Legislative amendments to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, 1997 under Bill 132 to support responses to wildlife disease threats

Ontario has approved amendments to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, 1997 (FWCA) proposed under the Better For People, Smarter For Business Act, 2019 (Bill 132) The Bill received Royal Assent on December 10, 2019.

These changes will:

• Establish new order-making authority enabling the ministry to quickly respond to wildlife disease in Ontario.
• Enable the ministry to authorize persons to undertake activities that would otherwise be prohibited under the FWCA (e.g., a licensed hunter dispatching sick-appearing wildlife).
• Provide authority to the Lieutenant Governor in Council to create wildlife disease-related regulations in support of long-term prevention and response measures (e.g., restricting the import of certain live animals into Ontario from jurisdictions where a wildlife disease has been detected).

Public input on these FWCA amendments was sought as part of Environmental Registry of Ontario (ERO) proposal #019-0154 which proposed to update the Chronic Wasting Disease Prevention and Response Plan to reflect current scientific knowledge, lessons learned from other jurisdictions, and the evolving roles of government agencies. That proposal was posted on the Environmental Registry from June 10, 2019 until July 25, 2019, for 45 days.

Twenty comments were received on the proposed update to the Chronic Wasting Disease Surveillance and Response Plan. There were no comments received that directly referenced the proposed wildlife health amendments to the FWCA. As such, there were no changes made to the proposal following consultation.