The proposed changes to the…

The proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act represent a targeted attempt to weaken the scientific listing process and protection of species at risk in Ontario. Since 1971 the intent of the Act has been to identify and protect species at risk for their ecological significance and to affirm a common and ethical approach that these values are sufficiently important to current and future generations of Ontarians to be protected from impacts such as development and other economic interests. As proposed, the alterations to the Act and supporting processes and instruments would significantly constrain the protections to species and habitats in favour of economic development opportunities, which should be otherwise directed to avoid areas that support important populations and habitats for the most rare and imperiled examples of our natural heritage.

Assessing and listing species at risk
The proposed extended period of listing after COSSARO assessment would significantly lengthen the amount of time before important species and habitat protections apply, potentially impacting important populations that are critically imperilled and/or that are facing imminent threats. The requirement for COSSARO to consider a species’ condition across a broader geographic area is dangerous to the protection of important Ontario species populations and not grounded in responsible assessment and management practice for natural heritage values. Species at risk that are native to Ontario, even in small numbers, represent important and functional aspects of our natural history and require equal levels of protection. Particularly with the coming pressures of climate change, these small populations are more likely to provide critically important sources of colonization and gene flow for Ontario biodiversity.

Defining and implementing species and habitat protections
The removal of automatic species and habitat protections and enabling scoping of protections through Minister regulations may significantly delay critically important protection needed quickly for some species and habitats. It may also result in the creation of regulations that favour small to large-scale economic interests over that of species at risk protections. Along with impacts to the listing of species at risk, the loss of automatic protections may also promote the loss of species and habitat by landowners or developers who fear the coming protections and choose to destroy species at risk values prior to protections coming into force. The responsibility of making species-specific habitat regulations should remain with the LGIC, not the Minister, to ensure that such regulations go through a fair and open political process.

Developing species at risk recovery policies
The proposed removal of posting requirements under the Environmental Bill of Rights would effectively remove much of the public review and comment opportunities on the government’s approaches to recovery and related commitments. This is not a fair or appropriate move considering the importance of public input into development of these important protection policies and government transparency around these processes.

Issuing ESA permits, agreements and developing regulatory exemptions
The concept of creating a financial trust to allow developers to pay to avoid protection requirements of the Act is not an ethical or effective tool to protect species at risk and their habitats. So much of the importance of legal protections, tools and operational requirements involves the assessment of proposed activities, minimizing adverse effects and ensuring benefits to species at both important local and provincial scales. This is a critically important scientific process that improves the effectiveness of species protections and mitigation approaches for all projects. The proposed payment to avoid process approach would severely impact the important requirements of proposed developments to evaluate, understand and appropriately design avoidance and mitigation responses that are needed to protect important species at risk values.
The proposed removal of the requirement of the Minister to consult with experts on D permits and LGIC approval demonstrates that the government is not serious about getting scientific or political advice which is important to understanding the levels of impacts and appropriate mitigation involved in these larger, more complex projects. Shifting the focus on impacts to individuals of the species to the broader species would also remove the important need to evaluate and understand how specific proposed development sites contribute to significant local populations and make it much more difficult to measure the levels of impact that are expected to occur as a result of an activity.

Enforcing the ESA
Current protection order powers should be extended to the discretion of individual officers under the legislation. Having these critically important enforcement tools being used only under the Minister’s discretion severely weakens the ability of stop work orders and other tools to be issued in a timely manner, which is often needed to effectively cease impacts from development or other activities that may be witnessed as occurring at a particular site. The proposed removal of public consultation on Minister’s regulations for pausing protections for the purpose of minimizing economic impacts is not a responsible approach to species at risk protection. Public consultation needs to remain a functional component of policy, tools and instruments under the Act, and fast-tracking regulations that protect individual economic interests over broader public species at risk protection does not represent a functional or ethical approach to evaluation and management of Ontario’s natural heritage values.