Hello! I am Ontarian, and I…

Hello!

I am Ontarian, and I'm writing to you today to condemn Bill 5 and to urge you to refuse to allow it to move any further. If pushed through as Ford has been diligently attempting (passing it's second hearing long before the opportunity for public comment has even ended?!?) it will absolutely cause irreparable damage to the health of this province, and it's priorities fly in the face of the title of the Bill. It will not be protecting anything but the profit margins of developers.

A simple quote from Bill 5 to begin: “...the proposed changes would provide a reasonable, balanced approach to protecting species in Ontario”

Reasonable and Balanced? According to who? Obviously not anyone who has any knowledge about what conserving threatened species actually looks like. Endangered species protections are NOT the enemy of economic health, and politicians should not give themselves the authority to make these kinds of changes. This Bill 5 and the suggestions therein are an incredibly lazy way to think about the problem of stimulating economic growth.

I'm willing to admit, and I think we can all agree that the housing crisis should be at the forefront of our minds; the homelessness epidemic here in my city has reached desperate proportions, and most cities in Ontario are seeing the same kind of suffering, mortality and EXPENSE of providing services for unhoused individuals in this vulnerable population. We need to fix this problem, and we absolutely need supportive and affordable housing ASAP – to save the province money and to save lives. But harnessing the stress and fear of our population while it is in this vulnerable position, to suggest that the only option is to REDUCE protections of the only healthy ecosystems we have left... it's predatory and underhanded. The small healthy pieces of the ecosystem we have left in this province are not simply blank slates that should be free for industry and development. They are irreplaceable centers of biodiversity and ecological health that we cannot afford to do without; we are already problematically impoverished as to how much healthy old growth forest, wetland, and grassland ecosystems remains in this province – The level we're at is absolutely next to NOTHING compared to the recommended levels of conservation for overall health of populations and communities. We have a duty to ACTUALLY protect what remaining small chunks of ecosystems we have left after the “unleashed” development of the past, now that we know better. We must do better with the understanding we have now.

The false dichotomy (conservation is the enemy) presented by this Bill is a massive disrespect towards the hundreds of trained and experienced biologists, ecologists, indigenous knowledge keepers, botanists, entomologists, and countless other specialized professionals who have worked to make sure that these protections exist in our province. The Endangered Species Act as it stands, after much labour, love, and rigorously and carefully collected DATA, exists to prevent endangered species from being lost in this province, and by doing so, protecting the human communities in this province as well. The destruction of threatened species in our province is true destruction, even if other populations of the same species exist. It's clear based on it's attitude that the leadership of the Ontario conservative party has no understanding of how biodiversity works with regards to genetic diversity. Destroying populations of threatened species is irreversible, and WILL damage the resilience of all of our collective ecosystems in the face of shifting weather patterns and climate extremes. And, whether you “believe” in climate change or not, biodiversity is what the foundation of our food system (and therefore our life support system) rests on. We CANNOT afford to lose more of it, and no amount of money in the future could make up for it.

The value of a healthy ecosystem is not expressed in the cash value of it's timber or in how much a condo would make a developer. It goes deeper than that, and disregarding the value of carbon sequestration, provision of fresh water, nutrient cycling, flood control, pollination, not to mention culture, tourism and communities is foolhardy. But, if in the end all that speaks to Ford is numbers, the Government of Ontario itself has suggested that the dollar value of the province's biodiversity is $122.5 Billion, per year. Respecting the incredible value of protected lands means not letting this Bill's lazy thinking run over the incredible amount of work that has gone into the Endangered Species Act, and the land it protects. Respecting the value of Ontario's biodiversity involves prioritizing our collective health by harnessing the potential of land we're already occupying inefficiently. It involves getting real about how to solve this problem without endangering the health of vulnerable species AND people, and it involves taking the sovereignty of indigenous nations on this land SERIOUSLY. It's depressing and disgusting to see how easily Ford's government finds it to disregard the safety and health of the ecosystems that the people of Ontario live in – and therefore disrespect the safety, health and CONSENT of the people themselves -- all for short sighted, close gains. (Might I draw your attention to the Dresden project that is ALREADY getting pushed through without the environmental assessments requested by the people who live there.) The blatant disrespect is appalling.

I had some real hope that Ford's refusal to endorse the Federal Conservatives in the face of the Trump regime may mean that he also believed in respecting the laws of the land that he governs instead of trying to steamroll his own myopic priorities right over top of laws and systems that are ACTUALLY protecting Ontario. I truly hoped that maybe he would be more respectable and honourable than to try to misrepresent his priorities with a flourish of language that makes him sound like a hero when really he is taking advantage of the people and land he presides over. Unfortunately, I am freshly and even more deeply disappointed with his priorities. Allowing politicians to step into the positions that specialized professionals hold (or allowing their “trusted” friends to do so) when it comes to assessing the health of our ecosystems is a recipe for disaster. We've already seen what happens when powerful people with friends in development act like they're invincible...

We said NO to the greenbelt getting bulldozed, and saw Ford go to extreme and illegal lengths to try to push his priorities through. We're saying NO again, and this time we're NOT giving Ford the benefit of the doubt. This Bill is a hostile attack on the health and the people of Ontario.

Most Sincerely and Seriously,
Ontario Resident