The Bill “Protect Ontario by…

The Bill “Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act, 2025” to be transparent, should be called “The Bill to Destroy Ontario by Slashing and Burning Our Economy Act, 2025.” Or how about renaming “Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act” as “Predate Ontario by Enabling Corporate Destruction Act?”

This unprecedented assault on the province and all her residents was coined in a recent Toronto Star article as “Zones of Special Superpowers for the Premier.”

Indeed, like Trump’s use of his majority to gut the US in every possible way, this government, which grandstanded ad nauseum to decry that president’s authoritarian imposition of tariffs, now moves to dismantle law in order to destroy critical infrastructure in a similar fashion in this province.

The repeal the Endangered Species Act would leave no meaningful rules for species protection in an era when we’re seeing catastrophic loss and extinction of species, most of which underpin human life.

This tawdry and disingenuous Bill would also hand virtually unlimited power to the Provincial Cabinet, demonstrably ill equipped to address these catastrophic outcomes by even more massive and voracious exploitation of resources through its proposed Special Economic Zones Act.

Did our no dilly-dally premier, who seems to want to circumvent due process, ever mention resilience and self-sufficiency as goals to which we must aspire as our response to those tariffs? Well, this reprehensible Bill 5 is a threat not only to Ontario’s democracy and wildlife, it ensures even more loss of farmland resulting in an enormous threat to resiliency!

If enacted, this Bill would weaken key environmental laws and create lawless special economic zones that would be exempt from legal protections and public oversight in order to fast track resource extraction to the benefit of corporate titans, no doubt salivating at the prospect of reducing Ontario to a wasteland, in their drive for maximum profit.

The “Bill to Destroy Ontario by Slashing and Burning Our Economy Act, 2025” (aka Bill 5) would:

1. Exempt key projects from Environmental Assessment Act reviews (e.g., Dresden landfill, Eagle’s Nest Mine).
2. Weaken oversight of mining activities under the Mining Act.
3. Repeal the Endangered Species Act, 2007, replacing it with a weaker Species Conservation Act, 2025.
4. Empower the province to declare “special economic zones” under the Special Economic Zones Act, 2025, where provincial laws and municipal by-laws — including environmental and public-participation rules — would be null and void.

What are the outcomes?

For a start, the Bill erodes the rule of law. So-called “Trusted proponents” could bypass statutory protections, risking environmental and human-health harms.

It threatens and ignores Indigenous rights by fast-tracking extraction in remote areas (e.g., the Ring of Fire) without proper assessment or obtaining the free, prior and informed consent from affected Indigenous communities.

The Bill’s “jobs vs. environment” narrative seems ill-advised as it ignores how strong environmental laws underpin sustainable, long-term economic prosperity.

The Bill includes ten different schedules that address mining regulations and seem intended to amend or repeal key statutes which are important elements in Ontario’s existing environmental law framework.

For instance, Bill 5 proposes, among other things, to:

1. Rewrite the Mining Act to expedite mining activities
2. Revise the Environmental Assessment Act to exempt two contentious projects (i.e., Dresden landfill and Eagle’s Nest Mine)
3. Revoke the Endangered Species Act, 2007 and replace it with a watered-down Species Conservation Act, 2025
4. Dictate the Special Economic Zones Act, 2025 to empower the Ontario government to declare “special economic zones” in which provincial laws and municipal by-laws are null and void.

All of these could be seen as coming straight out of Trump’s playbook!

While all of Bill 5’s schedules are unacceptable on legal and policy grounds, the Canadian Environmental Law Association states that, it is “…. particularly concerned about the environmental implications of the Special Economic Zones Act, 2025. In our view, this vague proposed legislation represents a direct assault on the rule of law since it enables the province to make regulations delineating zones in which “trusted proponents” or designated projects may not have to comply with existing legal requirements enacted by the Ontario Legislature (and by-laws made by municipalities) that otherwise apply to every individual and corporation …. CELA is also highly concerned that constitutionally protected Indigenous rights will be adversely affected by this unprecedented approach….”

Finally, our premier seems to need a reminder that pipelines will take decades to build, are a huge, largely unapproved siphoning off of taxpayer remittances, will become stranded assets and will be destroyers of the very farmland we must protect to ensure our province’s food resiliency.

I urge this government to cease its attempts to ravage our province. We need to heed this message from the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada.

"I don’t want my children to inherit a planet that only knows extinction. On a planet that only bleeds wildlife, we are also losing clean water, climate security, and our ancient connections to life around us. Recovering wildlife is more than just biodiversity. It’s building a secure foundation for our society and economy and rebuilding our relationship with nature. There is a world waiting for us where nature and people thrive."

There’s no return from extinction. Our premier and his government need to listen and act, first and foremost, in the interests of survival in a province that respects all forms of life so that all within its boundaries continue to thrive. To do otherwise seems to be a devastating breach of good governance precisely when we need it most.