Threats to Our Wetlands
"What is the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on."
— Henry David Thoreau
The ecological health of the Goulbourn Wetland Complex, and wetlands across Ontario, continue to be threatened by land conversion for development, invasive species, pollution, artificial modification of water levels by drainage and filling, and climate change.
In a province already experiencing extensive wetland loss, one would think all efforts would be made to protect those that remain. However, from March 2023 to March 2024, over 156 hectares of wetlands across 17 municipalities lost their provincially significant wetland (PSW) designation and the strong provincial protection that designation imparts.
Blandings Turtle in Goulbourn Wetland Complex
Photo by Sylvie Sabourin
The highest proportion of these losses, totaling over 55 hectares, occurred within the PSW known as the Goulbourn Wetland Complex, west of Stittsville. See Figure 2 for further details.
Rather than stepping up to protect Ontario’s remaining wetlands, the Government of Ontario ran in the other direction when they implemented a new, weakened system for identifying and designating PSWs.
Figure 2.
The Goulbourn Wetland Complex totalling 906 ha is what remains after the delisting or de-complexing of the provincially significant wetlands on the Tomlinson quarry lands at Jinkinson Road (15 ha in the RVCA watershed) and the lands to the west of David Manchester Road (41.5 ha in the MVCA watershed), shown by the red ovals. The orange oval represents that portion of the provincially significant wetland that was de-complexed following a decision by the Ontario Lands Tribunal. This particular loss is not associated with the changes to the Ontario Wetland Evaluation System in 2022.
A History of Weakening Protections
Abandonment of the Wetland Conservation Strategy for Ontario
In the 2023 State of the Environment Report the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario noted that the Government of Ontario had quietly abandoned and archived the Wetland Conservation Strategy for Ontario 2017-2030.
This comprehensive strategy spoke of four strategic directions required to conserve Ontario’s wetlands by the Government of Ontario, including awareness, knowledge, partnership, and conservation. Other actions included developing “…policies and tools to prevent the loss of Ontario’s wetlands and improving evaluation of the significance of Ontario’s wetlands.”
The success of the strategy was to be measured by the following targets:
By 2025, no net loss of wetland area and function where wetland loss has been the greatest.
By 2030, a net gain in wetland area and function is achieved where wetland loss has been the greatest.
In August 2021, the Ministry of Natural Resources informed the Auditor General that the targets were no longer in effect.
Implementation of a Weakened Ontario Wetland Evaluation System
In support of More Homes Built Faster: Ontario’s Housing Supply Action Plan 2022-23, the government introduced and rapidly passed Bill 23 More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022 supposedly to ensure that our communities would grow with a mix of ownership and rental housing types that would meet the needs of Ontarians.
A host of other proposed legislative, regulatory, and policy changes were also posted to the Environmental Registry of Ontario purporting to support Ontario’s Housing Supply Action Plan, including changes to the Ontario Wetland Evaluation System (OWES) – the official system for identifying and designating PSWs.
Within the public comment period of only 30 days, over 14,500 comments were submitted. Despite the vast majority of comments from Ontarians voicing opposition to these proposed changes, a decision was made with a stroke of a pen on December 22, 2022, to proceed with the weakened OWES as proposed. The changes came into full effect on January 1, 2023.
The consequences of the weakened evaluation system are severe. These changes include:
No longer recognizing complexes of smaller connected wetlands
Drastically reducing the contribution of species at risk in determining significance
Removing the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry’s role in overseeing OWES evaluations
The result – a system that makes it much harder for wetlands to achieve and maintain PSW designation and the protections it imparts, marred by a complete absence of transparency and accountability.
The revised and weakened Ontario Wetland Evaluation System can be found, here.
The Government of Ontario speaks boldly to the intrinsic value of wetlands, including recent comments by the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks that “Wetlands…make up the natural infrastructure that protect us from drought and flooding, while keeping water clean and providing homes for many at-risk species of plants and animals” yet their actions to weaken provincial wetland protections speak otherwise.
With the changes to the OWES, the Government of Ontario states that “Species at risk [will] continue to be afforded protection under the Endangered Species Act, 2007.” Despite these assurances, 2021 Value for Money Audit: Protecting and Recovering Species at Risk report from the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario stated the contrary:
“The Environment Ministry is failing in its mandate to protect species at risk. Its actions have not been sufficient to improve the state of these species and their habitats.
[The] systems and processes for approvals facilitate and enable harm to species at risk and their habitats.
In the absence of substantive actions, the number of species at risk in Ontario will continue to grow. The condition of species and their habitats will continue to decline.”
In its responses to our audit recommendations, the Environment Ministry confirmed its lack of commitment to improve transparency and its programs and processes to protect species at risk.”
Now, more than ever, we need to be unwavering in our efforts to ensure the survival of our wetlands – for those species that call them home, for ourselves, for future generations – and as a nature-based climate solution.
Source: Office of the Auditor General of Ontario. November 2021. Value for Money Audit: Protecting and Recovering Species at Risk
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