The Ontario government can't be trusted with preserving threatened boreal caribou. With only about 5,000 left in Ontario, caribou need your support in calling for federal intervention.
In April 2022, the federal and Ontario governments signed a boreal caribou conservation agreement. Yet Ontario continues to undermine habitat protection and restoration by:
- Disregarding the need for cumulative effects planning in caribou zones, as habitat fragmentation from industrial resource-extraction activities drives population decline.
- Exempting the forest industry from the prohibition against habitat destruction in the Endangered Species Act, essentially removing any regulatory requirement for the industry to prioritize recovery.
- Aiming to almost double industrial logging in the province by 2030, as per Ontario's Forest Sector Strategy.
Despite federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault's recommendation to cabinet in March 2023 to intervene to protect habitat in the province, the potential of federal action has been postponed until April 2024. The public's trust in Ontario's ability to safeguard boreal caribou, and in the federal government to show leadership, has diminished. To ensure the species' survival, federal intervention must be the next step.
To whom it may concern,
I am concerned about boreal caribou habitat protection in Ontario and urge you to intervene.
For over a decade, the Government of Canada has told Ontario to comply with the federal recovery strategy for boreal caribou, but the province continues to fail to do so.
Despite signing a caribou conservation agreement in April 2022, the Ontario government continues to undermine habitat protection and restoration by ignoring the directive to manage cumulative disturbance in caribou ranges.
Ontario has gotten away with overlooking the responsibility to protect caribou habitat thanks to a permanent forestry industry exemption from having to comply with habitat destruction prohibitions under the province's Endangered Species Act. Pair that with the province's Forest Sector Strategy, which plans to almost double industrial logging in Ontario by 2030, and the need for federal intervention becomes clear.
Enough is enough!
The Ontario government can't be trusted with recovering this threatened Canadian species. I want to see:
- A commitment by the federal government to intervene to protect habitat in Ontario in the absence of Ontario range plans that outline how undisturbed habitat will be maintained/restored;
- Public facing disturbance and population tracking;
- A clear, public-facing metric for federal habitat protection equivalency;
- A commitment to continue to make Cabinet decisions regarding this file public.
There are approximately 5,000 caribou left in Ontario, and every one is counting on you to intervene.
Sincerely,
Name
