The changes proposed to…

The changes proposed to Ontario's Endangered Species Act are incredibly shortsighted and allow far too much room for harm and further collapse of our biodiversity, and as a result, our collective wellbeing. All species are experiencing immense pressure already from the impacts of habitat fragmentation (which this act seeks to allow further by changing the definition of habitat), from the growing impacts of climate change with increased extreme weather events like droughts, ice storms, and floods, as well as the pressures of urban sprawl. Biodiversity is a critical component of what makes life in Ontario good for those of us who live here, human or other.

Endangered species are not red tape! The process for development of necessary and important infrastructure, housing, and transit should also be working within environmental legislation to build a world worth living in. Our biodiversity is also critical infrastructure. Housing development that paves over valuable farmland and wetlands shouldn't be developed in the first place when we have so much existing land going unused other than for parking lots and strip malls. If we actually focused on proper public transit, we would have fewer development issues in the first place - the environmental regulations are not the problem, it is a lack of will, creativity, and big-picture-thinking, and a lack of willingness to invest in actual proven solutions to our housing and infrastructure issues.

Ontario's Endangered Species Act was once the shining beacon of an example for other regions to protect the most vulnerable species. We were an example that other provinces and other countries around the world looked to for how to do things right. Now our government wants to disembowel that beacon, and keep bits and pieces of it to say that something is still being done, but in the end it will be a shell of its former self, and a loophole for poor development practices that will hurt Ontario in the long run, and dramatically reduce our biodiversity even faster than we're already losing it.

Much like we advocate for keeping pets on leashes in order to protect biodiversity, we should keep a leash on our economy in this case too. Much in the same way an unleashed dog will only voluntarily stay close to its owner while on a walk if it is trained extremely well, we can't promise that developers and other businesses will opt to care about their environmental impact. This is incredibly bad news for Ontarians, because much like a dog running to bite something it shouldn't because it can't help itself, the chance for extra profits is too tempting for some developers and our environment will always pay that price. But Ontarians will ultimately pay that price in the end, because reduced biodiversity means so many negative health outcomes from the result of fragmented ecosystem services, higher costs of living, and higher rates of physical and mental illnesses. We have seen this happen throughout our history time and time again, yet we refuse to change and keep making this mistake over and over. We are part of nature, and continuing to gut the legislation in our province that protects nature will continue to erode human wellbeing. STOP IT.