Changes to Endangered…

Changes to Endangered Species Act

I am writing to you in response to the recently introduced Bill 5, Protecting Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025. As a concerned citizen, I want to the government to understand this bill is appalling and wrong. We do not have to unleash our economy at the expense of the environment! THE ENVIRONMENT IS THE ECONOMY.

This is an extremely poorly conceived, harmful, dangerous bill which shows no regard or respect for future generations, be they human, fauna, flora, fish or fowl.

It will speed up the destruction of critical habitat for endangered species. Protecting a den or nest is not enough. Animals and birds need a healthy ecosystem in which to find food and find a mate. Protecting just one tiny living space shows a clear ignorance of how the natural world operates. It is braided and woven together, with no clear boundaries such as the government seeks to create. Think of it this way - When your neighbour is enjoying a cigarette in his backyard, you’re still breathing in secondhand smoke. The air doesn’t care about a fence. So developing the land within a metre or two of a den or nest will destroy it as effectively as if it had been bulldozed.

This bill removes basic environmental rights, including our rights to be informed and to have a say in what happens to the incredibly precious natural and agricultural land around us.

Further, it fails to respect Indigenous peoples' rights, including those recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

This bill seems to value only the mining and development potential of the environment. This is a problem. Although many economists are talking about the need to access critical minerals, the uncertainty in the markets at present (due to tariffs and President Trump’s daily unpredictability) means many companies are not currently interested in developing these properties. Telling companies they don’t need to worry about, or pay for the environmental consequences of their actions is incredibly shortsighted and absolutely wrong!

This bill is also morally and ethically flawed. It is written in a way to absolve governments and companies of any accountability or responsibility. They don’t need a permit, or a clean-up plan, and people may not be able to take the government to court with their concerns or when they see what is happening at their favourite fishing spot, swimming hole, canoeing river or hiking trail.

I wish to remind the government it works for the people of this province, not for developers or mining companies. Having a majority government does not give it free rein to ruin the environment.

Many of our medicines and “modern devices” have their genesis in the natural world. Rather than just cut down the trees and tear up the earth to get at the minerals buried there, the government could and should examine the environment for value added products, and what future riches are there to be accessed in a less exploitive way. Perhaps this research could be funded by alcohol sales, if those products were returned to the LCBO as the sole vendor. This was formerly a huge moneymaker for the Ontario government.

Government is not a business. It exists to serve all the people and to wisely and respectfully provide access to our natural resources. This bill is neither wise nor respectful. It doesn’t provide any protection for our environment, which is under increasing threat from climate change. Actions like this dooms us all.

It seems the goal of this bill is to develop the Ring of Fire mineral region as quickly as possible, while negating the wishes, culture and traditional responsibilities of First Nations in the area.?They have protected these invaluable resources for millennia. Further, it jeopardizes the lands and waters in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario.

This bill threatens species survival and recovery. It repeals the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and replaces it with the Species Conservation Act which relies on voluntary initiatives and discretionary, not mandatory, species protection and eliminates requirements to create recovery strategies for at-risk species, making it nearly impossible to track and mitigate threats to their survival.

As well, by exempting entire regions from provincial laws and environmental safeguards through the creation of “special economic zones” - such as those in and around the proposed Ring of Fire mining development, the government is signalling that some places, and some people are more important than others. It will destroy parts or northern and rural Ontario to potentially employ people in southern Ontario. This is a form of environmental racism and has no place in the Ontario we should all be trying to build.

This bill continues a troubling pattern by the government of vast and sweeping amendments in, or to other bills, which exempt major extractive industries from the ESA’s protective measures and delay the classification of species on the Species At Risk in Ontario (SARO) List. These previous changes and this current bill give far too much power to uninformed Ministers, and deputies who are not required to seek expert advice. Ministers and their deputies may be very intelligent people but that doesn’t mean they know exactly how to protect biodiversity and endangered species. That’s why experts, many of them employed by the government are so important. Further, this bill also obfuscates information sharing and severely limits the public’s access to information around why certain decisions are being made.

Bill 5 is an example of Ontario’s unrestrained and unabashed endorsement of private interests, such as mining companies and developers, while ignoring and potentially sacrificing our most valuable asset - our natural environment.

It is extremely troubling that this horrendous destruction of our environment and the possible extinction of a variety of endangered species could proceed without any legal requirement to consider the interests of the public, communities, nature and health

It would be far better for the government to maintain and strengthen the existing laws around protecting the environment and habitat of endangered species and by extension all of us.

Please, REPEAL THIS LEGISLATION, and unleash the economy in a way which does not destroy the environment.