Please accept this as my…

Please accept this as my comment regarding Environmental Registry posting # 013-5033, "10th Year Review of Ontario’s Endangered Species Act: Proposed changes".

The ESA is important, evidence-based legislation that recognizes Ontarians’ role as stewards of our beautiful province, as well as sustainability as key to our viability. The ESA seeks to ensure that development is done in a forward-looking and democratic way.

Colouring this ten year review has been concerning language about “streamlining” processes, an unnecessary dichotomy established in the Minister’s comment seeking “a balanced approach between a healthy environment and a healthy economy,” and the proposal noting that the ESA has been criticized “for creating barriers to economic development.”

My concern is that the provincial government intends to put narrow economic interests of the few, ahead of the needs and interests of the many, including species-at-risk, as well as future generations of human life in our province, and all the ecosystems within which we live.

As experts and other dedicated individuals and groups will be able to provide specific comment and guidance, I will keep my comments brief.

We have seen this legislation go from a gold standard for environmental protection to a watered-down version under the previous government. With the industry exemptions and permitting created by that government in 2013, it is hard to imagine what “barriers” might still exist to economic development in the ESA. The fact is, barriers should exist to ensure that economic development is responsible, not unfettered; that it is sustainable and democratic, and not for the needs of the few. The ESA should do just that.

As renowned Indigenous legal scholar John Borrows has written:

“[A]t a primary level human society is a subset of the ecosphere. The viability of our settlements requires that our ideologies and decision-making structures take account of the fact that we are embedded in nature. […] In the last decade the publication of Our Common Future popularized a vital clue about how we might start to re-frame our relationship with the environment. This report, by the World Commission on Environment and Development (The Brundtland Commission), suggested that our activities should ‘meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ This notion, termed sustainable development, advocated a renewed approach to planning human settlements that attempts to integrate human economic and natural ecological activities.”

(Emphasis added. “Living Between Water and Rocks: First Nations, Environmental Planning and Democracy,” 1997. University of Toronto Law Journal. Pages 421-422.)

I urge this government to come out of this review with a renewed and strengthened approach to species protection. Experts, and in particular Indigenous communities, must be listened to so that we may strengthen environmental responsibilities and rights (including those of the non-human and of future generations). In doing so, we can have an economy that is sustainable and democratic; that is, an economy that is truly healthy.

I wish to conclude with these thoughts, which I share with the Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition:

"It is becoming a pattern with this government to hear, once again, that Ontario’s most sensitive and valuable environments are being offered to the highest bidder. 'Open for business' now also means trading protection for species at risk to anyone willing to pay the price. A strong and prosperous Ontario has a healthy and bountiful natural environment.

By weakening and outright removing protections in exchange for money this government weakens our province and sells our natural heritage out from under us. This move is particularly shocking given the global epidemic of species loss.

Ontario’s Endangered Species Act was already insufficient. This proposal effectively removes the small safety net species at risk had remaining.

Like Bill 66, the process to determine which regulations can be avoided are taken out of the public eye and at the discretion of the Minister. Local habitats could be under threat without any notification or public input opportunities.

The government will establish a second set of rules for those that are able to pay more. Instead of following the rules everyone else has to, sprawl developers, aggregate companies, even our own municipalities can just pay their way out of the process, regardless of whether it undermines Ontario’s environmental integrity.

Yet again citizens are forced to point out to this government that this proposal is not needed.

In Simcoe County we have a surplus of land available for houses and employment. We do not need to sacrifice our forests, wetlands and shorelines for more.

Who does this benefit?

Dredging wetlands that prevent flooding or paving over forests that purify our air destroys highly effective, low-cost natural solutions to climate change. The profit gained by developers and the sum paid to the government cannot match the ongoing value these natural ecosystems provide to our communities.

Simcoe County has a wealth of globally, provincially, and locally significant wetlands and shorelines. We are home to Ontario’s largest municipally owned forest system. Our area is also home to over 60 species that are deemed vulnerable, threatened, or endangered.

Which of these will be the first to be offered up to the highest bidder?

I am particularly concerned with proposals that:

- Would allow industry, municipalities, and developers to bypass rules and regulations within the Act for a price;
- Would allow the Minister to avoid consulting with experts for species at risk, event if the suspension of the regulations would, “likely jeopardize the survival of the species in Ontario”;
- Would allow the Minister to avoid consulting or even notifying the public if they decide to suspend regulations within the Act;
- Would suspend the protections for locally threatened species as long as the species is “healthy” outside of Ontario. This would lead to extirpation and further jeopardize local ecosystems;
- New additions to the Species at Risk list would take longer to get protection (from 3 months to a proposed 12 months). At a Minister’s request the committee that adds new species may be asked to re-evaluate the listing, which would only lengthen the time that the species and their habitat would be vulnerable to development and other damaging activities;
- Would no longer issue stop work order permits on damaging activities for newly listed species or their habitat for up to one year of listing. This means that damaging activities, such as mining, excavation etc., would be allowed to continue, unfettered, as the new species’ habitat and species protections are reviewed by committee.

I ask that the government strengthen the Endangered Species Act rather than weaken it. To do this I ask the government to fully and in good faith engage with experts in the field, as well as with the public, in crafting and establishing a renewed, expert-led, evidence-based commitment to protecting Ontario's species at risk.

I ask that there be full and transparent public consultation required when considering impacts and changes to the Act and species listed under it. Further, that this public consultation include individuals, organizations, and other bodies that have proven expertise in areas relating to protection of species at risk. Transparency is required to ensure the Act is not politicized in a partisan way."

Given what we now know from the shocking UN report on biodiversity and the loss of one million species that our planet faces (https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canada-biodiversity-1.5125108) I hope that our province will step up and be leaders on this front.

No "pay to slay" and a more robust protection for all species and their ecosystems!

Thank you.