The Honourable Minister Rod…

The Honourable Minister Rod Phillips, Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks
The Honourable Minister Steve Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing
Queen’s Park, Ontario

The people of Ontario care deeply about nature--parklands, river valleys, and conservation areas. I grew up in the Cambridge area and spent many days picnicing, swimming, and hiking at Grand Valley Conservation Area parks. When I was raising my own children in Toronto we bought TRCA memberships, so we could visit Conservation parks in the GTA. It was a chance to have a day in nature for children growing up in downtown Toronto. We know our quality of life is directly tied to a healthy and intact natural world. We want the natural world to be protected, not just far away in the north, but within walking distance of our own homes and schools. We value knowing that vulnerable species like Monarch Butterflies and Trumpeter Swans can return and even thrive in our province. We know that nature must be well-protected in law.

In concert with legal frameworks, schools, communities and individuals across Ontario have been protecting and restoring habitats, aiming for the return of vulnerable species of trees, birds, mammals, reptiles and wildflowers, across Ontario. Today I must urge you to stop your government’s unprecedented attacks on Ontario's natural heritage. In recent days, you have put in play three fundamental rewrites of existing laws, which together would undo decades of progress on nature restoration. These changes include the gutting of Ontario’s Endangered Species Act (ERO # 013-5033); exempting developers from protecting most of Ontario’s threatened and endangered species and their habitats (under omnibus Bill 108 ERO# 019-0021); and cutting away much of the natural heritage mandate of conservation authorities (ERO# 013-5018). Together, these changes would reverse painstaking, collaborative progress by hundreds of groups and innumerable volunteers, working over generations.

It is highly alarming to see the legal framework for species protection now on the chopping block. With regard to the rewrite of the Endangered Species Act (ERO# 013-5033), the proposal contains so many deeply troubling elements that I can highlight just three top concerns:

Developers whose projects would damage or destroy critical habitat would be allowed to simply pay into a fund rather than making their projects greener by accommodating vulnerable species.

Species experts would find their best science advice on habitat protection overruled by politically convenient decisions.

Species near the edge of their range in Ontario would lose their protection in law. Ontario would essentially be saying: “Let other jurisdictions step up and protect regionally rare animals and plants. Ontario no longer cares.”