Federal Budget Cuts Intensify Ontario Repeal of Species-at-Risk Protection

By Gord Miller, Chair of Earthroots

Recently the Ontario government repealed the Endangered Species Act and partially replaced it with new legislation. It was ‘partial' because in the new Act migratory birds and aquatic species were deleted from the province’s protected list of endangered and threatened species. This was justified because theCanadian Constitution supposedly gave responsibility for those types of biodiversity to the Migratory Birds Protection Act and the Fisheries Act, respectively. These are both federal laws but they aren’t enforced in Ontario by any system of field offices or staff competent in the reviewing corresponding to threats to damage or destroy endangered species. This alone makesOntario’s reneging on their commitment to protect our biodiversity and atrocity.

But now the federal government of Canada is proposing to rub salt into that wound.In the new federal budget now before Parliament, longterm and significant cuts are proposed to the funding of both Environment and Climate Change Canada and Fisheries and Oceans, the two ministries responsible for the migratory bird and aquatic species preservation on provincial land dumped on them by Ontario.Instead of having to restructure for their new responsibilities they will be reeling in the chaos of downsizing.

We are faced with a future where endangered creatures like the piping plover of Wasaga Beach and the bedside dace of the Greenbelt will be left with no protection at all.

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