Environmentalists pin hopes on tiny fish to stop Highway 413

Construction of Highway 413 is set to begin in the Greater Toronto Area next year but environmental groups say they are hoping a tiny fish will get in the way of the province's plans.

The Redside dace, a member of the minnow family, is considered endangered in Ontario. The fish, which grows to about 12 centimetres long, has red and yellow stripes on its body and is facing "imminent extinction or extirpation," according the province.

Environmentalist groups say the fish's habitat largely overlaps with the highway's route. Highway 413, which will cross northern and western parts of the GTA, will link Peel, York and Halton Regions. The fish is found in a few tributaries of Lake Huron, in streams flowing into western Lake Ontario, the Holland River, which flows into Lake Simcoe, and Irvine Creek of the Grand River system, which flows into Lake Erie, according to the province.

According to the federal government, the fish has been federally protected since 2017, when it was listed as an endangered species under the federal Species at Risk Act. But this summer, a new "recovery strategy and action plan" went into effect to strengthens the protection of the habitat considered essential for the fish's survival.

Rachel Jones, spokesperson for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said in email on Friday that the federal government has until late January to issue a formal protection order for the habitat of the Redside dace.

"While the critical habitat identified in the recovery strategy and Action Plan is already protected under Ontario's Endangered Species Act (ESA), further federal protections for these habitats will take effect once a ministerial order is published in Canada Gazette II, expected within 180 days of the final plan's posting," Jones said in the email.

Tony Morris, conservation policy and campaigns director at Ontario Nature, an environmental conservation charity, said the federal government is legally obligated through its legislation to do something to protect the fish.

"The recovery strategy identifies those streams in Ontario that are critical habitat. It is a bit of a game changer," he said.

Morris said people should be concerned about any species at risk because it represents a "canary in the coal mine."

"When species like Redside dace are lost from the ecosystem, it means that other things are unhealthy with the aquatic environment and the surrounding environment, potentially impacting other species that may depend on them for food," Morris said.

"You see a cascading effect on ecosystems whenever a particular species is lost. The presence of the Redside Dace, where they still exist within the Greater Toronto Area, means a relatively healthy environment, which is what we should all want."

Phil Pothen, a lawyer and the Ontario environment program manager at Environmental Defence, an environmental organization, told CBC Radio's Metro Morning this week that the impending federal formal protection order gives him hope and is an "encouraging sign" that the project can be stopped.

"We are optimistic that this recognition, this final implementation of overdue habitat protection, is in fact an indication that the federal government intends to slam the brakes on 413," Pothen said. 

Pothen said the fish's habitat and proposed highway's route overlap, and paving nearby land and altering stream flows are specifically mentioned in the federal strategy as likely to destroy its habitat.