I do not support this bill,…

I do not support this bill, by stripping these species of provincial protections we leave them more vulnerable and this bill will almost certainly result in less protections for these species that we need to be protecting most.

The argument for this change is that these species are already protected by the federal endangered species act, and so the provincial protections are redundant, so it's important to ask, what does this change actually do? It is a shirking of responsibility, a way for Doug Ford's government to say "this isn't our responsibility anymore."

The next question to then ask is, why do this? If the protections are redundant as they say they are, why get rid of them if it will change nothing? If the responsibility is on the federal government, then the provincial government can start pushing the boundaries of those protections because they no longer have to be fully beholden to them, they can cross lines with things like development projects on protected habitats (like the proposed project at wasaga beach) and then it becomes someone else's problem when the endangered species suffer as a result.

Protecting endangered species is a shared responsibility, from the individual level up to the global level and every level in between including the provincial government.