I am a landowner and…

I am a landowner and resident in Dufferin County, Ontario. I am submitting my first comment on a public policy. I do so on this issue because invasive plants are causing real harm here and the province is not putting enough resources and focus into addressing it.

I am commenting anonymously as I work for a large organization with clients in many industries, which may include clients with views that differ from mine on these issues.

Invasive species are crowding out Ontario’s native plants and animals, wrecking our forests, overrunning our wetlands and hurting communities. Ontario is not doing enough to fight the spread of invasives. Ontario must put more resources and urgent action into protecting our landscape from invasives.

I see the impact of invasives on my own acreage, which includes regulated conservation land and wetlands. My wife and I work hard on our land to fight spreading invasives like garlic mustard, creeping thistle, buckthorn, black locust, Scots pine, oriental bittersweet, yellow flag iris and Tatarian honeysuckle. Many of these are available for purchase in Ontario and were evidently planted intentionally by prior landowners, as they grew in managed gardens or had tree guards protecting them. On our land and, more broadly across Ontario, invasive plants are “escaping the garden”.

Other organizations have detailed the many harms of invasive species and recommended actions to take on how to fight back. I endorse the discussion and the twelve recommendations set out in the “Value-for-Money Audit: Management of Invasive Species” dated November 2022 by Ontario’s Office of the Auditor General of Ontario (I refer to this below as the “2022 Ontario AG Report”). I also endorse the recommendations of the Canadian Coalition for Invasive Plant Regulation set out in its white paper from May 2023 titled “REDUCING THE SALES OF INVASIVE PLANTS”. I have included links to both of these papers.

I end this comment with my vision for Ontario’s future of invasive species prevention and management in the province in my own words. I believe Ontario should:
- Speedily complete science-based risk assessments of higher-risk non-native species.
- Disclose assessments in a public database (both those that are completed and those in process)
- Require that all imports of plants new to Ontario undergo risk assessments.
- Ban the sale of high-risk invasive species.
- Enforce the ban.
- Impose the ban on a broad list of species, both terrestrial and aquatic. Too many obviously invasive species are unregulated in Ontario. Many of these are regulated by neighbouring jurisdictions. For example, see the species identified in “Figure 7: Select Unregulated Invasive Plant Species in Ontario and Their Impacts” of the 2022 Ontario AG Report.
- Require point of sale labelling to educate the public about invasive plants that are not banned and provide instructions to prevent their spread.
- Provide increased and stable funding for public education.

I urge the Ministry and the Ontario government to act with more urgency to protect Ontarians and our native plants and animals from invasive species.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Ontario’s “Renewing the Ontario Invasive Species Strategic Plan”.