Comment from the Prince…

Comment from the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists on the proposed interim changes to
the Endangered Species Act, 2007 and a proposal for the Species Conservation Act, 2025
ERO #025-0380

Bill 5, otherwise known as “the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025”,
proposes to make immediate amendments to Ontario’s Endangered Species Act (ESA) and, in
time, replace the ESA with a new Species Conservation Act.

Bill 5 is a profound act of legislative betrayal. It abandons commitments made by successive
provincial governments for over half a century to protect Ontario’s threatened and endangered
species and to ensure their recovery for future generations. It stands to erase five decades of
progress in species protection and recovery. It relieves the government of its clear responsibility
to protect Ontario’s most vulnerable species of plant life and wildlife and their habitat.
Most fundamentally, however, Bill 5 is a betrayal of public trust. The self-regulation system
alone will undo five decades of efforts expended in protecting threatened and endangered
species and their habitat. Bill 5 will reverse years of efforts by individuals, communities -
including First Nations communities - and environmental groups, as well as their donations of
time and money to advocate for protecting Ontario’s most vulnerable species. It is clear to
everyone, except apparently to this government, that more – not less – is needed. Under Bill 5,
it will never happen.

According to the government, the current approach to the protection and conservation of
species is complicated, takes too long, and causes unnecessary delays and costs for housing,
transit, and critical infrastructure. The government has narrowed most of the problems down
to the permitting process: “Under the current ESA, 2007, the process to obtain a permit is slow
and complex, causing unnecessary delays and costs.”

Bill 5 introduces a self-registration system to replace the ESA’s permit-based approach. Under
the new regime, most proponents will be able to self-register their projects and begin work
immediately.

According to the government, the proposed changes will ultimately shift nearly all species related
authorizations to a registration-first approach. We can only assume from this that the
self-registration system will be open to all types of development, regardless of the nature of the
project (eg, housing, transit, infrastructure), its size, and its location, regardless of the species
that will be impacted (that is, the species that will be killed, harmed or harassed during
construction and post-construction) and regardless of the scale of damage to, and destruction
of, habitat.

This will be devastating to species that fall under the ESA as well as to biodiversity in general. It
removes case-by-case evaluation, meaning critical ecological and ethical factors are ignored. A
one-size-fits-all registration system fails to account for differences in project scale, location, and
environmental impact, treating small housing developments and massive industrial projects as
equally low-risk.

Additionally, without government oversight, companies can self-register projects that harm
species or destroy habitats without an independent review, meaning that scientific evidence
and conservation concerns play no role in determining whether a project moves forward. This
system prioritizes speed and efficiency over accountability, allowing for unchecked habitat
destruction under the guise of economic development.

The self-registration system almost entirely removes government oversight, surely the
objective, since, from the government’s perspective, it was that oversight that caused the
delays in the first place. But is the government really trying to solve problems with
unreasonable timelines to issue permits, as it claims, or is this a situation known as “regulatory
capture” – where high-profile developers and industry leaders influence governments to act in
their favour rather than in the public interest.

We know this already happens in the MECP. In a 2021 audit, the Auditor General of Ontario
found that the MECP prioritized permits for infrastructure ahead of other applicants. The
Auditor General noted as well that in a sample of 30 permits related to development activities,
seven (or 23%) were prioritized, which resulted in approvals being issued 43% faster than for
those that were not prioritized. The Auditor General noted that companies and organizations
who complained to higher levels within the MECP obtained permits for development faster
than had they not complained.

It is also apparent that the timelines for issuing permits to developers is not as big a problem as
the government suggests. In the same 2021 audit noted above, the Auditor General found that
as of August 2020, the average time to complete the permit process was 256 days (8 to 8½
months). In contrast, Environment Assessment Permits in British Columbia can take 1 to 2
years to process. In Quebec, Environmental Impact Assessments can take over a year,
depending on the project. In Alberta, Wildlife and Habitat-related permits typically take 6 to 12
months. Ontario is well within this range, which raises serious questions about why the
government is pushing Bill 5’s sweeping deregulation of the ESA when the existing permit
timelines are already reasonable.

We cannot help but wonder if what we are witnessing in Bill 5 is the regulatory capture of the
Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, if not of a government that appears all
too happy to offload its responsibilities to uphold the Endangered Species Act. What could
make developers happier than to have a self-registration process that for all intents and
purposes is really a self-regulation process?

Bill 5 shows other signs of regulatory capture, as well. Going forward, political priorities and
agendas – not science – will have the final say on which species will receive protection and
which will not. Bill 5 redefines “habitat,” giving “habitat protection” a more narrow and
restricted meaning. It proposes Special Economic Zones, where certain projects will be exempt
from provincial and municipal laws, further reducing environmental safeguards. Some of the
key infrastructure projects expected to benefit from this fast-tracking are large-scale residential
initiatives, renewable energy projects, and resource extraction projects such as mining and
forestry operations that previously required extensive environmental assessments.

We urge you to reconsider these radical changes, and to fulfill your commitment to protect Ontario's most vulnerable plants and wildlife for future generations. Surely other, better ways of "unleashing the economy" can be found than this.

Yours sincerely,
Gerry Jenkison
President
Prince Edward County Field Naturalists