Last year marked the tenth anniversary of a landmark piece of legislation, the Species at Risk Act (SARA), one of Canada’s key federal environmental laws. The United States passed its Endangered Species Act in 1973. The passage of SARA by the former Liberal government represented a significant step forward in protecting Canada’s wildlife and their habitat, and in addressing the continuing loss of biodiversity in Canada.
However, as the anniversary approached, dozens of animals and plants were added to the list of those considered at risk — including the Massasauga rattlesnake found on the Georgian Bay Islands and three species of bats that have declined more than 90 per cent in just two years. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has listed 668 wildlife species, including 297 endangered, 159 threatened, 190 of special concern, and 22 extirpated (meaning they are no longer found in the wild).
Environment Minister Peter Kent told the Canadian Press last September that the government is looking to revamp SARA. The minister said the Act can be more “efficient” and more “effective”. There lies the rub — those two words have been used repeatedly by the Harper government to justify gutting of fifty years of environmental protection over the past year, including the repeal of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the repeal of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act and the evisceration of the Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Act.
What could be less complicated than the four cornerstones of SARA: identify species that need help, don’t kill them, give them a home and help them recover?
A recent report by Ecojustice, ‘Failure to Protect: Grading Canada’s Species at Risk Laws’, argues Canada’s governments have failed to create and implement the tools they need to protect endangered species and their habitat. No jurisdiction received a mark higher than a C.
Canadians and stakeholders are clear: they do not want more gutting of environmental protection and weakening of Canadian democracy through omnibus budget bills. SARA needs implementation, not streamlining. The Environment and Sustainable Development committee should not be used to ask carefully worded questions to solicit answers that justify the government’s agenda, and possibly legislation that is already in progress.
I sincerely hope that if the minister is planning to bring forward changes regarding SARA, they will be done in a stand-alone bill, and will not further weaken the law. Changes to SARA cannot be rammed through an omnibus budget bill where there will be no time for a proper study by the environment committee.
Canadians and stakeholders are rightly concerned about the weakening of SARA. Two main changes to the Act were proposed under the destructive Budget Implementation Act, 2012: no maximum term for SARA permits, which were intended to ensure exempted activities do not jeopardize species’ survival or recovery; and no assurance that impacts on the critical habitat of species at risk will be minimized for National Energy Board pipeline and other major infrastructure approvals.
We must all understand that disappearing animal and plant species threaten our valuable natural heritage, as well as our economy. Strong SARA legislation is needed to protect species and their habitat in provinces where there is essentially no legislation or only weak laws, to meet Canada’s international obligations, to ensure the consistent recovery of species across jurisdictions, and to help maintain Canadian industry’s “social licence” to operate.
There is strong scientific consensus that the main reason for the loss of animal species is human-caused degradation of habitat. The loss of areas where animals live, breed, raise their young and feed is the main cause of endangerment for 84 per cent of Canada’s species at risk.
Elaine Williams, executive director of Wildlife Preservation Canada, put it this way: “By the time the situation is serious enough to put a species on the threatened list, it often takes intensive, hands-on work to save them. And each year, more animal species in Canada get added to the list.”
SARA is a good law that has the potential to help endangered species survive and recover, as protections offered under the act do work when they are actually applied.
Unfortunately, the Conservative government’s implementation of the Act has been characterized by unending delays in developing recovery strategies, identifying critical habitat and protecting areas once they have been recognized.
I hope the Conservative government in considering changes to SARA will not just consult industry on reform of the Act. It also would be novel if the government consulted parliamentarians on any changes so there could be meaningful input. We need to pursue collaborative solutions to improve implementation of the Act. Regrettably, I fear that is too much to ask of this government, given its track record on the environment.
Kirsty Duncan is a Liberal member of parliament (Etobicoke North) and critic for the Environment. She has a Ph.D. in geography (University of Edinburgh, 1992) and has taught meteorology, climatology, and climate change at the University of Windsor, corporate social responsibility and medical geography at the University of Toronto and global environmental processes at Royal Roads University. She served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an organization that won the 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore and is the author of Hunting the 1918 Flu: One Scientist’s Search for a Killer Virus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), and Environment and Health: Protecting our Common Future (2008).
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