Environment groups raise alarm about Ontario bill that would weaken species protection

Environmental groups are raising concerns about newly tabled Ontario legislation that they say will be "catastrophic" for wildlife and weaken government protections for "species that are the rarest" in the province.

Ecojustice Canada, Environmental Defence and the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada say Bill 5, also known as the Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act, would repeal Ontario's existing Endangered Species Act passed in 2007, and replace it with a significantly watered down version of the original act called the Species Conservation Act.

The legislation, introduced Thursday in the Ontario Legislature, has passed first reading.

Laura Bowman, staff lawyer for Ecojustice Canada, said on Tuesday the bill is about "scapegoating of environmental protection" in the name of economic progress. She said the bill would allow the province to issue a developer's permit even if a project will cause severe decline to a species or result in the extinction of a species.

"This won't speed up projects. It will be catastrophic for wildlife," Bowman said. "What we're headed toward, if this bill goes ahead, is really just abandoning species protection."

The objective of protecting species is gone and has been replaced with something "scientifically untenable," she added.

Bowman said the bill narrows the definition of habitat for animals to mean only their dwelling place and the area immediately around it, as opposed to a broader area necessary for survival.

"If you think of something like a fox, it would just be the den and the soil around the den, not any of the habitat that it lives in, that it needs for food to find a mate, not any of the air that it breathes around the den, the water that it drinks — all not protected in the first place by this legislation," she said.

In a news release on Thursday, Ecojustice Canada said the legislation would gut environmental assessment processes, speed mining and infrastructure development and take a "register-first, ask-questions-later" approach that would allow developers to begin projects before their environmental implications are fully known.

Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, described the bill as "anti-environmental" and "cynical."

"The repeal of Ontario's Endangered Species Act means that species that are the rarest — plants, animals that are just hanging on by their toenails, so to speak — are going to be much more at risk in this province," Gray said.

In a news release, the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada (WCS Canada) said the redefinition of "habitat" is "especially troubling given that habitat loss and degradation are the leading threats to most species at risk."

WCS Canada said the bill would also allow "Ontario to disregard species listings based on independent scientific assessments using internationally recognized criteria, opening the door to exclude species from protection when doing so is politically or economically expedient."

And the legislation would eliminate provincial responsibility for federally listed migratory birds and aquatic species because it says such birds and species are under federal jurisdiction, it said.