(025-0380, Proposed Changes…

(025-0380, Proposed Changes to the Endangered Species Act, into the Species Conservation Act)

Hello there. I'm a 24-year-old citizen of Ottawa, Ontario, and I've just been informed of these proposed changes and had a look through the proposal myself.

I would like to begin by saying that the law in question, created almost 20 years ago, was in fact laid down for a reason.

Even the idea of changing the name rubs me the wrong way; the title would no longer rightly declare these species as endangered- instead, that can be dissolved to a footnote. These creatures who have lived and thrived here for millennia before us and we rip them out by the root in the name of "development." Development that would apparently be done without due process: the new Species Conservation Act would remove the requirement for the government to develop a recovery strategy, management plan, response statement and review of progress for species at risk. Does anybody else realize how absolutely ridiculous and dangerous this sounds?

I'm frankly appalled that these changes are being proposed in the first place. This new, watered-down "Species Conservation Act" would try to strip the meaning of habitat from everything including breeding and nesting, feeding and transit spots to nothing more than immediate breeding and nesting locations. This takes the focus away from the species at whole to individuals only, and makes it much harder to track the damage done from project development for the sake of so-called infrastructure. These creatures and their homes ARE infrastructure. These places and their residents provide us with fresh water, nutrient cycling, carbon storage, flood control and pollination, as well as boosting the aesthetic appeal of the province and promoting tourism.

If we strip all the denizens of the natural beauty and the nature itself from Ontario, we will have nothing left. I plea that someone in this province has the sense of mind to think of all others who live and thrive here, and not just the humans. They provide invaluable services to us for less than nothing in return, it would seem.

I hope this is enough of a reason for somebody to reconsider this. I'm absolutely fuming as I type. I don't want to keep seeing endangered species go extinct. I don't want to live in a world without the diversity it ought to have. We can't keep going forward like this, and indeed, we shouldn't. It's not good for anybody, certainly not for humans. At some point all the damage will be irreversible and we'll have nobody to blame but the businesses and the clowns who run them who wanted to scalp the Earth for profit.