I hope that you are as well…

I hope that you are as well as can be. I am sharing these comments on this misguided proposal:

-Bill 5, Ontario premier Doug Ford’s Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025, would do untold damage to ecosystems, endangered species, and future generations.

-I am especially gravely concerned about the proposed new Species Conservation Act, 2025 that is part of Bill 5, which would repeal Ontario’s existing Endangered Species Act, 2007.

Ontario, along with the rest of the world, is facing an extinction crisis. Animals like the Eastern Wolf, Woodland Caribou and Rusty-patched Bumble Bee; and plants like the Black Ash, Butternut, and Ginseng; are on the verge of disappearing altogether. Once gone, they will never return.  
Scientists agree that habitat destruction is the main driver of biodiversity loss. Ontario’s current Endangered Species Act includes habitat protection provisions for threatened and endangered species. But to “unleash” development, Bill 5 would remove these protections, substituting absurd definitions of plant and animal habitat. 

This puts endangered species on a path to extinction, and humans as well. We depend on pollinators for our food. We depend on trees to maintain healthy water cycles and air quality. These wild spaces are essential for our physical and mental health as humans. They are essential for our survival as a species.

Please stop this Bill, including new Species Conservation Act, 2025.

I urge the public and especially this government to listen to climate scientists and peer-reviewed scholarly research that illustrates the importance of sustaining our wild spaces.

I urge this government to collaborate with urban planners so that we can build housing and transportation infrastructure that supports natural spaces and us as humans rather than trampling and exterminating other species and harming our own.