The main change proposed…

This is not streamlining bloated legislation or making things better for the vast majority of Ontario residents. The aim of these proposed changes is to move the legislation's focus away from protecting species and habitats toward enriching developers, a demonstrated priority for this government.

Some key facts:

The government will be able to override the currently-independent body that decides what species are protected. This means that a species identified as being at risk of extinction, for example, because of a proposed development, can be excluded from protection at the discretion of the government. This government's demonstrated priority to enrich developers should not give anyone confidence in this process actually preserving species or habitats.

The Habitat protected by legislation will be reduced to almost nothing. Under the language of the proposed legislation, the protected habitat will refer only to a given creature's den or nest, with all the other areas that it needs to live and survive (e.g., breeding grounds, migratory routes, feeding zones, etc.), no longer be protected.

Under the proposed changes, the Province will no longer be required to provide recovery strategies for at-risk species disrupted by permitted activities.

The summary statement is that the proposed changes all but completely remove the regulations currently in place to protect Ontario species and habitats from harm, up to and including extinction. Like this government's attempted gutting of the Green Belt protections, these proposed changes are short-sighted and reckless, intended to enrich developers at the expense of food security, biodiversity, native species, etc., and they should be rejected accordingly.