The Honourable Andrea…

The Honourable Andrea Khanjin,
Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks,
5th Floor,
777 Bay St.
Toronto, ON M7A 2J3

RE: ERO 01908016

Dear Minister Khanjin,
We have viewed the power point presentation made available following the information session on Tuesday, January, 20, 2024. We also have benefitted from reading the letter sent by 56 environmental organizations which rightly take the regulatory changes to task and recommend the review of the context of decision-making before taking the actions noted in ESA 019-8016. This collective letter represents a detailed response to what is needed to ensure that a plan is being laid out that is not simply a path for re-threatening the formerly endangered species. It argues for the kind of monitoring and follow-up that would be expected if the Ministry was equally concerned about environmental and conservation issues. It also recommends that monitoring and sufficient research data to support the effectiveness of existing policies.

The changes proposed in ESA019-8016 are to be implemented across the board, not in particular circumstances, and thus open the door to procedures everywhere in the province which set out a framework for too quickly shutting down protection of a category of endangered species. While the commentary from the 56 environmental groups is particularly aimed at the provincial offsetting policy, my letter seeks to highlight the effects of early mining exploration.

We feel obliged to point to the rashness of the approach taken in the presentation and in focusing the call for feedback on mining towards particular aspects of early exploration. We have chosen to write our response on behalf of the RLSC in terms which argue for a more humane, more collaborative view of approaches to early exploration. Please consider the following commentary as questioning a kind of checklist approach which could automate the granting of permissions with regard to changes proposed for the Endangered Species Act:
1. As for the re-designation of species, what are referred to as regulations are actually deregulations, scaling back the extent of protection offered species at risk in any of the three categories in which it exists. The natural habitat is treated as if it could be cut up into pieces and the section allocated to the endangered species could exist in the equivalent of parklets, habitat which can be hived off from the rest and thrive as a shrunken space for such ‘liberated’ species as the Redside Dace. It is a minnow which, apart from its right to existence, is uniquely is able to jump out of the water and eats insects. It counts on the riparian vegetation along the shorelines to shelter its habitat and, in turn, that habitat is interwoven and interconnected with the larger area around it.
2. It is somewhat absurd to expect that responses to the eligibility criteria for early mining exploration assessment could ultimately end up as a stand-alone list, a formula that could be sent out to prospective users in the absence of a collaborative process of assessment before granting access to an area to be explored. So many of the areas subject to mining exploration are in irreplaceable fragile areas which cannot be easily mitigated or specified in advance. Those who hold the kind of knowledge applicable to the wetlands and forests of Northern Ontario are the Indigenous peoples who inhabit the area. They know where trails might go to provide less disturbance, have thousands of years of cumulative knowledge about the forests and fauna and have witnessed the changes currently taken place. Each larger area has micro habitats that need to be considered. It will not be possible to hand out a checklist. Consultation is needed and the state of protection of the area verified with data. They need to be consulted.
3. A compensation fund can be considered a form of ‘habitat washing,’ a thinly veiled opportunity to promise remediation without considering whether or not it can be effective. Mitigation is easy to promote and suggests that environmental damage can be repaired and the health of the area restored, like a bandage that is put over a wound. It is an empirical question that can be answered through research and building pathways (even with prescribed measurements) end up opening up an area not currently being used. The peatlands of northern Ontario connect fragile foliage that research has shown will collapse and extend waterways throughout the area. This erosion process can create ponds and small lakes that continue to erode the soil anchored by vegetation.
We are writing as residents near a reforested area surrounding Lake Ramsey within the boundaries of the City of Greater Sudbury. The reclamation project here has received notable success but represents the work of over 60 years. The achievements are laudable. However, the scientists are still working on the replacing the forest floor to its previous richness. Mitigation is not a process which puts back a forest especially in areas of old growth forest or in a fragile state of suspension such as peat bogs.

Care and consultation beforehand is the best guarantee for entering into an area. Mining data banks need to be created and consulted. The current threats to the environment through Climate Change and our knowledge about the environment provide a very different scenario for mining exploration than in the past. The amount of digital information on areas potentially rich with minerals is often charted and studies can give some predictability as to where exploration would yield the best results. If the MNRF continues to endorse legislation which will not better serve to protect the environment, it might be more accurate to rename it the Ministry of the Pathways to Built Environment and Mines.

Normally, an exemption would seem to grant a privilege to someone who is otherwise weighed down by regulatory requirements; exemptions here in this set of proposed regulations mean privileging the habitat destroyer and resulting habitat destruction. An exemption from an endangered species list has the potential to re-endanger the life of those species. As long as they are subject to regulatory changes which minimize their habitat or procedures which oversimplify early mining exploration cautions, the nearly ‘liberated’ species on the endangered list are threatened. The endangered species such as wolves and bears which roam from one habitat to another will continue to be in danger.

We urge consultation and collaboration with as much detailed information as possible rather than checklists and categorical exemptions.

Sincerely,

Ramsey Lake Stewardship Committee