This proposal to change the…

This proposal to change the Endangered Species Act will not “conserve” species at all. It will decimate the populations of endangered species and it will seriously increase the number of species that are considered endangered within Ontario. By redefining what constitutes a ‘habitat,’ limiting it to the actual home in which an animal is found, is ridiculous and completely unscientific. An animal, plant, insect, bird or fish requires inputs from its larger environment in order to thrive. A plant requires excellent ground water, clean air, a community of healthy microbes in the soil, and connection to an abundance of mycorrhizae to nourish itself and the surrounding plant and animal life, in cooperation with established communication lines. Animals, fish, birds and insects require a space that matches their migration patterns, their mating and rearing of offspring requirements, their hunting and/or foraging needs, and their needs for self-protection. The disdain this proposal embodies towards non-human species speaks to an arrogance that can only lead to our mutual destruction.

Urban sprawl, the result of single-minded construction of single family homes, has lead to the destruction of true community. Generations are separated from one another as aging grandparents can’t find downsized homes anywhere near their children or grandchildren. Children are restricted to dependence on their parents for transportation to and from the places they need and want to be: schools, parks, friends’ homes, clubs, arenas, etc. Playing unsupervised is dangerous due to the cars on the roads and the distances to desired destinations. This forces them into increasingly sedentary lives, focused inwards, getting hooked on their devices, looking for social interactions, and many of these are unhealthy. Adolescents and young adults are forced early into car ownership in order to gain independence and freedom, causing them unnecessary expense and risk to their lives, being new and less-experienced drivers. They also find themselves having to move far away from their parents, as the community they’ve grown up in doesn’t provide housing that is affordable nor appropriately-sized for their needs.

Likewise the adults in such communities are required to each have their own car, contributing to congestion both on their own streets where parking spaces are coveted and on the roads and highways they’re forced to commute on in order to reach their work, their children’s schools, grocery stores, their gyms, their parents (living in enclaves for seniors) or their adulting children (living on distant campuses or in city cores). Urban sprawl subdivisions create false and temporary security for a single stage of living: a young family with certain substantial means, living among similarly-aged and financed families. Unhappiness and mental health challenges abound because we’re living in such disjointed structures and communities.

And now, through this Bill 5, suggesting that the non-human world should be likewise thrown into disjointed living conditions, where their young don’t have access to safe and appropriate environments to play in, feed from, learn to hunt, find mates, and thrive. Animals and plants can’t jump in the family car to get where they need to be!

Just as single-minded thinking has lead to unhealthy, disjointed human habitats, apparently some among us, such as the designers of this proposal, feel we should impose these conditions on the non-human world too. But, pass this bill, and it will soon be apparent that this effort to “conserve” species will see them to the door of local extinction.

Truly healthy communities are needed both by the human species and by non-human species. They are ones which provide space for the full-spectrum of life, from birth to death, meeting all of our physical, social, emotional and spiritual needs. Humans have an advantage in that, because we can account for greed within ourselves and our counterparts, we can rationalize structures that suit temporary stages of living. The non-human world has no such capacity. Forced into living in disjointed environments, they will suffer and die. Bill 5 must NOT be passed!