Thank you for including my…

Thank you for including my comments on the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act (the “Act”).

While it is always important to regularly reevaluate methods and actions which we undertake to putatively achieve certain goals – in this case the improvement of the statuses of the species at risk of extinction in Ontario – it is readily apparent that the changes to the Act which have been proposed arise from a place where outcome improvement in the neither the sole, nor even a significant, goal. Rather, the proposed changes – embedded in an omnibus bill nakedly favorable to developers – are clearly an attempt to eviscerate the Act so that the natural treasures gifted to Ontario will not stand in the way of economic growth at any cost.

Forthwith, withdraw the proposals in their entirety and then revisit the reevaluation process with some level of caring in regard to the persistence and status improvement of species at risk of extinction in Ontario, and elsewhere.

To those who, in any way, further these proposals, rest assured, for your pay cheque and your precious pension, you will assume your position on the wrong side of history forevermore. It will be for people such as you that the ecology of the earth, already a shambles as the result of our choices, will yet again feel the joy of a boot in the face.

“I’m just doing my job.”
“I just work here.”
“Two more years, and I’m retired!”
“I was just following orders.”

No, not good enough. You wear the outcomes as though they arose of your singular choice. Preventing the wrong thing from transpiring is the responsibility of all of us both individually and collectively. Now that you have been reminded of your responsibilities, what will you do to further them? Wake up and do something.

The Act, as it stands, was already profoundly weak. Each instance of where an exemption was granted under the Act represented an example of where the Act was ready to work, but where it was hobbled for political reasons. The ability of political actors to grant exemptions is a key weakness of the Act as it stands. Why not try to remove this weakness instead of introducing countless new ones? In Ontario, essentially all species at risk of extinction would be in a better place if the political choices which governed their fates focused on their well-being. Is that too much to ask?

Endless sprawl. Miles of faceless, low-quality garbage houses giving rise to no meaningful sense of community for their occupants. Pavement and more pavement. Trees cut. Precious farm and grassland irretrievably destroyed. Wetlands drained or shrunken. Ever more detachment from nature and deeper states of depression and mental illness among our population, along with the concomitant scourges of addiction and crime. Species at risk of extinction violently elbowed into oblivion. This is the legacy you will leave if you enact the proposed changes to the Act. Nauseating. More Houses (not homes), More Choices, indeed.

Withdraw the proposed changes entirely and start again. They represent a failure even before implementation. You must do what you can to ensure the proposals never see the light of day, for they will extinguish that light for species at risk of extinction in Ontario. We will all be staggeringly the poorer for this.