Comments on the ERO #013…

Comments on the ERO #013-4143, review of the Endangered Species Act.

The purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to protect species at risk, and it is a valuable piece of legislation. Species at risk need protection from rampant development and other human activities. Here are my comments on your Discussion Paper:

- Desired Outcomes: If the government’s desired outcome includes increasing “efficiencies in service delivery for authorization clients” and “streamline processes”, I conclude that you wish to weaken environmental protection for species at risk and make it easier for business to proceed unfettered with projects that may be harmful. This is contrary to the intention of the legislation. Authorizing exemptions and streamlining processes to allow development should never be among your “desired outcomes” because it decreases the level of protection for species at risk.

- Focus 1 Landscape Approaches: Unfortunately “landscape approaches” is never defined, but the Discussion Paper says “[it] enables planning and authorizing activities at a broad scale…” That sounds like dilution of environmental protections at a broad scale. The current legislation already covers ecosystem approaches, which are broad, and for some species to be considered together. The key word in this section is “authorizing activities”. Do not weaken protection by designing changes to “authorize activities”, by which it appears you mean development and land exploitation without a full and robust examination of its environmental impact.

- Focus 2 Listing Process: The “ministerial discretion” you propose is contrary to the scientific, fact-based process by which species are listed. You say habitat protections can contribute to costly impacts to businesses and the public. That is precisely why we need legislation protecting species at risk – because protecting species at risk means development and exploitation of the environment should not always come first. If there are costly impacts to business, then that is all the more reason to protect species at risk as steadfastly as possible. Do not politicize the protection of species at risk, and do not add “ministerial discretion” to weaken the legislation and give power to big corporations to lobby politicians. Such a change would make a mockery of the Act.

- Focus 3 Government Response Statements and reviews of progress: If it takes more than 9 months to develop a government response statement, you are not providing adequate funding for staff. As for a review of progress toward the protection and recovery of species, an assessment after 10 or 15 years instead of 5 may be too late. Species at risk can’t wait. Do not lengthen the time it takes to evaluate whether protection plans are working. If there is no progress in 5 years, something is wrong and stronger action needs to be taken. It’s important to know in a timely manner, not in a decade.

- Focus 4 Authorization: This section is also devoted to making it easier to bypass protective legislation for corporate convenience. You appear to want new tools to sacrifice some vulnerable species, suggesting companies can pay money to a conservation fund to atone for harm done to one vulnerable population or species by helping another. No! A donation or fee paid to a conservation group is no substitute for legal protection for any population. You complain that the authorization process can create barriers to development. Yes, and that is what environmental protection can require! Protecting species at risk requires having barriers to development or other human activities. As for overlapping regulations, harmonization of regulations is already possible,

The thrust of the Discussion Paper appears to be to weaken protections for species at risk. An “Open for Business” mantra should not apply to this crucial Endangered Species Act. Environmental stressors are worsening. Pesticides are killing off our pollinators, the atmosphere has already reached dangerous levels of CO2 bringing extreme weather and disrupting bird migrations, fish in places like Lake Erie are toxic, harmful invasive species are replacing native species. The stressors are mounting, and under these circumstances it makes no sense to add to the stressors by weakening the Act. The Act should be strengthened, not weakened.