Recently, I wrote three blogs critical of the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, and his relatively newly elected government for an outrageous proposal that will, if enacted, see the near – possibly even complete – elimination of a native bird, the Double-crested Cormorant, from the province. But, that is simply the most egregious of a variety of proposals and Bills flowing out of Queen’s Park, the provincial capital, including, in just the first hundred days Mr. Ford was in office: cutting Toronto’s city council size approximately in half, during the actual election; changing the modernized sex education school curriculum to eliminate badly needed information of serious social issues; beginning the winding down of the province’s cap-and-trade federally mandated climate change mitigation program (thus cancelling a $100,000,000 school repair and upgrade fund); stopping three new safe-injection sites, proven life-savers for victims of drug addiction, from opening; cancelling the province’s basic income pilot program so essential to affected low-wage earners; rolling back a program to make drugs more affordable, and on and on, including actions detrimental to environmental concerns, such as ending the Drive Clean Program. And, he fired the province’s chief scientist.
In the true spirit of authoritarian governing (mind you, the political “left” is not significantly less guilty of this tactic) he introduced an “omnibus” bill, Bill 66.
These massive, multi-faceted bills include so many disparate, unrelated proposals that socially-responsible activists are hard-pressed to keep up. Bill 66 contained a provision that would have weakened protection for what we call our “Greenbelt,” a region of higher ground – including what is called the Oak Ridges Moraine and some of the world’s finest farmland – from “developers,” salivating to profit from destroying the features that allow this region to provide clean, safe water to the country’s largest concentration of people. The provision would also have weakened protections for a variety of wildlife species including some that are rare, threatened, and endangered, such as the Jefferson’s salamander – not the sort of thing a man like Mr. Ford would ever notice.
Vital farmland would be lost because, ironically, the change would allow increased short-term profits at the cost of something actually more valuable than money: food! Additionally, the region is uniquely beautiful in stark contrast to the sprawl of sub-divisions and strip malls all around, which would surely spread into this lovely region if Bill 66 were to pass in the form originally presented.
Both the farming community and environmentalists objected, as did opposing political parties, the animal protection movement, and academics. If there is one positive feature of the authoritarian mindset it is that once it understands something it tends to act accordingly. It may be hard for this way of thinking to grasp the more nuanced, complex scenarios but everyone should understand the need for affordable food and clean water, even if they don’t “get” biodiversity or lack humanitarian concerns. Ford’s government apparently did grasp the issue and, last week, it was announced that Bill 66 would be changed accordingly! The protections would stay.
Of course, things could change, but for now let’s just give credit where it is due; Doug Ford did the right thing.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Barry
