for a particular environmental permission, you must first be enrolled in the environmental permission service. Enter the Services tab, select “start new application” and select the environmental permission. You will be prompted to enroll. This step is only required once for each environmental permission service.

Your representative must first create their ministry account and representative profile before you can add them to your account.

To add a representative to your account:

  • Visit the Authorized Representative tab in your ministry account.
  • Search for your representative’s name.
  • Assign your representative the appropriate roles.

The name and email you use to search for the representative must be identical to the name the representative is using for their account.

How to assign roles to a representative

Once you have added an representative to your account, you will need to assign roles to that person. When you assign roles to a representative, you must provide:

  • access to your sites
  • access to each environmental permission service they will work on

To assign roles:

  • In the Services drop-down menu under Sites, click the box beside the role that you would like to give to the representative to manage sites in your ministry account. The role that you select will determine the level of access they will be granted.
  • Before you click Submit, select the role that you want the representative to have for your environmental permission services (for example, Brownfields, ECA, EASR, PTTW, Pesticides, etc.) in the Services drop-down menu. This will grant the representative access to your environmental permission services.
  • After you have assigned a role to the representative for sites and the environmental permission services, click Submit. This will generate a PIN.
  • The representative will receive an email with the PIN.

The representative must log in to their account and enter their profile tab to redeem and validate the PIN. After the representative has validated the PIN, they can perform work on your behalf of according to the services and roles you granted.

How to manage your account

How to update your My Ontario Account settings

You can update certain My Ontario Account settings by selecting My Ontario Account in your profile. You will be able to:

  • update your email address
  • change your password
  • add or remove email verification

Multiple profiles

You may need to have multiple profiles if you need to access environmental permissions services as an individual, in addition to getting permissions for your business.

How to add multiple profiles

  • Under Account Management, click the Profile tab and select ‘Add a new Profile’.
  • This will take you to online services for environmental permissions where you will answer the questions to set up your new profile.
  • Once you successfully created the new profile, you will need to log back into environmental permission services again to select the profile you would like to access.

How to select a different profile

If you have multiple profiles associated with your account, your profiles will be shown in a list. You can choose one of these profiles to use when browsing the platform.

If you want to change the profile you’re currently using, you need to:

  • Log out of environmental permissions.
  • Log in to environmental permissions again.
  • Select the other profile you want to use.

My Ontario Account password recovery

If you have forgotten the password you use to sign in through My Ontario Account, you can reset your password by selecting “Forgot your password?” on the sign in page. You will receive an email at the email address you used to sign in with instructions on how you can reset your password.

If you cannot access the email you used to sign in, you can recover your ministry account profile through a profile reset or profile recovery.

Profile reset and profile recovery

How to reset an individual or representative profile

If you are an individual or representative, you may need to recover your profile if you:

  • forgot your My Ontario Account login credentials
  • are unable to reset the password for your My Ontario Account
  • only used the Sign-in Partner to access environmental permission services and your banking information has changed

To recover your profile, you should create a new My Ontario Account. When you set up your profile, provide the same credentials you used when you first created your account. You will receive a message saying ‘profile reset or profile recovery required’.

If you have access to the displayed email, select 'Send code' to be sent a code to regain access to your profile. If you do not have access to the email, contact us for next steps.

How to recover a business profile

You may need to recover your business profile if:

  • you forgot your My Ontario Account login credentials
  • you are unable to reset the password for your My Ontario Account
  • you only used the Sign-in Partner to access environmental permission services and your banking information has changed
  • the account creator left the organization and did not share the My Ontario Account login credentials
  • the account creator left the organization and only used the Sign-in Partner to access environmental permission services
  • someone else from the organization is attempting to gain access to the business profile

You cannot use multiple My Ontario Accounts to access your business profile.

To recover your business profile, you should create a new My Ontario Account. When you set up your business profile, provide the same credentials you used when you first created your account. If an account does exist, you will be prompted with the message ‘profile reset or profile recovery required’.

If you are the business accountable person on file and have access to the displayed email, click 'Send code' to be sent a code to regain access to your profile.

If you are not the original creator or cannot access the profile, click 'Continue' to complete the profile recovery form.

The ministry will review the profile recovery form and provide you with next steps to recover the business profile.

Contact us

For more information, you can contact the Client Services and Permissions Branch: