ESA_ProtectNatureTO’s…

ESA_ProtectNatureTO’s Submission-ERO #013-4143 Review of the Endangered Species Act, 2007_March 4 2019

The government launched their 10 year review of the ESA under the premise of promoting “positive outcomes for species,” despite also apparently wishing to see “efficiencies for business.” Worryingly, the language in the accompanying discussion paper points to a red-tape cutting agenda that could put species at further risk.

We are very concerned about the plight of endangered species in Ontario and worry that this latest proposal for comments on the Environmental Registry of Ontario is another environmental deregulation exercise to make it easier for industry and development proponents to proceed with activities that harm species at risk and their habitats.

Endangered and threatened species in Ontario have already been deprived of protections due to sweeping exemptions for industry in 2013; now the Ontario government is proposing to further streamline approvals.

The world is facing a biodiversity crisis. The extinction rate is 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the natural rate. Literally dozens of species are estimated to go extinct every day. Ontario is not immune. Southern Ontario has the highest number of endangered species in Canada.

“The biodiversity imperative is different from other social challenges and we would argue is even more critical than, although certainly related to, climate change. Why? There is no recovery from extinction, it is forever and unlike climate change whose impacts will be felt by many of the world’s population in the future, biodiversity loss is here now in the present, there is no future discounting.” BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION-A Call for Action for Canadian Decision-Makers https://www.changingtheconversation.ca/biodiversity-action-agenda

The fact that provincial government is choosing a course that we can reasonably know will create more pressures on an already stressed Ontario’s wildlife habitats pushing more species toward extinction is obviously a very serious issue. At this point, these problems are knowable. The consequences for the environment, the species at risk and Ontario biodiversity are predictable. How the government at this point chooses to proceed raises profound questions about our collective obligations to one another, to our society and the entire ecosystem. It raises profound questions about the choices this provincial government is making now as reflected in discussed Review of the Endangered Species Act, 2007.