Thank you for providing the…

Thank you for providing the opportunity to comment on the proposed changes to Ontario’s Endangered Species Act. Hydro One is Canada’s largest electricity transmission and distribution service provider; we transmit and distribute electricity across Ontario, home to 38 per cent of Canada’s population. Our values guide us to work relentlessly with our employees and those who work for us to achieve world-class environmental performance. We will strive for continual improvement of our health, safety and environment management system and will deliver electricity to our customers and manage our operations in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner.

Hydro One is supportive of the proposed changes to Ontario’s Endangered Species Act. The addition of more tools will help facilitate compliance with the Act. Incorporating landscape level agreements will reduce administrative burden on both Hydro One and the Ministry, while allowing for a coordinated approach to mitigating impacts. We also hope that this will open up options for species conservation actions that would have been challenging to implement under the existing safe harbours and stewardship agreement legislation.

Providing earlier notice of COSSARO listing decisions and extending the timeline for protections going into force will give greater certainty to long term projects and allow for proper upfront planning to avoid impacts to Species at Risk. Further, we welcome the consideration of the broader geographical range when determining listing decisions for individual species.

The creation and implementation of the Species at Risk Conservation Trust and payment-in-lieu will improve the efficacy of species recovery actions by focusing efforts where they can have the greatest impact. Implementation of these actions by a government body with a Species at Risk recovery mandate should result in more successful projects.

We look forward to continuing to work with the Government of Ontario to find a balance between industry needs and species habitat protections that facilitates positive outcomes for Species at Risk in Ontario.