Summary

• Internal documents reveal the Ontario government does not intend to publicly release recovery plans for several endangered species, including the eastern wolf.
• Conservation scientists say species recovery plans are important tools that guide their work and inform decision-making around where to invest resources.
• Recent legislative changes under Bill 5 have removed the requirement for Ontario to prepare recovery plans for endangered species, but the plans in question were already under development when those changes came into effect.

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Ontario’s plans to recover struggling wolf, butterfly and bat populations will not be released to the public, The Narwhal has learned.

Last April, the Doug Ford government announced it planned to amend and then ultimately replace the Endangered Species Act, slashing the requirement to develop recovery strategies that set out the steps to bring endangered species back from the brink. 

Now, a set of internal emails released through freedom of information legislation show the province intends to continue with a few strategies that were underway when Bill 5 passed — and also intends not to share them with the public.

Since 2007, the province has been required to not only publish recovery strategies but to put them into action, under the Endangered Species Act. That ended in June, with the passage of Bill 5, the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act.

The emails show a handful of recovery plans were in the works when the Protect Ontario act became law, and confusion inside the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks about what to do next. 

The draft plans represent years of work researching the habitat and current state of the eastern wolf, a butterfly called the northern oak hairstreak and three migratory bat species. 

The strategy for the eastern wolf, for example, has been nearly a decade in the making, with a draft put out for public consultation in 2018 and revised in 2025. The 2018 draft to protect the animal — which has a unique genetic ancestry not found anywhere else in the world — was once available on the Environmental Registry of Ontario, but is not there any longer. 

In the fall, The Narwhal asked the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks, which is responsible for producing recovery plans, whether the strategy for the eastern wolf would be made public. The ministry did not respond to The Narwhal’s questions in the fall, nor to repeated requests for comment on this story made between Jan. 28 and March 5. 

But the emails released through freedom of information legislation chronicle staff in the at-risk species branch of the Ministry of Environment attempting to confirm up the chain the next steps for drafted recovery plans before and after Bill 5 passed. One email thread is in response to a question from a private contractor hired to write one of the strategies, asking how to move forward.

The week after the bill was proposed, on April 17, internal government emails note “the plan is to proceed with the recovery strategy agreements that are underway” up to the stage where drafts are usually posted publicly, but “We are not likely to proceed with the public posting at this time (given changes underway).”

Laura Bowman, an environmental lawyer, told The Narwhal keeping the recovery strategies private tramples the right of public groups, including First Nations, researchers and conservationists, to know how Ontario is managing endangered species. 

It also limits anyone seeking permits and approvals for work that affects endangered species.

“One would think they would want to be making reference to the recovery strategy and what mitigation measures might be appropriate,” she said. “So to keep that internal and not post it seems like a very strange move, even just from that perspective.”

The recovery plans that were in the works when Bill 5 passed were, according to the email, still being circulated for review by other provincial ministries and federal agencies, such as the Canadian Wildlife Service and Parks Canada.

Ryan Norris has worked to stabilize populations of the mottled duskywing, an endangered butterfly, in southern Ontario. He says the province’s recovery plan for the species has guided his team’s efforts. Photo: Katherine Cheng / The Narwhal

Emails from the at-risk species branch to those departments, seeking feedback on the eastern wolf recovery plan, said the province is still “committed to providing information and guidance on the conservation of species in Ontario” even though recovery plans are no longer legislatively required.

“Under the amended [Endangered Species Act], the ministry has the flexibility to focus the development of conservation guidance when and where it is needed and makes sense to do so,” the email said. 

The Endangered Species Act is being replaced by the Species Conservation Act. Ten months after Bill 5 passed, regulations for that have not yet been announced.

Recovery strategies no longer required in Ontario following passage of Bill 5

The mottled duskywing, a medium-sized brown-speckled butterfly, has a strong preference for a prairie shrub called New Jersey tea. It’s hard to come by in southern Ontario. 

As a result, the butterfly that depends on it was listed as endangered across Canada in 2012 and in Ontario in 2014. Under the Endangered Species Act, a recovery plan for the mottled duskywing was published in 2015.

Ryan Norris, a professor of wildlife biology at the University of Guelph, has been working with a team trying to stabilize duskywing populations in Ontario. In 2020, the team of researchers received federal funding to re-introduce the species to two locations in Ontario. 

“In putting that grant proposal together, we used the recovery strategy as a guiding document for what needed to be done,” Norris said. The strategy provided crucial information about existing populations and the butterfly’s habitat — including tallgrass savannas where fire is needed for plants including New Jersey tea to regenerate.

The team’s efforts paid off at Pinery Provincial Park near London, Ont., where controlled burns have restored the oak savanna, letting New Jersey Tea thrive. In 2022, a mottled duskywing was spotted at the park for the first time in 30 years.

The foremost expert on mottled duskywing — in fact, the scientist who wrote the recovery strategy for the province — led Norris’s team. So they, specifically, could have pulled off their win without the recovery strategy to guide them. But a loss of thoroughly researched public plans limits who can be involved in bringing species back, he said. 

“Imagining somebody else being interested in it, mottled duskywing, and wanting to recover it but not having any background. That would be extremely hard,” Norris said.

It’s an example of the value of recovery strategies, which are themselves seemingly going extinct.  

The strategies also guide government experts as they offer feedback to teams like his or approve funding for species recovery.

Mottled duskywing and frosted elfin are at-risk butterfly species that thrive in savanna habitats, which have become increasingly rare in Ontario. In some places, like Alderville First Nation, here, controlled burns are bringing them back. Photo: Gabrielle McMann / The Narwhal

Now, Norris is part of a group working to reintroduce another savanna-loving butterfly, frosted elfin, which is extirpated, or locally extinct, in Ontario. The group has applied for funding under the provincial Species Conservation Fund, but had yet to hear back as of early March.

“The recovery strategies acted as a guidepost for them to assess the applications,” he said, as researchers often highlight specific points in the recovery plan and explain how their proposal could address them. 

“So, it’s important for the government. It’s important for the practitioners, the researchers and so forth,” Norris said. “I don’t know why you would get rid of it.”

Eastern wolves and other species with private plans for recovery

On June 9, four days after Bill 5 passed, a coordinator in the at-risk species branch emailed the branch director at the Ministry of Environment, seeking approval to move ahead with provincial and federal agency reviews of the draft recovery strategy for the eastern wolf. After that, the strategy author would consider any comments for another revision. The email notes the same was being done with the recovery strategies for the northern oak hairstreak and migratory bats. 

The email continues, including bolded text, that, “The proposed approach for those strategies is to complete Stage 2, but to withhold any public posting on the Environmental Registry of Ontario until further direction is given … .”

The coordinator’s email said this approach would leave the ministry with a near-final recovery strategy for the species, “which can be used (if needed) as the basis for some new conservation guidance for the species down the road, once the ministry has selected its new streamlined approach to issuing conservation guidance ….”

About a week later, on June 17, that approval came.

There are between 350 and 1,000 eastern wolves left in Ontario, according to a provincial estimate, with most living in and around Algonquin Park, where they are protected from hunting. An early draft of the eastern wolf’s recovery plan recommended creating a larger protection zone for the species. Photo: Paul Gains

Linda Rutledge is an adjunct professor in forestry and conservation at both University of British Columbia and Trent University. She has contributed to reports on endangered species and written on how Bill 5 could impact the eastern wolf’s recovery. She said there needs to be transparency around the province’s decision not to publish the remaining recovery strategies, in part because recovery plans are an important educational tool.

“Without it being publicly available, it makes it feel like the government is really limiting the public knowledge base,” she said, adding that there are more stakeholders than just the public and those working to conserve eastern wolves. “I would think that there would be a lot of industry who would want to know what their impact is going to be on this iconic species.”

Rutledge said an enormous amount of work goes into developing these plans to set a clear path forward. For the eastern wolf, Rutledge said, that path was clearly laid out in the 2018 draft that is no longer public: create a recovery zone.

Right now, the wolves are protected from hunting and trapping only within and immediately around a few provincial parks, including Algonquin, Killarney, Kawartha Highlands and Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands. A recovery zone would provide safe corridors for the wolves to move between them.

“You can’t have a patchwork of protection for a wide-ranging animal like a wolf,” Rutledge said. “They don’t pay attention to park borders or things like that.” When wolves leave those boundaries, they’re at risk of hunting and trapping, as well as roads. 

“So this one single thing the government could do, that is very straightforward, is expand the harvest ban to that recovery zone,” Rutledge said. While some hunter and trapper organizations are resistant, she said there’s a lot of shared interest across the province in seeing the eastern wolf population thrive.

“I think, in the middle, most people really want the same thing, and this is the protection of natural heritage and the ability to appreciate wildlife and the outdoors,” she said.

The idea of cutting red tape, Rutledge said, isn’t a bad thing; she’s experienced bureaucratic barriers in her own work. And she appreciates the concerns around threats to Canada’s economy as a result of U.S. tariffs. But, she said, the lack of clarity and transparency on the decisions being made creates concern.

She hopes the province is working with the federal government to put protections in place for endangered species, including the eastern wolf, even if they aren’t planning to inform the public about them.

“I’m hopeful that the next time Prime Minister Carney and Premier Ford are sharing a drink by the fire at his Muskoka cottage,” she said, “that they hear these wolves howling in the background, and know their move to recognize that the economy isn’t the only thing that’s worthy of their attention and cooperation.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The cold snap held its grip on southern Ontario for weeks. On the shores of Lake Erie, some speculated this could be the year the ice makes it all the way across — something that hasn’t happened in three decades.

Erie, the shallowest of the Great Lakes, typically sees the most ice cover. Still, the most recent full freeze-up was in 1996, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data.

On a Sunday in early February, as ice cover crept over 95 per cent, locals and visitors braved frigid temperatures to look out across the frozen surface. 

Among them was photographer Carlos Osorio, who captured the lake and the people who set out across it — on foot, studded-tire bicycle or all-terrain vehicle. Wind had sculpted blowing snow into rippling waves, as if the water, on a blustery summer day, suddenly stood still.

“It’s really amazing to see it like this, when we usually see it in the summer and there’s all these water sounds, and now it’s so still; so still, so quiet,” Eleanor, who drove down to the beach at Port Dover, Ont., with her husband, Frank, said.

“When you think about water freezing, you think about smooth ice, and then you come here and the ice almost looks like frozen waves,” Frank said. “You can just imagine the water swelling up and down, but it’s not, it’s just frozen.”

The lighthouse in Port Maitland, Ont., stretches out into the frozen waves of Lake Erie.

Jay Augustine, a four-year resident of Crystal Beach, Ont., rode his bike with studded tires on the frozen lake.

Fort Erie, Ont., sits on Lake Erie’s northern shore, where wind stirred up the snow and ice pushed up over the beach.

With much of the lake frozen over, some people headed out in search of fish. A few ice fishing huts dotted the Lake Erie shore and nearby waterways, but some locals said there were more in previous years.

In Port Colborne, Ont., the Welland Canal that opens into Lake Erie froze over in the cold snap of early 2026.

The town of Crystal Beach, Ont., crawls with tourists in the summer, but the snow-covered sand and piers sat quiet on a cold day in February.

“This is exceptional,” Gerald Meyering said, marveling at the amount of ice and snow on the lake, compared to recent mild winters.

— With files from Carlos Osorio

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

With a metre of snow piled in front of my house, the plants beneath it aren’t exactly top of mind. The heath and New England aster, goldenrod and milkweed are tucked away for the winter but will re-emerge in all their glory come spring. They’ve only been there for a few years now, gradually overtaking the sod that covered our yard when we moved in. We let it go wild, and wild it has gone.

Should I be worried about contravening a city bylaw limiting grass and weeds to 20 centimetres high? Maybe — if you stuck a school ruler in our garden in full bloom, you’d likely never find it again. But the regulation doesn’t seem to be heavily enforced, at least by my eye, nor is it clear on what constitutes a weed. I hope the species we’re growing, which are refuges and resources for pollinators, would be exempt.

But there are certainly some dandelions lingering among the plants — bees like them too, you know! — and you’ll definitely find clover, a great nitrogen fixer but also considered a weed by many. But enough about my garden, because I certainly don’t want to encourage a neighbour to complain and a bylaw officer to come knocking — or mowing.

Because that’s exactly what’s happening in other Ontario municipalities.

Despite the biodiversity crisis we find ourselves in as a nation — and around the world — diverse, natural gardens are being extinguished by some people’s preference for their neighbours’ lawn to be tidy and uniform.

What it’s like to run the 4,000-km migration route of the endangered monarch butterfly

In Burlington, the Barnes family saw their naturalized garden — which included many of the same species I have, and more — razed by the city after repeated warnings and threats of fines if they didn’t trim it back themselves.

According to the city, the Barnes’ garden didn’t warrant the title of a naturalized space that would be immune to the 20-centimetre rule (apparently this is a commonly agreed-upon height for plants), despite it being popular with bees and butterflies. Much of the city’s argument, according to recent reporting on the case by the Toronto Star, appears to rest on the perceived lack of maintenance in the Barnes’ garden.

So the city threatened a $10,000-a-day fine, on top of a flat $100,000 fee, until the plants were trimmed. 

Now, the City of Burlington is taking Karen Barnes to court in March for up to $400,000 of those fines, after city crews destroyed the garden she carefully cultivated — several times. 

The Barneses aren’t alone in their fight.

As the Toronto Star reported, Mississauga resident Wolf Ruck won a years-long battle earlier this month, when a judge ruled the city’s bylaw specifying grass height and weed-control requirements are unconstitutional. It also meant Ruck was not on the hook for the city’s costs after it mowed down his naturalized garden, just as Burlington did to the Barnes’ garden. The bylaw, the judge found, was an infringement upon Ruck’s right to freedom of expression. And there are several other examples of bylaws across the province restricting garden growth — and cases where residents crossed their city’s limit.

Yet, most of us don’t live under the rule of a homeowner association — a type of community organization common in the U.S., and less so in Canada, that collects dues from its members (residents in these communities don’t have an option to forgo membership) and can dictate everything from the colour you paint your house to shed size to garden aesthetics. 

Here, if my next-door neighbour wants to paint their house hot pink, they can do it and I can live with it. They’re not harming anyone. So why are garden choices still not a homeowner’s alone?

Beyond the subjective matter of aesthetic preferences, native plants — and many so-called “weeds” — store planet-warming carbon dioxide, provide pollen for insects at the foundation of our food systems and require less water and maintenance than a lawn. It’s why a lot of cities, Burlington and Mississauga included, have planted their own pollinator gardens.

Portrait of a bee

Cracking down on people who want to let their own garden grow naturally is a waste of time for municipal staff, and money for taxpayers. Court cases aren’t cheap and neither are staff hours.

On her fundraising page for the upcoming court case, Barnes says her family has been “targeted and harassed for daring to have a yard that looks ‘different’ from the norm.” 

If aesthetics are the primary concern here, I’d point out that cities already allow (and build) unsightly infrastructure that has promised benefits beyond its appearance. For instance, the paved parking pads that are cropping up around cities. If anyone wants to argue parking pads provide a more necessary function than a naturalized garden, I’d wager you don’t need your car as much as a bee needs pollen.

So let them have it. Let people have their gardens, however they prefer them, and let nature reclaim a tiny fraction of the space it has lost to cities. I’d say we owe it that much.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

If you’ve been watching the Toronto Blue Jays on this historic World Series run, you’ve probably seen the Government of Ontario’s advertisements about mining in the Ring of Fire.

As I tuned in from the bandwagon the other night, blue jerseys gave way to coveralls, headlamps shining through tunnels and a Canadian flag waving in front of a forest and lake with a highway hugging its shore; all as a narrator laid out the economic potential of minerals underground far, far from these places. 

Taken at face value, the ads might have you thinking roads in the Ring of Fire are paved (because that’s what you see), mine shafts are dug (because that’s what you see) and mills are processing ore (because that’s what you see). 

One small problem: that’s not really the case. I don’t know much about baseball, but I do know that actual mining in the Ring of Fire is much further away — and much more complicated — than those ads portray. 

So why are the commercials about mining in the highly coveted and highly undeveloped region on Treaty 9 territory, some 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont., framed as a project that’s already underway?

It’s a clever marketing play. 

Millions of World Series viewers seeing the landscape, supposedly already altered by roads and mines, may make a more comfortable leap to accepting more roads, mines and more development in general. 

If the ads on the Blue Jays broadcast showed the sprawling peatlands, scattered with trees, lakes and rivers that actually make up the Ring of Fire, it might feel a bit harder to sever: the first cut is the deepest.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been pushing for a mining boom, especially in the far-north Ring of Fire region, shown here. Advertisements paid for by the province have aired during World Series broadcasts, showing workers in tunnels and developed mines and roads, but it’s not the Ring of Fire they’re showing. Photo: Casa Di Media

The Ring of Fire, as it’s come to be known, is said to hold massive amounts of the minerals needed for things like electric vehicle batteries. Just how much has been debated, with many critics suggesting the province’s estimate of $90-billion worth is overstated. The province has also said mining in the region will add $22 billion to Ontario’s economy over three decades. (Since taxpayers shelled out for them: the Globe and Mail found Ring of Fire ads took up more time than any other spots, aside from Rogers itself, and could have cost up to $150,000 per spot — more if we go to game 7.)

Despite a slew of mining claims and exploration work as companies have taken interest in the region over the past couple decades, there is no mine actually in operation there yet. The most advanced proposal is Wyloo Metals’ Eagle’s Nest nickel, platinum and copper project. At a press conference on Oct. 29, announcing a community partnership agreement with Webequie First Nation, Greg Rickford, the provincial minister charged with Indigenous affairs and economic development and partnerships in the Ring of Fire, hinted at just how far along mining development is: “Later today, I’m meeting with Wyloo, and the question to them is going to be, how ready are you now to proceed with at least the preliminary activities associated with mine construction.” That doesn’t exactly sound like the ting of shovels hitting the ground. 

The day before the press conference, Neskantaga First Nation, a nearby community of roughly 400 people, requested the federal government undertake an impact assessment of the Eagle’s Nest project. In an Oct. 28 letter to federal Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin, Neskantaga Chief Gary Quisess said the mine “is likely to cause severe adverse effects in areas of federal jurisdiction, particularly on Indigenous peoples including our First Nation, fish and fish habitat, as well as migratory birds.”

The Ontario government’s ads mention Indigenous economic prosperity, but not First Nations’ constitutional rights — which is no small issue, and already a flashpoint. 

This summer, people from both Neskantaga and Attawapiskat First Nation gathered along the Attawapiskat River at one of the points that would be crossed by a road to the Ring of Fire. They reached the area by boat, setting up a camp to protest the region’s development without proper First Nations consultation.

The province has various agreements signed with some First Nations and faces massive opposition from others. Those agreements concern roads going to the region, which Webequie and Marten Falls First Nations support, not necessarily because of access to the mining district, but because of the way road access could improve quality of life for their communities. 

Broken trust and Bill 5: First Nations rally against Doug Ford’s controversial mining bill

In September, the province also made splashy announcements about a $62-million investment to ready the “gateway to the Ring of Fire,” in Geraldton, Ont. The money was for upgrading existing roads, but Rickford noted in a press release, “This is more than a roadworks project — it’s a signal that Geraldton is a gateway to one of Ontario’s greatest assets in the face of economic threats from the United States, and that our government is serious about supporting the communities that anchor the North.”

These exaggerations play into the public’s perception of these massive projects with massive impacts that are not yet realized.

But being hyperbolic about progress on its pet projects is a Ford government hallmark. It has also been criticized for talking up the construction starts on Highway 413 — the proposed 60-kilometre highway running through the Greenbelt, north and west of Toronto. Those starts include an embankment for a future highway connection to the 401 and resurfacing existing roads near the proposed route, but that’s not exactly building a highway — and it hasn’t happened without criticism. 

Like the Ring of Fire ads, it wields the influence of the sunk cost fallacy. The further we get into building costly roads and mines into the remote region, the harder it is to step away and take that loss. But the promotions obscure the fact that we haven’t gotten that far, and Ontario’s pitch for economic prosperity is still well out of the strike zone.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

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Alison McCreesh was just finishing a sprawling illustration on the impacts of climate change in the North to close out her latest book, when the call came down that the city she lives in, Yellowknife, was evacuating due to wildfires.

It was the smoky summer of 2023 and multiple fires were creeping ever closer to the city’s borders. Across the Northwest Territories, communities had faced evacuation because of both fires and floods — as McCreesh worked in her studio, the radio rang with alarms to announce which community had to move out next. 

“We kind of knew our turn might come,” McCreesh says of the evacuation announcements she heard while working on an illustration of the interconnectedness of climate change impacts in the North. “That just felt eerily connected.”

Author Alison McCreesh’s newest book followers her across the north in 20s, as well as her life at home in Yellowknife, in her shack, drawn above. Illustration: Alison McCreesh

McCreesh’s book, Degrees of Separation: A decade North of 60, is a graphic novel memoir about spending her twenties travelling around the North, at first for adventure, and then as a French-English translator. She didn’t set out to write about climate change or its particularly acute impact on the northernmost parts of the country. But she also couldn’t have avoided it if she’d tried (which she didn’t).

As a day job, McCreesh does graphic recordings and illustrations of community meetings, technical briefings and presentations. The subjects vary, and the discussions aren’t always specifically about the environment, but they often circle back to it — as so many things do in the North. 

Degrees of Separation, published in spring 2024 by Conundrum Press, is a graphic novel detailing her travels and life with her young, growing family. She worked on the book for roughly five years, taking a break after her third child was born, as well as for other life events — like the wildfires. 

Her original idea, she says, was to show some of the humour and quirkier side of her life, like calling a shack without running water home. (Editor’s note: there are some very nice shacks in Yellowknife.) 

But as the project went on, McCreesh realized that while the personal details ensured the book was a fun read, she wanted it to look more at the bigger picture. 

“I struggled with that, being like, I don’t want to be telling everyone about my 20s, who cares about my 20s, we need to care about climate change,” she said. “It’s all part of it. It all makes sense together.”

It’s a realization, and source of character development, that follows McCreesh through the book.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Climate and environmental change is a theme running through this book. We have the increase in polar bears around communities, changes in the ice. Was that something you recognized as you experienced it, or more so afterwards when you began the book?

It definitely came after. In the last five or six years I’ve been doing a lot of these graphic recordings, so I go to a lot of meetings with a lot of people coming in from smaller communities. Even though the meetings are on different themes, often climate change is a big part of it, and that’s really brought it home.

For example, there’d be something on asset management in small communities. I didn’t know anything about asset management and what that connection was but climate change is impacting infrastructure in small communities. That’s a big deal, if there’s coastal erosion and that’s going to impact your dump or your sewage lagoons or your water plant. If permafrost is thawing, that’s going to wreak havoc with your landing strip at your airport, or all those infrastructure type things that I hadn’t necessarily given much thought to. 

On a visit to Arviat, Nvt., on the western shore of Hudson Bay, McCreesh is told about the increase in polar bears coming onto land and into the town as food sources and ice patterns change. Illustrations: Alison McCreesh

I speak specifically about the Northwest Territories, but this applies to plenty of other northern places in Canada — there’s no year-round road access. So in the winter, supplies come in via ice and winter roads, and in the summer it’s often barges. If the winters are milder and the climate is more unpredictable, then your winter road season gets cut really short. And if there’s extremely low water and the barge can’t go up during the summer season, you can’t get fuel brought in that normally you would have had brought in for use all year round.

Whatever the main theme of the conference was, the climate change piece just comes in from angles all the time. 

8,000 kms of ice roads link Canada’s North. Erratic winters are wreaking havoc on the lifeline

You live in the North, in Yellowknife, but you’re visiting smaller communities throughout this book — and coming in as an outsider. How much did the people in each community, the things you were told and heard, shape your illustrations and what you documented about change?

I tried to be deliberate about telling the story that had been brought to my attention by people when I was in that community or in that setting. I didn’t know about lots of things — I was in my 20s, I hadn’t been in the North for that long. But sometimes it’s good to think back about those things and not take for granted that people know things that you know now. 

Being an outsider is sometimes almost good. When you’re newer to things you notice things and tell them from that perspective. So for example, I knew nothing about the DEW (Distant Early Warning) line. I’d never heard of the DEW line. (Editor’s note: in case you’ve also never heard of the DEW line, it’s a belt of now-inactive radars built across the Arctic to warn of Soviet attack by air from the North in the 1950s.)

When I was travelling as part of these community consultations, somewhat miraculously, we ended up staying on an old DEW line site that’s called Fox-Main, going back into this sort of Cold War era. That’s how I learned about the DEW line, what it was, and then also how it had lots of impacts on Inuit and on wildlife and on the landscape and all the contamination.

The Distant Early Warning line was a belt of radars built across the Arctic to warn of Soviet attack by air from the North in the 1950s. Now inactive, many of the sites are still standing and McCreesh stayed at one while visiting Sanirajak, Nvt. Illustrations: Alison McCreesh

It’s things that I learned along the way, while I was in those places, and that people sort of brought to my attention — not in a full-fledged like, ‘Let me educate you about this thing’ way, but it comes up in conversation for sure. Then I did some research after to fact-check some of that, and give broader context and increase my own understanding of what the issue was. 

As the world’s ‘polar bear capital’ waits for ice, bears are increasingly drawn into the streets

I appreciate wanting to be true to what you knew at the time too. You learn things along the way. You don’t want to pretend you were in a place and knew all the things that were to know about that place, right? 

And you want to have some kind of character growth. My personal growth wasn’t my main focus of this story but that is sort of the way our 20s and hopefully all our life goes — we keep learning new stuff and get a bit more mature and get more context for things. The prologue is us hitchhiking towards Dawson City up through northern B.C .and knowing nothing about anything really, definitely not about the North. And then the very last story is me in Iqaluit in a hotel room with my second child trying to get her to sleep while I work on this graphic recording that’s talking about the North and how it’s impacted by climate change. I feel like those are sort of telling of the start and the end of that journey of my 20s.

I really enjoyed reading the index of the book, where you give an illustrated brief on some of the subjects you touch on throughout the book. Why did having an index seem necessary?

I just sort of felt like we needed more substance, to a lot of these things, like climate change, I didn’t want to keep hammering people over the head with it. But then in the notes, it was sort of like, ‘Let me explain permafrost, I need to give context for permafrost related to the story, but also let me just tell you that permafrost is thawing and shifting and this is a big issue. This is what a treeline is in the context of the book, but also the treeline is shifting.’ In the book, there’s mention of winter roads and ice roads and fly-in communities and all-season roads, so then at the end, I can say how it’s impacting people. 

It gave me an opportunity to draw a little more focus to those themes that seemed important to me and that I wanted people to learn about in the northern context.

Reflections on McCreesh’s decade of travel across the North are pulled together in her book Degrees of Separation, as are the varying impacts of climate change she heard and learned about through that time. Illustration: Alison McCreesh

The feedback loops page towards the end (and the main image of this story) is so fascinating. What was the thinking behind that page, and pulling together all of these different pieces into one illustration?

Something I hear time and time again, and that I see through my work, is there’s just so many details of how one thing ties to another. The trickle down effects of one thing, and when one thing happens here and that leads to something else downstream, it’s all just so much.

Up here, there’s sort of these main climate change themes of coastal erosion, wildfires, changes to freshwater, which would include drought or increased precipitation, and then there’s permafrost, and so on. It’s often divided into those themes, but then they’re impacting one another. The wildfires do lead to more permafrost thaw because they’re burning the ground cover. But also, it’s hotter and it’s generally drier — other than when we’re flooding — which contributes to these bigger, hotter fires. They’re all feeding into each other.

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Read about the Ontario election 2025 results over here.

With the Ontario election less than a week away, all four major parties have released platforms, offering a glimpse at their plans for the province. 

In the wake of Ontario’s Greenbelt scandal, which has put a spotlight on the need to protect farmland and green space, and in the midst of a provincial push towards electrification, all of the parties are considering the environment in the context of broad socio-economic issues, such as jobs and housing. 

But there’s a lot missing from these plans, too: few are talking about how their party would support workers to transition away from jobs tied to fossil fuels, and there is a lack of focused policies to address air, land and water pollution — a growing health crisis in various Ontario communities. 

Between Ontario election platforms and responses to a survey The Narwhal sent to all four of the province’s major parties — which the Progressive Conservatives didn’t respond to — the leaders have a few promises affecting the environment in the 2025 Ontario election, for better and for worse. Illustration: Kagan McLeod / The Narwhal

Before the 2025 Ontario election platforms were made public, The Narwhal surveyed each party on eight pertinent issues. The Liberals, Greens and NDP responded — the Progressive Conservatives did not.

Of the few proposals that could help address the impacts of climate change, details are often vague or the purpose appears to be reversing something the incumbent Progressive Conservatives did (a political shot, in other words). Like the Liberals taking words out of federal Conservative mouths and suggesting they’ll “axe Doug Ford’s carbon tax” — by which, we confirmed, they do mean the federal consumer carbon tax that’s in place because the Ford government didn’t come up with its own adequate version.Also unclear is how each party would fund any of these proposals. The Liberals say they’ll find billions of dollars in “efficiencies.” Both the NDP and Greens promise new tax measures, largely affecting high-income earners and high-end property owners, and savings from cancelling Ford’s promises to build Highway 413 and the controversial lakefront Toronto spa, Ontario Place. The Progressive Conservatives have not released details of how they would fund any of their promises if re-elected.

Based on their responses, plans and what we know about each party’s records, here’s a look at how the major Ontario parties would address eight big questions about the environment and climate change.

You can read the plans here: Progressive Conservatives. Liberals. NDP. Greens.

Ontario election platforms: table of contents

1. Flooding and extreme weather
2. Housing and the environment
3. Jobs, economy and the environment
4. Critical minerals, mining and Indigenous Rights
5. Meeting rising electricity demand
6. Plans for natural gas
7. Communication and transparency
8. Traffic, transit and transportation

1. We’ve seen record floods, heat and storms over the past few years. What’s your plan to help communities across Ontario adapt to this extreme weather?

Progressive Conservatives: Over its tenure, the Ford government has invested little in adaptation efforts and has made no new promises on this front. In 2020, the government commissioned a two-year study — the first of its kind by any province — of how the climate crisis was impacting every sector and community. The government did not widely share or discuss the report, even though it called for urgent action. Internal documents obtained by The Narwhal show the government asked researchers to downplay findings on how severely climate change will impact food, buildings and people.

In the Progressive Conservatives’ Ontario election platform, released Monday, the party promises to invest $530 million to buy six new waterbombers over the next 10 years to enhance the province’s firefighting abilities.

Liberals: The Ontario Liberals promise to reverse the Ford government’s funding cuts to conservation authorities, so the agencies are better able to mitigate and adapt to flooding. They also promise to increase and expand Ontario’s Disaster Recovery Assistance program, which provides financial help for emergency expenses and the costs to repair or replace essential property after a natural disaster that is not covered by insurance. The program was most recently activated by the Ford government last summer after record-breaking floods, with claims capped at $250,000, processed over several months. The Liberals also promise to speed up this process, recognizing that Ontario is “vulnerable to worsening climate disasters.”

NDP: If elected, the NDP told The Narwhal they would deliver a climate adaptation plan, something the Ford government did not release in all its years in office. (Although this is not listed officially in the NDP’s Ontario election platform.) In their response to The Narwhal, the NDP suggested their adaptation efforts would focus on infrastructure, which is increasingly strained by the impacts of climate change and getting costlier to repair. They promised to take on the costs of these repairs and not download them to municipalities, as the Ford government has done.

Greens:  In their response, the Greens promise to protect the wetlands that act as a critical buffer to guard homes from flooding and other extreme weather events. Notably, they’d adopt a province-wide policy to increase protections for wetlands and reverse the Ford’s government’s changes that have weakened protections and the power of conservation authorities. They vow to cancel Highway 413 and prohibit any 400-series highways from being built in the Greenbelt, a critical carbon sink for the region that contains green space, farmlands and wetlands.

They’re also proposing zero-interest loans to help homeowners flood-proof their basements, and a predictable multi-year loan to support municipalities in shoring up their roads, bridges and buildings to be ready for the next torrential downpour.

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The Ontario Liberals, NDP and Greens all promise to increase density within urban boundaries and took shots at the Ford government for failing to do so. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

2: We all recognize the need to build more houses in Ontario. How will you see more houses built, while still protecting the farmland and green spaces that are critical to the people and environment of this province? 

Progressive Conservatives: After the Greenbelt scandal — along with the Ford government’s controversial and now reversed attempts at forcefully expanding urban boundaries into protected farmland and green space — it’s unclear how a re-elected Progressive Conservative government will simultaneously prioritize environmental protections and housing availability. Their latest housing policy, released in April 2024, focuses on building on already developable land, and their platform no longer mentions their long-repeated promise of building 1.5 million homes by 2031.

How the Greenbelt scandal is quietly shaping Ontario’s 2025 provincial election

Liberals: In their response, the Liberals say they’ll cut the taxes associated with building homes to make them more affordable, and instead introduce a fund to help municipalities cover infrastructure costs, encouraging sustainable and affordable development. The fund will incentivize smart, sustainable growth by prioritizing purpose-built rentals, medium-density housing, higher-density housing along transit corridors and arterial roads and innovative solutions like prefabricated homes. They pledge to modernize building codes but don’t mention whether that includes green standards needed to ensure buildings are net-zero. 

The Liberals also promise to focus on preserving sensitive ecosystems and Ontario’s rich biodiversity. This includes protecting 30 per cent of Ontario’s land and water by safeguarding the Greenbelt, expanding existing provincial parks (they specifically note Polar Bear Provincial Park on James Bay and Algonquin Park near Huntsville, Ont.), establishing new urban parks, supporting municipal tree planting and horticulture programs and preserving wetlands.

NDP: The NDP promise to increase density in transit corridors, focusing on building affordable medium-density housing options like semi-detached homes, townhomes, four-storey complexes and mid-rises. To do so, the party will create a new public agency to provide grants, low-cost financing, public land and other supports to enable construction of 300,000 affordable homes in 10 years in “vibrant, inclusive, pedestrian- and transit-friendly complete communities.” And they’ll support homeowners in installing low-cost electric-vehicle infrastructure.

There is a strong focus on building more homes through the Ontario election, though not always through the lens of how to balancing it with creeping urban sprawl. Green Leader Mike Schreiner proposing freezing urban boundaries and reversing the extensions put in place by the Progressive Conservatives to build more on already developed land. Illustration: Kagan McLeod / The Narwhal

Greens: The Greens propose to freeze urban boundaries and reverse the expansions the Ford government implemented, saying there’s enough space already to create new homes and neighbourhoods. Their plan prioritizes housing where roads and sewers already exist, rather than encouraging sprawl. They would place a minimum threshold for housing density around transit stations and along transit corridors as part of transit funding agreements, including affordable housing requirements. And they’d reinstate a fund for municipalities to safely build on brownfield sites, and remove barriers for building on abandoned commercial properties.

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The NDP told The Narwhal their approach is “less about ‘balancing’ some imagined trade-off between the environment and the economy, and more about ensuring that economic decisions don’t ignore the very real environmental costs and benefits. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

3. Does your party believe it’s possible to protect the environment and advance economic growth at the same time? If so, what safeguards will you have in place to ensure that balance is maintained?

Progressive Conservatives: Though the Progressive Conservatives didn’t answer our survey, they’ve sometimes pitted the environment and the economy against each other. Ford in particular hinted at it in a debate on Feb. 17: “You believe in bike lanes and riding bikes and planting trees, I get it,” he said to the other party leaders. “But the problem is, you won’t be able to afford the trees because the economy will go down the tubes with all three of you.”

At times, Ford has also expressed disdain for environmental protection. In 2023, he called Ontario’s Greenbelt a “scam.” Last year, he dismissed environmental concerns about his government’s Highway 413 project, saying, “There’s hundreds of thousands of people stuck in their cars, backed up from here to Timbuktu, and you’re worried about a grasshopper jumping across a highway.” He’s also railed against federal protections for species at risk, telling a construction industry audience earlier this year that the highway is being held up “because a woodpecker has one tree. Last time I checked, a woodpecker can fly from one tree to another.” (In fact, the project has faced delays over wide-ranging environmental concerns, including its impacts on several species.)

Liberals: The Liberals say they will position Ontario as a leader in clean industry and resilient supply chains by driving investment into clean manufacturing, clean energy generation, resource-efficient industries and energy security. They promise to protect prime farmland and champion a sustainable agri-food sector by giving farmers the tools to deal with inflation, supply chain disruption, climate change and geopolitical instability. The Liberals’ Ontario election platform also pledges to “axe Doug Ford’s carbon tax,” which you (and we, at first) might have thought means the industrial carbon tax, as that’s the only one imposed by the Progressive Conservatives. The Liberals clarified with The Narwhal it refers to the consumer carbon tax the federal government applies to Ontarians (yes, the one the Ford government took the feds to court over imposing). The Liberals are calling this Doug Ford’s carbon tax because it’s imposed due to his lack of adequate policy in its place, and they plan to release a “Made in Ontario environmental action plan” instead.

NDP: The NDP told The Narwhal their approach is “less about ‘balancing’ some imagined trade-off between the environment and the economy, and more about ensuring that economic decisions don’t ignore the very real environmental costs and benefits.” No specifics were offered to show how the party would do this. The only notable thing in their platform in this regard is a promise to establish Ontario’s first Youth Climate Corps to help young people learn skills through green jobs.

Greens: In their response, the Greens said the climate crisis is a threat, but also an opportunity to create new, environmentally friendly jobs. The party’s plan includes tax credits for industries and businesses investing in decarbonizing, a fund to support startups working on lower-emissions technologies and a program that would allow heavy-polluting industries to partner with local clean technology companies on ways to lower their emissions.

It also includes plans to retrofit 40 per cent of Ontario’s existing jobs and workplaces by 2035, and 100 per cent by 2045, which the Greens said would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. To ensure people are trained to fill those positions, the Greens would give 60,000 people seeking to work in the green economy a year of free college tuition, and a year of apprenticeship after they graduate. The party also says it would give colleges more funding so they can run programs that would be needed to train those workers.

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Following the debate on northern issues held on Feb. 14, Grand Chief of Mushkegowuk Council Leo Friday sent a letter to all party leaders noting that First Nations communities were not mentioned once in the discussion around critical minerals. Map: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

4. How will you balance the drive for critical minerals with the need to protect the environment and properly consult First Nations on projects that affect them?

Progressive Conservatives: There’s no question the Progressive Conservatives have been big on the drive for critical minerals used to build lower-emissions technology like electric vehicles. On the campaign trail in 2025 — and the 2022 and 2018 elections before that — Ford has put an emphasis on his desire to enable mining in the Ring of Fire region in the Far North, though he hasn’t always been completely honest about the details. Beyond that, the Tories have also been trying to facilitate a rush of new mining across northern Ontario. But have the Progressive Conservatives found a balance between mining, Indigenous Rights and environmental protection? Many First Nations say no — and although some nations have been on board with Ford’s efforts, others have raised concerns about the pace and environmental consequences of the push for minerals.

Through his tenure, Doug Ford has talked a lot about growing Ontario’s critical mineral sector, and made some moves to ease it along, like giving the mining minister the power to approve mine exploration and closure plans. Illustration: Kagan McLeod / The Narwhal

The Progressive Conservatives’ 2025 Ontario election platform includes a plan to designate areas with multiple critical mineral deposits, like the Ring of Fire, as “regions of strategic importance.” That designation allows the province to accelerate project permitting through various means, including granting qualified proponents “automatic approval to proceed with early works once they’ve met duty to consult obligations,” with the relevant provincial ministries, agencies and authorities continuing to oversee them. The Progressive Conservatives are also increasing the amount of funding put aside for Indigenous consultation, as well as participation in projects.

Following the debate on northern issues held on Feb. 14, Grand Chief of Mushkegowuk Council Leo Friday sent a letter to all party leaders noting that First Nations communities were not mentioned once in the discussion around critical minerals. “We recognize the urgency of Canada’s response to U.S. tariffs, including critical minerals and, particularly, the Ring of Fire. However, First Nations must not be excluded from this process,” Friday wrote. “Ontario cannot achieve its goals without working directly with the Mushkegowuk Nations.”

Liberals: The Liberals say they’ll take a responsible approach to critical mineral development — one that respects Indigenous Rights, protects land and water and ensures Ontario benefits from a clean economy. While their platform makes no mention of Indigenous Rights and reconciliation or critical mining, in their response to The Narwhal’s questions, they say they plan to expand and build high-potential mining projects by providing infrastructure financing guarantees in co-operation with local municipalities and Indigenous communities. If elected, they would partner with industry, skilled-trades and Indigenous nations to expand critical minerals processing capacity to create an end-to-end supply chain. 

They also say they’d fast-track permitting for mining projects that have community benefit agreements or are at least 25 per cent Indigenous-owned.

NDP: A future NDP government will “be guided by a commitment to free, informed and prior consent regarding any policy decisions impacting First Nations,” the party said in their response to The Narwhal’s questions. Their Ontario election platform pledges to start a formal consultation process with the Matawa Tribal Council First Nations members, and other impacted First Nations, on decisions related to the Ring of Fire.

Greens: In their response to The Narwhal’s questions, the Greens said Ontario is too often imposing its decisions on First Nations instead of partnering with them. The party is the only one that promised to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Ontario — the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which among other things, would guarantee First Nations the right to free, prior and informed consent to resource extraction on their territories. (Both B.C. and the Northwest Territories have implemented the declaration.)

The Greens would also establish models for First Nations and the province to co-manage development and share revenues fairly. They’d create a “fair, open and independent” process for First Nations to resolve land claims, and recognize Indigenous laws and tradition when negotiating and implementing any agreements. 

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Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie has pledged to “axe Doug Ford’s carbon tax,” a pricing scheme designed to limit emissions from industry. Photo: Carlos Osorio / The Narwhal

5. The push toward electrification requires us to generate more power. What is your plan to increase power generation, without also increasing greenhouse gas emissions?

Progressive Conservatives: The Ford government has embarked on an “all of the above” approach when it comes to energy, opening the door, theoretically anyways, to all energy sources. The move is meant to address a shortfall in supply as we move towards electrification, and as our nuclear facilities, which provide most of our clean power, shut down for refurbishment. In practice, this has meant boosting natural gas, which they claim is a short-term measure, and making massive investments in new nuclear plants, like in Port Hope. The government has also launched a more robust version of an energy savings program it cancelled eight years ago and invested in energy storage projects.

In their Ontario election platform, the Progressive Conservatives double down on the need for more power, specifically mentioning “nuclear, hydroelectricity, natural gas and others,” noting particular investments in nuclear and hydro. They also promise to expand transmission lines both within the province and with Quebec and, interestingly, the United States — that’s despite Ford’s threat to withhold power from the states in response to tariffs. They also pledge to support oil and gas pipelines.

Notably, their platform also vows to review the mandates of the Ontario Energy Board and the Independent Electricity System Operator (which the platform spells incorrectly as the Independent Electricity Service Operator). Both are arms-length organizations that work independently to help manage and regulate the province’s electricity needs in line with the government’s objectives. Last year, the Ford government made the unprecedented decision to overrule the board after it directed Enbridge Gas to stop passing down the costs of new natural gas hookups to homeowners.

Power to the people: how energy is shaping the Ontario election

Liberals: If elected, the Liberals say they would transition Ontario’s electricity grid to a cleaner, more affordable and more reliable system by procuring 30,000 megawatts of clean electricity from nuclear, wind, solar and hydro power by 2040. They would also deliver a permanent tax credit worth 20 per cent of the installation cost of energy-saving technologies at home, such as heat pumps.

NDP: In response to The Narwhal’s questions, the NDP say they will “ensure an abundant supply of reliable and affordable energy” to reach a net-zero economy by 2050. They’ll do this by making “evidence-based and cost-effective investments” in clean energy. In their platform, they promise free or discounted electric heat pumps, offering rebates of up to $19,500, as well as additional retrofit support to renters and low-income households, and electric-vehicle rebates to all. 

Greens: The Greens plan is to make it easier for people, farmers and businesses to connect renewable energy to the grid by investing in smart grid implementation, as well as innovations such as bi-directional electric-vehicle charging, peak demand programs and battery storage. They would end the moratorium on offshore wind energy and put community and individual monetary benefit agreements in place for people who live near wind farms. The Greens would maintain nuclear generation at Bruce and Darlington power plants and, ultimately, phase out gas plants by 2035.

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6. Ontario’s electricity grid is currently dirtier than it has been in years, mostly due to increased use of natural gas. How would you tackle this problem? Do you have intentions and a plan to phase out natural gas?

Progressive Conservatives: The Ford government has already started boosting natural gas as a short-term solution to the energy supply shortfall, despite receiving advice from taxpayer-funded experts to move away from it.

Liberals: The Liberals would keep natural gas generation as a backup for peak demand and emergency situations, and explore new grid-balancing technologies.

NDP: The NDP did not directly answer the question.

Greens: The Ontario Greens pledge to phase out natural gas plants by 2035. Alternatively, they’d invest in renewable energy, like wind, solar and energy storage. They also plan to electrify transportation, buildings and industry to make the grid cleaner and more affordable.

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7. We’ve seen many examples of the Progressive Conservative government and Liberals before them keeping the reasons and methods behind government decisions hidden from the public. What will you do to make transparency a pillar of the next government?

Progressive Conservatives: The Ford government continues to be under scrutiny for the way it conducts government business. In the matter of the Greenbelt, the auditor general found political staff in the Ford government “regularly” deleted emails and used personal emails to conduct government business, which is against provincial guidelines. Although the government pledged to fix these issues, it also backslided elsewhere on transparency. The government refused to release mandate letters (previously made public) outlining the premier’s instructions to each minister. It also consistently failed to properly consult or inform Ontarians about major changes to environmental and energy policy. (Previous Liberal governments also failed to do this.)

Former Mississauga mayor and Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie has come out as a strong opponent of the Ford government and, if in power, is proposing a series of investigations into some of the Progressive Conservatives’ major projects. Illustration: Kagan McLeod / The Narwhal

Liberals: Within 30 days of forming government, the Liberals say they would launch a comprehensive investigation into several of the Ford government’s dealings, including the $8.3-billion Greenbelt scandal, $2.1-billion Ontario Place deal, the relocation of the Ontario Science Centre, the $1.9-billion beer sale payout, the shift of Service Ontario centres to Staples, $1 billion in private-nursing contracts and partisan patronage appointments. The Liberals also pledge to rip up the $100-million Starlink deal with Elon Musk.

NDP: A future Ontario NDP government will “end the secretive and corrupt two-tier planning system where favoured insiders can get preferential treatment.” They also promise a more transparent procurement process, more in-house expertise (instead of private consultants) and an end to public-private partnership projects like the Eglinton Crosstown light-rail transit project, which has been under construction for more than a decade.

Greens: The Ontario Greens say, only, “Ontarians deserve a government that is honest and transparent.”

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Since its inception, the Ottawa LRT, run by OC Transpo, has been plagued with problems after problems. Both Doug Ford and Bonnie Crombie have promised to assist the transit service in the 2025 election campaign. Photo: Kamara Morozuk / The Narwhal

8. Decades of research and evidence show that, in the long-term, adding new road capacity does not help traffic congestion. What’s your plan for making a real dent in the Greater Toronto Area’s traffic problem?

Progressive Conservatives: Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have spent a lot of time on the campaign trail talking about their proposal to build a tunnelled expressway under Highway 401, stretching between the Toronto suburbs of Brampton and Mississauga. The Tories have also talked about building new routes, like Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass, both of which would run through Ontario’s Greenbelt. And in the fall, the Progressive Conservatives also passed a bill allowing the province to prevent the construction of new bike lanes that remove a lane of vehicle traffic, and get rid of existing bike lanes, taking aim at a select few in downtown Toronto. The language around that promise was sharpened in the party’s platform, confirming its plans for the three Toronto lanes and stating, “The province will veto and block any future municipal bike lanes that would eliminate a lane of vehicle traffic.”

Traffic experts have said none of those moves are likely to help the gridlock. Neither would removing tolls from Highway 407, a concept all of the parties have stood behind, although the details of those plans vary. Ford is also planning to let people drive faster on some highways, with a minimum speed limit of 110 kilometres per hour.

On the campaign trail, Ford pledged to bring Ottawa’s financially challenged transit service, OC Transpo, under the Crown corporation Metrolinx, which manages transit in the Greater Toronto Area. The platform confirms that position, and repeat’s Ford’s announcement of bringing back the Northlander bus route between Toronto and Cochrane. A few other transit projects made mention in the Progressive Conservatives’ platform, including expanded existing GO train routes, with more frequent service and a new stop in Bowmanville, as well as adding new lines entirely. They’re also offering cupholders on all trains, which is … nice.

Liberals: The Liberals say they support federal efforts to build the high-speed rail, and would increase two-way, all-day GO service throughout the Greater Toronto Area and southwestern Ontario. Their plan is to boost ridership and support public transportation by delivering permanent, sustainable and flexible operational funding for transit agencies.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie also pledged to take provincial responsibility for Ottawa’s OC Transpo, relieving the region of the costly light-rail transit system.

Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles and her party formed the Official Opposition during Ford’s second term, pushing hard against Bill 212, passed in the fall to make highway construction easier and empowering the province to remove some bike lanes. Illustration: Kagan McLeod / The Narwhal

NDP: The NDP say they will restore 50 per cent of the provincial funding for municipal transit operations cut by the Ford government. They also pledge to restore bike lanes, which the Ford government also cut, and remove tolls for the underused Highway 407.

Greens: The Greens, who have opposed Ford’s transportation plans, offered a four-part plan for giving people in Ontario better access to affordable public transit — moves that would make it easier for commuters to get around, even if it doesn’t necessarily get rid of traffic jams. Their proposals include expanding GO Transit service to see more express trains during peak hours and increased off-peak train departures.

The Greens also said they’d create an intercity electric bus service, with dedicated bus lanes to connect smaller communities, and an infrastructure fund for municipalities to build routes safe for walking, biking and using mobility devices. And on Highway 407, the Greens said they’d remove tolls from the expressway for transport trucks and create a dedicated lane for them, a move that could provide some short-term congestion relief.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Get the inside scoop on The Narwhal’s environment and climate reporting by signing up for our free newsletter.

The leaders of Ontario’s major political parties went head-to-head in two provincial election debates bookending the Family Day weekend — and in both, they rarely touched on the environment. 

During a total of three hours of back and forth on stage, the environment took up some 20 minutes. That’s a bit higher than our tally during the last provincial election in 2022, but not by much. 

Most of the discussion this time around came in the form of quips instead of in-depth policy. At the Feb. 14 debate, focused on northern issues, the leaders took turns alluding to the mining and forestry industries. And during the Feb. 17 debate, the opposition sniped at Progressive Conservative Party Leader Doug Ford about his government’s Greenbelt scandal.

“I think I was pretty clear,” he said in response, referencing his plan to allow housing development on the Greenbelt, which he reversed in 2023 amid public backlash. “I said I was and then I wasn’t and then I went ahead and did it. But in saying that, I apologized to the people.”

There were silly moments too, especially during the first debate, with Ford saying Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner “won’t cut down a dandelion to put a shovel in the ground” and Ontario Liberal Party Leader Bonnie Crombie inviting Ford to go kayaking. 

Neither the impact of the Ford government’s environmental policy — or lack thereof — nor the opposing parties’ positions on what they’d do differently were a significant focus of the questions the leaders were asked. But clean water, productive farmland, extreme weather and other environmental issues have massive implications for other sectors that are, perhaps, more top of mind to Ontarians. 

At one point, Ford pitted environmental interests against economic ones, a false choice that ignores the threat climate change poses to our economy. “You believe in bike lanes and riding bikes and planting trees, I get it. But the problem is, you won’t be able to afford the trees because the economy will go down the tubes with all three of you,” he said. (In his first term, Ford cut the 50 Million Tree program that subsidized the cost of planting trees in developed areas.) 

The province continues to grapple with yet another extreme weather event, this time a record-breaking snowfall scientists say is due to increasingly warm, ice-free Great Lakes (caused by climate change, which is caused by burning fossil fuels). Floods, heat waves and other extreme weather are already straining Ontario’s roads and buildings, and will create additional loads for an already-overloaded health care system. The province is also trying to avoid an energy crisis as demand drastically exceeds supply and to balance the need for more housing and industry with farmland and green space. 

Of the scant few statements on environmental issues at the Ontario leaders’ debates, not all were exactly true — or at least not how they were presented.

So here’s a look at how the environment factored in, and why it might be worth further discussion.

Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Doug Ford has vowed to build a tunneled expressway underneath Highway 401 to reduce traffic congestion, even though studies say adding more lanes (above or underground) doesn’t take cars off the roads. Photo: Stephane Legrand / Shutterstock

Let’s talk tunnels: why an expressway under Highway 401 won’t relieve Toronto’s traffic

On the debate stage Monday night, the leaders clashed over one of Ford’s biggest pre-election promises: to build a tunnelled expressway underneath Highway 401 to connect the Toronto suburbs of Brampton and Mississauga. Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have said they’ll soon go ahead with a feasibility study for the plan, which they’ve claimed — without evidence — would help cut down on the region’s notoriously awful traffic jams. 

In his statements, Ford did rely on real facts about the Greater Toronto Area’s highway woes, but he also came to incorrect conclusions about what would fix it. “The folks on the stage here, they don’t believe in building highways, they’re against the tunnel,” he said. “So, I guess my question to all three of them is, where’s the traffic going to go?”

While it’s true that roads around Toronto are expected to be chock-full of gridlock in coming decades, building more highway capacity isn’t likely to help. Decades of evidence and studies have shown that although adding new lanes does seem to make things better at first, they also attract more drivers and worsen traffic in the long run. The concept is called induced demand, and it makes it really difficult to deal with traffic congestion.

Research shows more highways don’t fix traffic congestion. So why is Ontario still building them?

It’s the same reason why removing tolls from some portion of the nearby Highway 407 — a plan touted in various forms by all of Ontario’s major parties during this election, especially Ontario’s NDP — or the Tories’ plan to build Highway 413 likely won’t work either. The Greens are the only party to acknowledge that reality so far, saying long-term fixes to reduce car dependency would also be needed to make a dent in traffic.

Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie took aim at the tunnel plan at Monday’s debate, calling it “dumb” and a “fantasy.”

“It won’t be built in my lifetime, it won’t alleviate any congestion, it will bankrupt the province,” Crombie said. While tunnel projects often do take a long time and incur massive costs, there isn’t much public information about the project’s actual timeline or price tag. Crombie also claimed the project would cost $150 billion, which is much higher than what experts have suggested — a more reasonable guess would be tens of billions of dollars. Which is still a lot, especially if the end result isn’t less traffic.  

So what would work? Traffic experts tend to agree that congestion pricing or tolls, as New York recently implemented, are the most likely solution to reduce gridlock. 

Ontario party leaders vowed to increase investments in public transit as a way to reduce road congestion, even though studies show there is little correlation. Photos: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The parties haven’t brought up that idea on the campaign trail, but they have pitched increased investments in public transit as a way to get cars off the road. More transit is sorely needed: it helps more people move around, can make cities more liveable and is good for lowering carbon emissions and other types of pollution. But it’s worth noting studies have also shown that public transportation often doesn’t help clear the roads, either — even if some people start commuting by train instead of car, for example, more cars just fill the empty space.

In the lead-up to the election, the Ford government directed Metrolinx to study how to free up tracks for passenger train use only, and not freight trains. In the debates, Ford boasted about investments in the Ontario Line even as construction cost estimates have increased by 43 per cent on the light rail project running from Exhibition Place near Toronto’s lakeshore to the city’s northeast. 

Crombie also promised to invest in transit, including all-day GO service on suburban lines to Toronto. “We need to invest more into our public transit systems,” she said. “We’re talking about $150-billion fantasy tunnels, rather than utilizing existing resources.” And that’s a fact: the Milton line west of Toronto, for example, only runs on weekdays during rush hour.

In the Family Day debate, Doug Ford boasted without evidence that Ontario has the “greatest reduction of emissions anywhere,” citing the government’s efforts to shift the province’s steel industry from coal to electric furnaces. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Ontario has less than five years left to meet its emissions-reduction targets and little evidence it’ll get there

Ontario party leaders had only 30 seconds each to share how they would reduce carbon emissions at the Family Day debate, so solutions were sparse despite being needed, well, yesterday. 

To help meet the federal government’s commitments in the Paris climate agreement, Ontario committed to reducing its emissions by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030. Ford boasted without evidence that Ontario has the “greatest reduction of emissions anywhere.” In fact, the province’s emissions increased by 5.7 per cent in 2024, taking it further from the target. 

Ford also touted Ontario’s clean grid, stating, “We’re at 90 per cent clean energy.” This figure has actually dropped to 87 per cent today after his government boosted natural gas-generated electricity to make up for a shortfall in nuclear energy and meet the rise in demand for power. To Schreiner’s credit, the Ontario Greens leader did suggest at Monday’s debate that we should stop ramping up natural gas plants — as have the top scientists around the globe, who urge a retreat from fossil fuels.

Ford also boasted about making investments that would enable Ontario’s steel industry to transition from coal to electric furnaces, which will significantly reduce emissions but not until 2028. 

Ontario didn’t inform the public about advice urging a shift away from natural gas

Ford spent most of his 30 emissions-reduction seconds railing against the consumer carbon tax, claiming it has cost Ontario a lot of jobs even though there is no evidence of that. Ford pointed fingers at Liberal Leader Crombie, whom he has dubbed “queen of the carbon tax,” even though she is staunchly against it. “I’m the first Liberal to stand up and say it’s too expensive to have a consumer carbon tax,” she said in the Monday debate.

In this way, the politicization of carbon pricing — a highly efficient way to encourage emissions reductions that also puts money back into consumers’ pockets through federal rebates — continues to take attention and energy away from finding real solutions.

Doug Ford first promised a mining boom in the Far North Ring of Fire in 2018. Seven years later, he has made some progress — but he’s also continuing to repeat unsubstantiated claims. Photo: Casa Di Media

The Ring of Fire has a lot of critical minerals, but probably not a trillion dollars worth, and there’s still no road to them

Since 2018, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have been talking a big game about turning the Far North Ring of Fire region into a mining hub. That year, Ford pledged to hop on a bulldozer himself to build access roads to allow mining in the area. 

But that hasn’t been a simple process. The Ring of Fire is located in the carbon-rich, ecologically sensitive James Bay Lowlands, home to First Nations who have the right to say over what happens in their territories. Seven years later, Ford has made some progress towards enabling access roads to the region — but he’s also continuing to repeat unsubstantiated claims.

“We’ve had great progress with our First Nations communities, historic agreements that will make sure we will build that road up to the Ring of Fire that consists of almost a trillion dollars of critical minerals that the world wants,” Ford said during the debate on northern issues, a statement that was mostly either exaggerated or lacking context. 

Life on the frontlines of Ontario’s critical mineral boom

First, the issue of Indigenous consent: Ford has made some progress with some communities, but not all of them. Webequie and Marten Falls First Nations, for example, are leading plans to build access roads. And right before Ford called the 2025 provincial election, his government penned an agreement with nearby Aroland First Nation to upgrade roads intended to connect to Ring of Fire access routes. Other nations haven’t given consent, like Neskantaga First Nation, which has warned Ontario it’s willing to defend its territory if mining companies or the government tries to build across the Attawapiskat River.

Second, the value of the minerals in the Ring of Fire: experts say it’s false to claim the minerals there are valued at $1 trillion, and the Tories have not been able to provide a source for the figure. George Pirie, the incumbent candidate in Timmins, Ont., who has recently served as Ford’s minister of mines, has also cited the figure in recent years, despite concerns from industry professionals and researchers who say it’s exaggerated. 

Pirie himself has only said it’s “not a formal valuation,” though it is “based on the increased value of critical minerals that are already established being in the ground.” When CBC asked about it in 2023, a spokesperson for Pirie didn’t directly answer, saying only that the “economic potential is limitless.” 

Third, there’s the question of whether the whole world really is after Ontario’s minerals. In recent years, there has been a rush of interest from the United States and other countries in materials like nickel that are mined in Ontario and used for lower-emissions technology, like electric vehicle batteries. But since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January, critical minerals have also become a tension point between the United States and Canada, and it’s not clear yet how the situation might change.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

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Photojournalists provide us an essential glimpse into lives outside of our own.

In a time of generative AI and a deluge of images of anything we can imagine, photojournalists ground us firmly in reality. They are by nature always out in communities — there is no work-from-home option for a photojournalism assignment — and documenting real peoples’ lived experiences.

Here, I offer some reflections on some of my favourite photos from The Narwhal’s 2024 reporting in Ontario. These spectacular images showcase some of our best on-the-ground work of the year.

‘Bou!’

After car troubles and a fake motel booking, reporter Emma McIntosh’s trip to Wawa and Marathon, Ont. — and many points in between on the Lake Superior coast — was starting to look a bit grim. She sarcastically changed the name of the group chat, on which she sent us updates, to “Emma’s trip is going so well!”

But then the message came: “Bou!”

After hours on a boat, weaving through the Slate Islands, 200-or-so kilometres from Thunder Bay, Ont., she and photographer Christopher Katsarov Luna spotted a single caribou. The buck, with a massive rack, was paddling across a straight between islands and stopped for a moment to glimpse them in the distance. Christopher didn’t flinch, capturing that moment of shared recognition.

A woodland caribou crosses a narrow straight of water in Slate Islands Provincial Park on Lake Superior. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Emma and Christopher were in northern Ontario speaking with people, and taking in the sights, to report on the state of the tiny herd of Lake Superior caribou. 

Local First Nations have been making valiant efforts to bring the population back from the brink, including relocating caribou by helicopter to islands safe from predators, but support from the provincial government has been limited.

Biigtigong Nishnaabeg Chief Duncan Michano used to see caribou once in a while when he worked at Pukaskwa National Park. But the herd there has been gone for over a decade, driven out by wolves. Photos: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Changes in the freeze-up of Lake Superior that brings predators to their doorstep, the abundance of lichen for them to eat and their very limited gene pool all play into the Lake Superior caribou’s chances at survival.

Good things grow

Isaac Crosby inspects corn variation in Crosby Gitigaan at Malvern Urban Farm in Scarborough, Ont. Photo: Sid Naidu / The Narwhal

Wide swaths of land cut through many Canadian cities, carrying the power lines that let us turn on our lights and plug in our … well, everything. More often than not it’s a grassy knoll, maybe some low brush has grown up. 

Crosby Gitigaan as part of a local partnership between the resource centre and Malvern Aboriginal Child and Family Centre. Photos: Sid Naidu / The Narwhal

In Toronto, in corridors running parallel to each other between Thorncliffe Park and Scarborough, two Indigenous farmers and their gitigaanan, or “little farm” in Ojibway, are bringing traditional agricultural practices back to Treaty 13 and Williams Treaties territory.

Unsung heroes of the pumpkin patch

Squash bees are native to Canada and pollen specialists to this family of plants. They’ll spend most of their day collecting pollen for their nests, inadvertently aiding the squash. Photo: Luke Roman

We all know bees are important — right? But what we don’t always recognize is how much work native bees do, and how important it is to protect them.

Farms that provide untouched forest lots and hedgerows seeded with wildflowers will see a dramatic rise in wild bee and pollinator species diversity, richness and abundance. And measures to protect one species carry over to others in the shared space. Photos: Luke Roman

While honeybees may be more easily recognizable and known by the non-apiarists among us, the roughly 800 different types of bees that are native to Canada are doing a lot of the heavy-lifting when it comes to pollination. And large-scale modern agriculture practices are putting them at risk.

I hope you enjoyed checking out few of our best photos from Ontario this year — sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on even more stories in 2025!

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Get the inside scoop on The Narwhal’s environment and climate reporting by signing up for our free newsletter.

Every year, millions of eastern monarch butterflies travel 4,000 kilometres from the Great Lakes to the forests of the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico. They’ll only make the trip once, and it will be their descendents that return.

It’s an arduous journey that only a few people have experienced even a portion of. A group of ultra-marathoners, a filmmaker and conservationists are among them. In 2019, the Monarch Ultra marathon saw 46 people, over seven weeks, running stretches of the route from 50 to 100 kilometres at a time, starting in Peterborough, Ont., and ending in Macheros, Mexico. Each leg was its own ultra-marathon: a run longer than the standard marathon distance of 42 kilometres.

Local runners joined in for stretches along the route and environmental organizations in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico joined the cause: drawing attention to the steep decline of the iconic orange and black butterfly. That’s also the goal of a new film about the migration-focused run — The Monarch Ultra Documentary, premiering this week in Peterborough. 

The Monarch Ultra Documentary follows the path of the eastern monarch migration to Mexico, where millions of the butterflies overwinter in forests. Photo: Rodney Fuentes

A February 2024 report from the World Wildlife Fund and partners shows overwintering monarchs covered nearly 60 per cent less land in 2023 than the previous year. The sheer number of eastern monarchs (estimated to be in the millions, though down from the billions in the 1990s) and the fact that they congregate as they overwinter, lends itself to measuring the population by the amount of land they occupy as they hibernate.

Monarchs face several compounding threats. Their caterpillars can only live on milkweed; those tall stalks with soft green pods containing seeds with white feathery tails that float in the wind. The plant has a naturally genius method for seed dissemination, but if there’s no soft place to land and germinate, the seed’s efforts are in vain. Development and farming practices in North America, where monarchs mate, along with logging in the forests where they overwinter in Mexico, threaten the butterfly’s food and habitat.

Exposure to pesticides and extreme weather brought on by climate change create an even more hostile world for monarch butterflies.

Filmmaker Rodney Fuentes says running the migration route was a chance to witness and experience a part of that challenge, and better understand the weight of our impact on the environment. 

“We make decisions on the environment from an office, or we talk so much about how we need to do this on the environment or that, from the comfort of our homes,” he says. “But very rarely do we actually put ourselves out of our comfort zone to kind of be more sympathetic to what nature actually has to go through on a single day. And that’s not just monarchs, that’s nature in general.”

The Monarch Ultra is a community-driven project that brought out runners and volunteers from Canada to Mexico to witness and raise funds and awareness for the environmental destruction that is leading to steep monarch declines. Photo: Rodney Fuentes

Run founder Carlotta James recruited Fuentes to the project, along with marathon planner Clay Williams and chef Gunther Schubert. Their goal was to draw attention to the monarch butterfly decline, its journey and its struggle, while fundraising for conservation efforts in the Mexican forests monarchs rely on.

“When one species disappears, it’s likely more will disappear,” Fuentes says. “It’s a barometer of what is actually happening in the environment.”

With The Monarch Ultra Documentary premiering on Oct. 23, The Narwhal sat down with Fuentes to talk about the project and the story it tells, which is about so much more than the monarch butterfly.

How did this all get started? Where did the idea to run the route of the monarch butterfly migration, and make a documentary about it, come from?

In January 2019 I had an email from a stranger called Carlotta James, and she said she wanted to meet with me regarding a documentary, an idea that involved ultra-running and butterflies. And I said, “I’m intrigued.” 

She’s a landscaper, and she’s been involved with Peterborough Pollinators and doing a lot of insect pollinator advocacy. She’s also a marathon runner, so that’s why she kind of started thinking about creating a route that followed the migration. It’s kind of like trying to see the world through the butterfly’s eyes, without flying, just doing it on our feet. And the reason for doing it on our feet was because it takes a lot of resilience for an insect to fly 4,000 kilometres. So if we want to try to mimic that migration, we kind of need to feel that pain a little bit. And for a human to run 50 kilometres or 100 kilometres, it’s really hard. You’ve got to really train hard to do it. That’s why it had to be an ultra-marathon, every leg we ran to Mexico, and that’s why we named it the Monarch Ultra marathon. 

Carlotta James, a landscaper and marathon runner, conceived of the Monarch Ultra when out for a run and seeing monarchs collecting around a patch of milkweed. Photo: Rodney Fuentes

Why was the documentary aspect so important to this project?

Documentary is one of the best ways to communicate this kind of message. They tend to be very powerful in terms of drawing emotions from an audience, and Carlotta knew that … now, what she had in mind is not what we turned out.

How so?

We were going to run to Mexico and we were going to raise awareness about monarch butterflies, and that might be maybe a 25-minute documentary or something like that. But as a filmmaker, and with Carlotta, we both realized that we cannot tell the story without an antagonist. 

We were leaving for the seven weeks that it took us to run to Mexico. None of us are getting paid for the seven weeks. We have to leave our home with our family, Carlotta and I both have young children, so that’s really hard on its own right there. So I thought, well, it has to be worth it. Why are we really doing this? 

And so I had to dig more into the challenges the butterfly has on its survival to expand more on that. So as we started expanding more, and we started learning about Mexico, and started learning what’s going on in some parts of the U.S., then I realized that this film was not going to be straightforward.

Monarch butterflies need milkweed and wild flowers to subsist, as well as the forests they overwinter in in Mexico. The destruction of these environments threatens the monarch population. Photo: Rodney Fuentes

What were some of those things that you learned that you thought, ‘Well, this really complicates things’?

There’s gonna be some spoilers here if I say that. We’ll save some for the film, but for example, I know that deforestation is a problem, and I know using pesticide is a problem, but when you’re driving south in Midwest U.S.A., and you can drive for days and days, and all you see is monocultures of corn and soy, and that used to be habitat for insect pollinators and other wildlife, then you start thinking, ‘How are they going to find food to survive?’ And of course, all those things are getting pesticides. But I didn’t even see a crow flying by in many of those areas. It’s like a desert. It’s a desolate land. It’s a cemetery. So it was very impactful. 

In Mexico, we found out that people that protect the forest when the monarchs are there are the same ones that are cutting down the trees when the monarchs aren’t there. When you’re poor and you don’t have any money, you’re going to do whatever it takes to feed your family. So if there’s no monarchs, there are no tourists, if there are no tourists: ‘I’m not getting paid to patrol the forest, but my kids are starting school, I need to buy books and uniforms and all the things. So how am I going to get the money?’ Well, the easiest way is to cut down a couple trees and sell the wood. And that’s amongst many other problems. 

In Mexico, the celebration of Dia de los Muertos marks the return of the monarch butterflies, which are seen as a symbol for the souls of lost ancestors. Photo: Rodney Fuentes

But poverty is an issue in the U.S. as well, and in Canada, because for people who are struggling to feed their families, conservation and the environment becomes a luxury, and it’s a luxury they don’t have. 

So from pesticide use to climate change, pollution and other things, there’s a little more to the story, and that is the economical society problems that affect conservation in a big way.

Was there a specific leg of the ultra that was the most challenging or the most eye opening? 

The most challenging was running between Arkansas and Texas. We had to go along highways, and that was very, very taxing on all of us. We actually counted: there was about one car for every eight trucks. On those highways it’s just truck after truck after truck, and it kind of made us think so much about consumerism and how we purchase things, and that everything has to be shipped by trucks. It was really eye-opening — I would say over a week, we didn’t have a rest. You’re constantly hearing those trucks going in your ear.

There’s something beautiful about the sparse farmlands that dominate the U.S. midwest, filmmaker Rodney Fuentes says, until you release they’ve depleted the natural flora monarch butterflies need to live. Photo: Rodney Fuentes

Is there a single thing you hope people take away from seeing the documentary — a specific message or action that you want them to have in mind?

The main takeaway is what you can do for the environment. The biggest, best thing you can do is what you can do in your own home and what you can do in your own neighbourhood. 

And I think that’s the main message I want people to take is — yeah, you’re not powerless. You actually can speak to city councils, you can plant milkweed in your yard, those kinds of basic things to be aware of. All we need to do is a very minimal thing to contribute. And that’s far better than trying just to save the world. You just have to be more simplistic in that approach, and just look at what you can do in your own community.

Was that part of the thinking behind focusing on monarchs, a hopeful lens in that there are these small actions, like planting milkweed, that can have a big impact? 

 We’re talking about biodiversity. 

Biodiversity is very complex, and we need to protect them all. To protect every single species, it’s the exact same approach, it doesn’t change, which is habitat protection. You protect their habitat, you reduce pollution, you reduce pesticide use, basically 99 per cent of wildlife would benefit from it, right? 

Every species needs a healthy habitat to survive. The Monarch Ultra Documentary positions monarchs as a symbol of the widespread need for habitat protection, and for dealing with the social and economic issues that lead to environmental degradation. Photo: Rodney Fuentes

So the answer to me is pretty simple in that regard. The monarch butterfly is a symbol that can actually remind us about it. Why did we choose monarchs and not all the butterflies? Well, because the monarch is the only one we know in this continent that flies to a place it has never been before.

No one can explain that. It’s called the miracle of life, and that is what makes monarchs unique. There are beautiful butterflies, but no one does what monarchs do. So what better species to be the face of insect pollinators than something who does something so extraordinary that can catch our eyes and our attention.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

There is often an elk outside Jacqueline Ronson’s home office window, keeping her company while she works. She lives in Youbou, B.C., in an area of Vancouver Island known for an abundance of the mostly friendly, but sometimes problematic — in case you missed our story on Bob the elk — ungulates.

“It’s rare that a day goes by that I don’t see elk,” Jacqueline says.

There was also that time a cougar faced her and her dog, Beyla, down. (No one was hurt!) But when she’s not racking up wildlife sightings, she’s applying her keen eye for detail to our stories. 

Jacqueline has honed her skills, reporting and editing for more than a decade in both the Yukon and B.C., where she started a new local news outlet in her Cowichan Valley community. The Narwhal has already benefited from her understanding of complicated chemical processes, which may or may not be hereditary — and her crafting habit would have Crayola seeing 72 shades of green. (Most recently, she made a collection of bespoke narwhal-themed items: a magnetic poetry set, stickers and a baby onesie.)

Here are a few more things you might want to know about our new eagle-eyed editor.

Jacqueline comes to The Narwhal from The Discourse, and before that, the Yukon News. Photo: Jillian Miller / The Narwhal

What does your relationship with the natural world look like?

I grew up in Ontario — in Toronto, specifically. My parents met at a wilderness canoe tripping camp as camp leaders. And so canoeing and being on lakes and in lakes was a big part of my childhood. We had a summer cottage that my grandparents built on an island in the Kawarthas, where I spent my summers running around the forest barefoot, which was one of my very favourite things. So that’s been a part of my life, particularly my summertime life, since my childhood. Even though I grew up in a big city, I still really appreciate and need time to be in forests, and in and on lakes. And that’s a big part of why I live where I live.

And what got you interested in journalism?

I didn’t grow up with journalism as a thought in my mind, in terms of a career. It wasn’t really until my early 20s that it even occurred to me as an option. I think what it really came down to was a real curiosity about the world and how it works, and why evidence-based policies aren’t necessarily the policies that guide our lives. 

The real moment where I started thinking about journalism as a career, I was working in Toronto at a market research firm. It was just after the big financial crisis of 2008 and I started listening to journalism podcasts, sort of explaining what was happening in the world. And that sent me down a road of learning about storytelling that’s both really engaging and human — and also helps explain complicated things like science and the environment and politics and social systems. So that’s when I started thinking about being a part of that and making it my job to talk to interesting people about interesting things, and help people better understand the world.

You came to us from The Discourse — a team we have a ton of respect for here at The Narwhal. Anything in particular you learned during your six years with them that you’re bringing forward?

I learned how to challenge the way we’ve been taught to practice journalism and not take for granted that these rules and standards are good just because that’s how it’s been done for decades or centuries. 

To be more specific, I think the biggest lessons were around community engagement, and deeply listening to people and communities who are the most affected by an issue. You can cause a lot of harm by jumping into something before you’ve talked to the people who are living it. 

The Narwhal couldn’t be happier with Jacqueline’s keen eye for copy — and her passion for crafting. Photo: Jillian Miller / The Narwhal

You’ve already had a hand in quite a few edits here where your background — or should we call it family history — in the sciences came out. What’s going on there?

Yeah, so I got to jump in with some fact-checking on a story that had to do with air pollution near a plastics facility in Ontario. And through that process, I started thinking about my grandfather, who was a plastics chemist at the University of Toronto, and just remembering really interesting things about him and his work and how it relates to my childhood. 

He was very interested in environmental issues — and he was also a bit of an evangelist for plastic. He thought that plastic was very much an environmental solution in certain ways, and that the issues with plastic pollution could be solved through science and through improving plastics. The innovation that he’s best known for is a type of photodegradable plastic that will break down with exposure to sunlight. 

Well, let’s use photodegradable plastic in flagging tape as a segue into tree-planting (IYKYK). How long did you plant for?

I actually did not tree-plant for a very long time. I did a full B.C. Interior season, which is a couple of months, the summer before I went to journalism school. The following year I had a summer internship with the CBC in Whitehorse and, on my drive up from Vancouver, I tree-planted for a couple of days so I could visit my friends whose tree-planting camp was on the way. Then the summer after I graduated journalism school, I decided to go back planting to pay off some of my school debts and delay the inevitable job search. 

I tree-planted for a few weeks until I got an email from one of my friends in the Yukon, who said the Yukon News newspaper desperately needed a reporter. That day, I managed to get to some cell service in town and do an interview with the editor of the Yukon News — and very quickly was offered a summer job and got on a bus to head north to the Yukon. 

Though a problem arose when the Alaska Highway washed out ahead of my bus. In the end, I had to take the bus back to Prince George and then jump on a flight, which took me back to Vancouver and then to Whitehorse, so I could make it in time for my first day. My first assignment was to report on the washed out Alaska Highway, which was the biggest story of the year — and my first byline in print!

Conveniently, my next question was actually about the Yukon. Having lived there, do you say ‘Yukon’ or ‘the Yukon’?

The Yukon. The Yukon Government itself changes its mind every few years on if it’s ‘the Yukon’ or ‘Yukon’ — I don’t know what the current status of that is.

Are there any environmental stories from the territory you’re keeping an eye on?

One of the environment stories I covered as a reporter up there was the process to create a management plan for the Peel Watershed, which was a huge story and involved a lot of political back and forth and court cases and wrangling around whether this huge piece of land would be protected from development or left open for mining and roads and that sort of thing. I remember telling colleagues I couldn’t leave the Yukon before that whole thing settled. I didn’t exactly keep the promise, but covering that story was a highlight of my three years there. 

What’s something people who know you might still not know about you?

I was in the newspaper within the first week of my life. My twin sister and I happen to have been born in the midst of a doctors’ strike in Ontario, so there were a lot of reporters in the hospital. It was also close to the census deadline, and a Toronto Star photographer somehow found my mom and took a picture of her holding the census form and both babies. 

I am also a wannabe Dolly Parton impersonator.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

You can hear the chimney swifts’ high-pitched twittering from the sidewalk. Darting through the evening sky, their rapid-fire chirp is easy to pick out — as soon as you know what to listen for. 

Their cylindrical bodies — often likened to cigars — swoop as the sun eases toward the horizon. They feast on flying insects and inflect urban skylines in central and eastern Canada in the spring and summer. 

Above downtown Peterborough, Ont., chimney swifts are a common sight and sound on summer evenings. Urban settings have become a surprising haven for the federally listed species at risk.

Chimney swifts are listed as threatened by the federal government and at risk of becoming endangered due to pressures on their roosting sites, as well as climate change.

Since the 1970s, the population of chimney swifts in natural environments has declined by 90 per cent — with more than half of that decline happening in the past two decades.

In forests slated for logging in Ontario, the tree markers who designate which trees to cut and which to leave standing are trained to identify trees with large cavities suitable for chimney swifts to roost in. But it can take decades for trees to grow big enough.

The loss of old-growth forests in Canada is a threat to the birds, according to the federal recovery strategy for chimney swifts, as is logging trees before they grow large enough for spacious cavities to form.

The main chimney that swifts use in Peterborough, Ont., is hugged by a sumach branch and just up from the downtown throughway of George Street.

Over the past few centuries, swifts have shifted to mostly roost in human-made structures like chimneys. In Peterborough, a few chimneys on neighbouring downtown buildings house nesting pairs, which prefer their own space. But those here to feed and rest, rather than pair up, roost in large groups — sometimes more than a thousand birds in a single chimney. Their chosen roost is a beige chimney hugged by a sumac branch, just off a main downtown artery. This chimney and others like it in Canada are protected by the Migratory Birds Convention Act as residences for the threatened species.

Downtown Peterborough, Ont., is the site of one of many official chimney swift counts across central and eastern Canada.

From the top level of a three-floor parking garage, a group of nine people gather to count and watch as the swifts circle and dive toward the chimneys. Some people bring lawn chairs, others just a pair of binoculars. Some are here for the joy of it, others for work.

On five evenings in late May and early June, Birds Canada takes count of the chimney swift population in eastern Canada based on numbers provided by folks like these. There are counts in towns and cities from Windsor, Ont., to Halifax, where people track the number of swifts flying into chimneys they’re known to frequent. (Other organizations also run counts in Manitoba and Quebec.) Last year, 1,170 surveys were conducted in Ontario and 269 across the maritimes, according to Birds Canada.

Sunset is 8:52 p.m. and within 10 minutes most swifts will be in the roost, Chris Risley, who has organized the gathering for the Peterborough Field Naturalists, says. There are rules around counts for Birds Canada, like waiting 15 minutes after sunset, should any slowpokes come to roost late, and arriving 15 minutes before — or earlier if there’s poor weather that sends the swifts to roost early.

The people gathered on the Peterborough parkade let out audible oohs and ahs as the swifts swoop and fake out the chimney. 

“He’s thinking about it,” one person says.

“Oh, one just went in,” another says. They count out loud, often in unison.

Chimney swifts are often likened to cigars with wings, for their stocky shape.

Like in the forest, roosts in urban environments are also becoming scarce. Few homes are built with chimneys these days and those that still stand are being capped or removed. Towers have been built in Nova Scotia, Quebec and Manitoba to mimic the dwindling chimneys — but constructing enough to support the population isn’t feasible.

A smaller chimney nearby the main roost is used by a nesting pair. While swifts will roost in the hundreds and even thousands, one chimney will be occupied by a single pair when nesting.

And there are further threats facing the acrobatic birds: the availability of insects to eat, due to pesticide use and climate change.

The federal recovery strategy for swifts suggests reducing the use of pesticides would in turn help insects — and swifts. But, the recovery strategy adds the threat of climate change could be more difficult to tackle. Climate change “might not be reduced quickly enough to ensure that a stable chimney swift population is achieved and maintained over the long term,” the strategy reads. And the weather changes predicted in swift breeding habitat in Canada — like hotter and hotter summer temperatures, as well as extreme weather conditions — could be bad news for the birds.  

Nine people waited on the top floor of a parkade in downtown Peterborough, Ont., as chimney swifts circled their roost before entering.

It’s estimated there are now between 20,000 and 70,000 adult swifts in Canada. The hope is that by protecting and restoring their nesting and roosting sites, as well as other measures, that population is maintained.

The birds circle and dupe the watchers, diving at a chimney and then back up for another bite. Once they’ve had their fill, they enter the chimney in succession, looking like a cascade of fluttering leaves pouring down.

If the weather is poor, chimney swifts tend to roost earlier, otherwise they closely follow the setting sun.

Across Ontario last year, Birds Canada logged 35,286 swifts entering chimneys. One of the most popular sites for swifts in the province is a decommissioned nuclear ventilation stack in Rolphton, where more than 2,500 swifts entered in 2014 and nearly 1,000 last year.

Numbers this year in Peterborough have been similar to last, Risley says, with a peak of 185 roosting chimney swifts in 2023.

On June 3, about 100 roosted in the main chimney in Peterborough and a few others paired off nearby (official counts won’t be released by Birds Canada until December) — a few less than a week earlier when the group counted more than 160 birds. On that evening, Risley says, a second wave of swifts came after they thought all had entered.

The onlookers wait a few extra minutes. The skies are clear and quiet by 9:20 p.m.

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