This is a comment on ERO…

This is a comment on ERO number 025-0380, Proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act , R.S.O. 2007

The Ontario PCs must not touch Ontario’s ESA. Scientists in Ontario carefully drafted this legislation in coordination with scientists across all of Canada’s provinces and territories. These scientists collectively had expertise in all of our plants and animals, and in all the habitats, migrations, biogeographic regions and drainage basins across our country. They understood landscape ecology, genetic diversity and population dynamics.

Our politicians are skilled in what they do, but they don’t have expertise in protecting species. Even if they consult with the public and indigenous communities, as Doug Ford says they will, to draft a Species Conservation Act, 2025 (SCA) there will not be enough combined expertise for it to be effective. There would be countless mistakes, omissions and misunderstandings. For example, Bill 5 reduces the area of protection for an animal to just the nest or den that it uses to hibernate or raise young. It completely ignores its need for surrounding “habitat” to breed, hunt, forage, access water, migrate and interact. How can we let anyone other than species experts decide how to legislate species protection?

Let me close by saying there is no evidence that endangered species and due process are preventing mining and infrastructure projects. If improvements are needed then please make them, but don’t create a lawless, undemocratic black hole.