The federal government’s decision to abandon its planned changes to Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA) removes one immediate threat to endangered species. But it does nothing to address the threat to them posed under the Building Canada Strong Act (Bill C-39) or the cuts to the scientists and experts responsible for making those protections work. Species at risk still need stronger protections, especially as the government cuts the scientists and experts responsible for protecting them.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), Environmental Defence, West Coast Environmental Law, Ecology Action Centre, and Evidence for Democracy are joining leading Canadian scientists in warning that the changes could allow major projects to proceed even when they jeopardize the survival or recovery of a species at risk. While the government has dropped its plans to change SARA, the Building Canada Strong Act still allows the federal government to set aside protections under SARA for major projects, and Bill C-39 will allow the Minister of One Canadian Economy to remove conditions of approval that were put in place to protect species at risk. Other proposals for the major projects bill will further erode legal protections for species.
That is a serious concern. The Species at Risk Act currently establishes an important bottom line: federally authorized activities cannot jeopardize the survival or recovery of a listed species. The government should not have the ability to exempt major projects from that protection in the name of accelerating development.
At the same time, the federal government is cutting scientific capacity at both Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), two departments with major responsibilities for protecting species at risk.
DFO is cutting hundreds of positions, including employees working in its Species at Risk program. ECCC is also reducing its workforce, with hundreds of positions being eliminated even as the department identifies protecting biodiversity and advancing nature conservation as core responsibilities.
These are the scientists, biologists and other professionals who assess threats, identify critical habitat, monitor populations and develop recovery strategies. Their work gives the government the evidence they need to understand when a project could cause irreversible harm.
Maintaining legal safeguards while reducing the scientific capacity behind it compounds the risk.
Canada can build infrastructure and advance major projects without making the protection of endangered species optional. Strong environmental laws and independent public science help the government make better decisions before damage becomes irreversible.
Species extinction is irreversible.
PIPSC, CPAWS, Environmental Defence, West Coast Environmental Law, Ecology Action Centre, and Evidence for Democracy are calling on the federal government to preserve the Species at Risk Act safeguard preventing federally authorized activities from jeopardizing the survival or recovery of species at risk, remove the ability under the Building Canada Act to exempt projects from these protections, and scrap Bill C-39. We are also calling on the government to increase the scientific capacity needed to make those protections meaningful and ensure that any new major projects legislation includes strong legal environmental safeguards.
Canada should not be weakening the rules that protect endangered species or give itself the ability to opt out of those protections while cutting the experts whose job is to protect them.
