Ford government doing 'terrible job' of protecting species at risk, environmental groups say

The Ontario government is doing a "terrible job" of protecting species at risk and it has weakened its own Endangered Species Act in an effort to promote development, environmental groups say.

The criticism comes after Ontario's Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk released her annual report of environmental audits on Monday. One audit, "Protecting and Recovering Species at Risk," says not only is the provincial environment ministry failing to protect species at risk as required by the act, the government is actually enabling harm.

"It's really dismantling almost every single possible protection measure that the Endangered Species Act was intended to provide and it's approving any possible habitat destruction initiative without a second thought," said Rachel Plotkin, a wildlife campaigner with the David Suzuki Foundation.

According to the audit, the ministry automatically approved all development projects that may harm species at risk. The number of approvals for projects that harm protected species has increased by more than 6,000 per cent. The number of species at risk has increased by 22 per cent. 

Immediate action is needed to prevent further wildlife loss, according to the David Suzuki Foundation and WWF-Canada.

Plotkin noted that species at risk are threatened or endangered in Ontario because of habitat loss and degradation. That means habitat is being destroyed and fragmented. The only way that species recover is through improvements or additions to their habitat, she said. 

In Ontario, there is very little oversight, transparency and accountability over development, Plotkin said. Exemptions have been granted to developers and industrial companies to enable them to build their projects by only minimizing the harm they are causing, she added. "They are trying to soften the edges of the harm they are causing," she said.

The cumulative impacts of habitat destruction, however, lead to the extinction of species, she added. 

An example of cumulative impacts has happened in the habitat of Blanding's turtles, where there have been more than 1,400 approvals of permits for development since 2007, according to the audit. The species has declined by more than 60 per cent in its last three generations because of habitat loss.

"The ministry is doing nothing to monitor cumulative impacts. It doesn't say no when there's a project that would like to go ahead in the known habitat of a species at risk," she said.

When the act came into force, Plotkin said she was optimistic. But she said the government is engaging in "doublespeak" now.

"It's very, very heartbreaking to watch this act just become completely eroded for people who care about wildlife and for people who are invested in the recovery of wildlife," she said. "I think it's pretty clearly evident that the province is doing a terrible job to uphold its responsibility to protect species at risk."

In a news release on Tuesday, James Snider, vice president of science, knowledge and innovation at WWF-Canada, said the government is essentially no longer implementing the Endangered Species Act. The lack of action has implications for climate change, he said.   "Species in Ontario are already experiencing dramatic declines in population numbers, and their habitats are being further destroyed or degraded as a result of development in the province," Snider said. 

"Ignoring wildlife and habitat protection not only puts species at risk, it can exacerbate the effects of climate change on the province and the world because Canada, and Ontario in particular, store globally significant amounts of carbon in our ecosystems."