I was rather surprised by…

I was rather surprised by the ‘glowing’ description of Ontario in this policy notice: “Ontarians are fortunate to live in a province that is filled with clean air, land and water, valuable resources, and an incredible diversity of more than 30,000 species of plants, insects, fish and wildlife.” Let's hope that becomes the goal for the future.

After all, we KNOW that Ontario’s water, soil, and air continue to be threatened from a variety of sources. In addition, Ontario also has many species of plants, invertebrates and animals at risk of extinction, due to the lack of consideration given to their needs for adequate natural habitat and migration corridors.

It would be a WELCOME RELIEF to see the Endangered Species Act updated by the Conservative government to ensure some of the outcomes mentioned in this review, specifically:

1.Landscape Approaches
2.Listing Process and Protections for Species at Risk
3.Species Recovery Policies and Habitat Regulations
4.Authorization Processes

Ontario has been cutting back MNR’s budget with respect to species assessments for about two decades. Ontario really has no idea how many native and migratory species have been put at risk during that time. It will be important to increase budgets to ensure there can be complete surveys of species, particularly with respect to eco-zones that have already been heavily damaged. The government could issue 5-year contracts to specialists in biology and geology to perform an extensive survey of Ontario's ecology. For instance, we already know about 5% of Ontario’s southern Carolinian forests continue to exist. What has that already done to dependent species there? We don’t really know, but their prospects for survival seem grim. If government even hoped to protect 50% of native species, then it would have to ensure at least half of lands within Ontario’s existing eco-zones are set aside for conservation. Of course, we know that already sounds “too late” for dependent Carolinian species, who have already been reduced or exterminated due to specific habitat loss.

Threats to species

Over the years, Ontario has done an inadequate job of protecting even its most iconic species, such as woodland caribou ... or moose ... never mind the less obvious forms of endangered plant and animal life. Back in 2015, there was an uproar about the shortened moose hunting season described in the Toronto Sun on February 10, 2015 at http://www.torontosun.com/2015/02/10/hunters-upset-at-ontario-plan-to-s… because the CALF MOOSE HUNTING SEASON was reduced to TWO weeks from THIRTEEN weeks! Two weeks to kill calves, but twelve weeks to kill cows .. and bulls? This was a surefire ‘recipe’ for depleting the moose population, and this sad ‘prescription’ was written by Ontario’s MNR!

The Toronto Sun article reported: “Mark Ryckman, senior wildlife biologist for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH), said proposed changes would impact northern Ontario hunters as well as the thousands of residents from the GTA and southern Ontario who head north to hunt moose. The moose hunt in Ontario is probably the province’s premier hunt.”

Mr. Ryckman failed to note the ‘impact’ on the hunted animals themselves. While moose exist in a limited northern area and depend upon that area for their NATURAL food supply (no grocery stores for moose), THOUSANDS of hunters from all over Ontario (and the USA) converge on the moose’s limited home range with their weapons, intent on killing moose. Obviously, the moose hunt is completely unsustainable.

In mid-October 2015, the CBC reported the nature of the moose-hunting predicament at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/more-hunters-than-moose-as-ontari… Specifically, Mark Ryckman is quoted: “There are about 80,000-90,000 moose in the province, but there are more than 100,000 hunters, Ryckman said.” Too many hunters, not enough moose.

We also know there has been a precipitous decline in populations of bird species, as revealed in bird counts. There are a huge number of DIFFERENT species at risk, in addition to birds, as listed at https://www.ontario.ca/page/species-risk-ontario

There is no doubt that many populations of animals are at risk and in serious decline according to the World Wildlife Fund’s 2017 Living Planet Report Canada at http://www.wwf.ca/about_us/lprc/ . It showed that on average from 1970 to 2014, half of monitored vertebrate wildlife species in the study suffered population declines. Of those, the average decline was 83% since 1970. The picture is also worrisome for Canada’s federally protected species. Since 2002, when the Species at Risk Act became law, federally listed at-risk wildlife populations declined by 28%, the report showed. Even with protections, the rate of DECLINE for protected at-risk wildlife appeared to be increasing to 2.7% per year, compared with 1.7% per year in the period 1970 to 2002.

Threats to water quality, air and land

The general pattern of always expanding continguous land developments continue to ignore the services of nature. When Brian Mulroney was the Conservative Prime Minister of Canada, he introduced the Green Plan (1990 to 1995). Under that Plan, a comprehensive nation-wide study was conducted, entitled “Canada’s Biodiversity, the Variety of Life, Its Status, Economic Benefits, Conservation Costs and Unmet Needs”. The enormous final report was released in 1995, detailing not only threats to the landscape, its natural functions and dependent species, but the report's final conclusions stated the monetized value of nature’s services to Canada were valued at a$70-billion annually. In the meantime, there has been a large increase in the human population, and more extraction activities in the forms of mining and logging, not to mention expanding cities, towns and infrastructure. What are those natural services worth today?

The use of salt on roads is one common and ongoing source of contamination. Add to that, leaks of motor oil, on top of air pollution from vehicles, including sulfur emissions from all the huge transport trucks plying Ontario roads and highways.

Together, Bill 66 and the Ontario Environment Plan under-estimate the growing problems of expansive compacted non-porous surfaces in urban and suburban areas, which create ideal conditions for excessive flooding … even during normal rainfall – further threatening water quality. The clearing and levelling of more landscape in preparation for continued paving and expanding dense development suggest flooding is written right into development policy at the Ministry of Housing and Development.

In March 2018, the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) stated, “Flooding is the new fire” in Ontario.

As a result of all this pavement, it is easy for contaminants like pesticides, fertilizers, road salt and motor oil to escape directly off vast areas of cleared, levelled, paved landscape into nearby creeks and rivers.

The Ontario Environment Plan brochure shows NO photos of dense developments, increasingly cluttered right up to the edges of multi-laned roads, including Highway 400? What are these new residents going to do for FRESH AIR? We know about pollutants in exhaust fumes from cars and diesel-powered trucks, but the very real dangers posed by particulate matter seem to be ignored. What about obvious respiratory and related health risks from airborne sub-micron sized particulate matter produced by the wear on (or mass lost from) brakes and tires on ALL roads? 50-70% of total ‘wear materials’ are released as airborne particles. Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) spectrometry shows average loss rates of tire and brake materials are 97 and 9 mg/vkm respectively (vkm = vehicle kilometre). Tiny particles are inhaled deep into lungs, resulting in lung disease, including certain types of cancer. These particles are rich in certain transition metals (ie, zinc, copper, iron), adding to air toxicity. Heavier vehicles (such as transport trucks) create more brake and tire wear particles than lighter vehicles. This is only one type of pollution common to Ontario, and I suspect this particular threat to environmental and human health continues to grow.

Finally, let us not overlook the release of sewage into Ontario waterways. In the November 2018 report of the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, it was reported that, between 2017 and 2018: “ raw sewage overflowed into southern Ontario waters 1,327 times – 766 of these from 57 outdated municipal sewer systems that combine sewage with stormwater. Saxe added that provincial standards for industrial toxic wastes poured into our waterways are now 25 years old, and are likely outdated.”

Much of the problem was attributed to the continuing loss of natural areas that help to filter out pollution compounds, but there are also deliberate losses due to thoughtless poorly-conceived developments that are approved just for the sake of ‘more growth’, whether or not it is sustainable.

Such regular releases of effluent from aging sewage plants and infrastructure under assault from over-loading due to ill-conceived development in the past pose a continuing threat to plant, animal and human life – and let’s not forget the fish and other aquatic species who must try to survive in the affected waters.

If the Conservative government recognizes all these threats to the landscape, air, waterways and native species, and finds ways to ameliorate past damage while establishing a landscape that can support sustainable development within a system of adequate robust protected natural areas, then it will have accomplished something VERY important.