“A non-negligible risk of cancer.” “Significant elevated benzene concentrations.” “Risks to the public.” 

That’s how the Ontario government referred to emissions of the carcinogen benzene from the INEOS Styrolution petrochemical plant in Sarnia in 2023 — a year before those emissions sparked a state of emergency for neighbouring Aamjiwnaang First Nation. 

Internal documents show Ontario’s Environment Ministry had noted similar concerns since at least 2019. Still, it declined to impose a strict limit on the plant’s benzene levels until the 2024 state of emergency, instead ordering the company to install new emissions-control technology, among other measures.

Benzene is a byproduct of petroleum refining that’s also found in crude oil and fuel. It’s one of the foundational ingredients in plastic that, along with other chemicals, can be used to make anything from food containers to, in INEOS’ case, rubber.

Beyond Aamjiwnaang First Nation is Chemical Valley, the industrial area of Sarnia, Ont. In February, Aamjiwnaang Chief Janelle Nahmabin signed terms of reference with the federal government to address the environmental racism her community has faced.

INEOS, which has since shut down its plant in Sarnia, said its benzene emissions were within the limits set by the Ontario government. The plant is one of several dozen petroleum refineries and petrochemical plants in an area of Sarnia known as Chemical Valley. The Ontario government has struggled to control emissions from the facilities for decades, even as Aamjiwnaang First Nation has sounded alarms about how pollution has harmed its members’ health. 

Ontario’s Environment Ministry did not answer detailed questions from The Narwhal about the documents and how it regulates air pollution in Chemical Valley. The Narwhal also sent detailed questions to INEOS Styrolution. The company did not answer most of them, but sent a statement saying it prioritizes safety and has “consistently operated within the strict limits” set by the Environment Ministry. “INEOS Styrolution remains steadfast in its commitment to protecting the health and safety of our employees and the community, and we have consistently adhered to [the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks’] emissions requirements,” spokesperson April Ludwikowski wrote.

The ministry’s response to the benzene emissions from the INEOS plant is one example of a pattern pieced together by The Narwhal through 250 pages of internal ministry documents, obtained through two freedom of information requests. 

The records outline several steps the Ontario government could have taken to address air pollution in Chemical Valley — but didn’t.

Inside the shape-shifting rules for pollution in Sarnia’s Chemical Valley

As the ministry sent compliance orders, benzene spikes continued

The records obtained by The Narwhal show Ontario’s Environment Ministry made three attempts to cut benzene emissions from INEOS through directives called compliance orders. The ministry uses compliance orders to compel companies to fix issues, or take certain steps to prevent potential harm to people and the environment. 

In the years leading up to the 2024 emergency in Aamjiwnaang, the ministry sent three orders to INEOS — one in 2019, another in 2020 and a third in 2023. The orders urged INEOS to gradually lower its benzene emissions closer to Ontario’s health-based air quality guidelines. 

But earlier in 2019, the ministry had also sent INEOS another set of guidelines. These ones were based on benzene standards in Texas, which experts have criticized for being too loose and putting residents at higher risk of cancer. They recommend benzene levels remain below an hourly average of up to 580 micrograms per cubic metre, which is three times more than the levels recorded in Aamjiwnaang as people went to the emergency room in 2024.

An INEOS Styrolution spokesperson told The Narwhal the 580 micrograms per cubic metre was an “established” emissions limit set by the ministry, and that the company never breached it. The Environment Ministry did not answer questions about how it applied those numbers to INEOS.

Hourly averages of benzene exposure: Left: 191 micrograms per cubic metre was the hourly reading recorded at an air monitor in Aamjiwnaang First Nation on April 25, 2024, the day the First Nation triggered a state of emergency. Right: 580 micrograms per cubic metre is the hourly average Ontario instructed INEOS to use in 2019 to assess acute health risks, based on Texas standards that have been criticized for putting the public’s health at risk. Graphic: Andrew Munroe / The Narwhal

“Ontario wasn’t looking at all the cumulative impacts, which we’ve been saying for decades now,” Aamjiwnaang Chief Janelle Nahmabin said. “[It was] just allowing exceedances and not looking out for the health and safety of our community or the environment.”

Despite the orders, elevated levels of benzene continued to waft across the road from INEOS to Aamjiwnaang for years. 

Though some of the steps outlined in the first two orders helped, one air monitor near the plant showed emissions of benzene that “increased each year,” according to the 2023 order. The same document noted six incidents in 2022 and 2023 where air monitors detected “significantly elevated” concentrations of benzene from INEOS, including some where air monitors recorded levels even higher than the ones that prompted the 2024 state of emergency.

Aamjiwnaang has been fighting environmental racism for decades. Now, the First Nation has an agreement to address it

Sometimes the emissions came from spills, according to the 2023 order. Other times, they came from planned maintenance or the “prolonged storage” of waste with benzene in it. None technically violated the laws governing the plant. 

“INEOS [is] concerned that orders require them to do too much, too soon,” said one late 2023 briefing document prepared by the Environment Ministry. “They believed that since they were complying with the [standard], they shouldn’t have to do more.” 

INEOS and the ministry didn’t answer questions about the orders. 

The province sent INEOS a fourth order in spring 2024, as benzene levels spiked again, sickening people in Aamjiwnaang. That order required INEOS to notify the public if readings of benzene spiked, develop another plan to “address benzene from wastewater” and investigate where the carcinogen might be coming from. 

High levels of benzene were reported again a week later, prompting Aamjiwnaang to issue its state of emergency.

INEOS temporarily shut down the plant following the ministry’s 2024 order, five years after the ministry first raised red flags about its benzene emissions. The company soon announced it would close the plant entirely due to the “economics of the facility within a wider industry context.” It said the situation was not related to the benzene spikes. 

Chief Nahmabin said the Ontario government sent the orders without checking with Aamjiwnaang to make sure they were effective — a “big miss,” as the community has asked time and again to be involved in decisions about its territory.

More and more, Aamjiwnaang is taking the regulation of industry into its own hands, writing air standards for the reserve and working with the federal government on a pilot project to address environmental racism. “We cannot wait for governments to be the one that acts for us,” Nahmabin said.

Pipelines run through the Imperial Oil refinery in Chemical Valley. Ontario passed legislation aimed at tackling sulphur dioxide emissions in 2022, but a 2023 briefing said the Environment Ministry was “directed” to give industry in the Sarnia area more time to comply, despite concerns from Aamjiwnaang that it would allow Imperial Oil and Shell in particular to emit high levels of sulphur dioxide for years longer. 

Ontario skipped a planned review of its benzene standards for petroleum and petrochemical plants

Though Ontario has strict air quality standards for benzene, it said it’s not “technically and economically feasible” for all industrial facilities to meet them. So some plants follow different sets of rules called technical standards, which require them to use the best available equipment to lower emissions as much as possible. Seven facilities in the Sarnia area, including INEOS Styrolution’s now-shuttered plant, are regulated by technical standards for the petroleum refining and petrochemical industries.

The standards were penned under the former Liberal government in 2016. At the time, the documents obtained by The Narwhal show, the Environment Ministry didn’t realize how much facilities were actually emitting. Industry-provided figures were “underestimated,” according to an internal memo from late 2023. They pointed to INEOS Styrolution as an example, saying the company was emitting maximum concentrations of benzene 15 times higher than what the province was aware of. 

Company spokesperson Ludwikowski said INEOS maintains “full transparency” in its emissions reporting. Ludwikowski did not directly address questions about the estimates, but denied that the company “underreported our emissions or misled the regulator.”

“Property line emissions monitoring at our Sarnia site is conducted by independent third parties, in accordance with [Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks] requirements, ensuring there is no internal influence over the results,” Ludwikowski said in a statement. 

The Aamjiwnaang First Nation band office is across the street from INEOS Styrolution. When benzene levels from the plant spike, the office has been temporarily closed and staff sent home feeling ill.

The Narwhal sent questions about the problem, and direct quotes from the documents, to every company in the Sarnia area that operates under a petrochemical or petroleum industry technical standard. That list also includes Imperial Oil, NOVA Chemicals, Shell Canada, Suncor Energy and Diamond Petrochemicals. Imperial said it “complies with air emissions reporting requirements under the applicable regulations” but “wouldn’t be able to speak to documents that we haven’t seen.” The rest did not respond. 

When the government first wrote the technical standards in 2016, the ministry committed to reviewing them by 2023. The Ford government did not follow through on that plan after it was elected in 2018, despite a warning in the 2023 briefing that said updates are “needed.” The same document also noted companies would likely push back. 

“Industry is looking for further simplifications and relaxations,” the memo said. “Will be opposed to more stringent requirements.” 

The Ford government also skipped a planned update to a policy that, among other things, was aimed at addressing the cumulative effects of benzene emissions from multiple facilities in both the Sarnia area and Hamilton. The previous Liberal government introduced the policy in spring 2018 and committed to reviewing it by 2020. The Progressive Conservatives formed government in 2020 and did not follow up on the plan.

Someone ‘directed’ Ontario’s Environment Ministry to soften sulphur dioxide rules

The province did pass legislation aimed at tackling sulphur dioxide emissions in general in 2022, but the 2023 briefing said the Environment Ministry was “directed” to give industry in the Sarnia area more time to comply, and to make some requirements in the rules “less stringent.” That’s despite concerns from Aamjiwnaang that the extensions granted to two companies in particular, Imperial Oil and Shell, would allow high levels of sulphur dioxide emissions to continue for years longer. 

The document did not say who gave the ministry that direction. The regulation’s listing on the environmental registry noted, “The ministry has carefully considered the comments received during the consultation period, and we are extending the implementation of some of the requirements by two years from the end of 2026 to 2028 as facilities stated they need more time to make these significant changes to their operations.”

The Environment Ministry didn’t answer questions about its reasoning for the decisions detailed in the briefing, and how it weighed Aamjiwnaang’s health concerns against pushback from industry.

Sulphur dioxide emissions from the Shell plant in Sarnia remain a concern for Aamjiwnaang First Nation after the Ontario government was “directed” to give the companies more time and “less stringent” rules for lowering their sulphur dioxide emissions.

Ontario backed off a plan to tighten rules around sulphur dioxide: docs 

The records don’t just show problems with benzene: the Progressive Conservative government also abandoned one proposed plan it said would dramatically cut emissions of another harmful pollutant. 

Sulphur dioxide, which smells like burnt matches, is best known as one of the chemicals that causes acid rain. But when people breathe in a lot of it at once, it can also irritate the human respiratory system.

Ontario has regulations limiting how much of the pollutant companies can emit, and has tightened them in recent years. But some facilities can’t meet those standards — and that includes two companies that make carbon black, a powder used in paint and rubber, with sulphur dioxide as a byproduct. One of those companies, Cabot Corporation, is located in Sarnia.

From 2018 to 2020 Cabot asked the Ontario government for an alternative to the regulations, the late 2023 memo said. Vanessa Craigie, a spokesperson for Cabot, said in a written statement that the company wanted more “flexibility” in the province’s timelines so it could develop and test technology to reduce its sulphur dioxide emissions. 

In June 2023, Ontario unveiled its answer to that request: a proposed technical standard for the carbon black industry. If finalized, by 2028 it would mandate both carbon black facilities in Ontario, including Cabot in Sarnia, to install technology that slashes sulphur dioxide pollution, the province said. By 2030, the companies would have to reduce their emissions by 95 per cent, meeting a new set of weekly and annual limits. 

The carbon black industry pushed back on provincial standards set to lower its sulphur dioxide emissions, and the standards were dropped. But one company in Sarnia, Cabot Carbon, has developed its own plan for lowering those emissions, and received a green light from the province and Aamjiwnaang First Nation.

At the time, Aamjiwnaang told the province those deadlines gave companies too much time to continue emitting the chemical, and companies should already have installed known technology to emit less.

Industry also had concerns about the technical standard, albeit different ones, according to the 2023 briefing note. Cabot told the ministry it would be “easier” for them to just follow the existing air standard instead. Craigie said the company is committed to environmental responsibility and developing new technology, but that the technical standard was “more complex” than the existing standards, “making compliance more challenging within the given timeframe.”

The ministry never finalized the plan, and did not answer questions from The Narwhal about why. Craigie said, “it was deemed not the optimal approach,” and that the ministry opted to work with facilities on specific plans to cut their emissions.

Craigie said Cabot’s final plan to “significantly” reduce sulphur dioxide emissions has received a green light from the ministry and from Aamjiwnaang, and will use “state of the art” technology piloted over the last few years. “In addition, Cabot is committed to voluntarily reducing its operations in order to reduce our contribution to the regional [sulphur dioxide] levels,” Craigie said. “Cabot will reduce operations when regional [sulphur dioxide] concentrations exceed certain levels at nearby monitoring stations.” 

Nahmabin said Cabot has worked to form a better relationship with Aamjinwaang in recent years, sharing more information and responding to concerns quickly. 

“That’s what we’re looking for with our neighbours,” Nahmabin said. 

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.

Last spring, Aamjiwnaang First Nation hit a breaking point.

For weeks, enormous amounts of benzene had been leaking from a plastics plant across the road from the southwestern Ontario community’s band office. Long-term exposure to low levels of benzene causes cancers like leukemia. If you breathe in a lot of it at once, the carcinogen can also make you feel very sick, very quickly — and people in Aamjiwnaang were breathing in levels of benzene hundreds of times higher than what health-based guidelines recommend. 

Sore throats, nausea, dizziness and headaches struck members of the Anishinaabe community, located alongside a cluster of petroleum and petrochemical plants in an area of Sarnia, Ont., known as Chemical Valley. A few wound up in the emergency room due to “noxious exposure,” the local hospital said at the time. The nation sent staff home from the band office and warned families to stay away from a playground. On April 25, 2024, the nation triggered a state of emergency, a watershed moment that made headlines across the country.

Daily averages of benzene exposure: Left: 2.3 micrograms per cubic metre is Ontario’s recommended limit for daily benzene exposure. The recommendation was designed to minimize cancer risk, but is not legally binding. Centre: 50 micrograms per cubic metre was the daily reading in Aamjiwnaang First Nation on April 16, 2024, when people in the community reported headaches and nausea. Right: 320 micrograms per cubic metre was the level Ontario told INEOS, in 2019, it would use to assess the risk of acute health problems from the company’s benzene emissions. It’s based on standards from Texas that have been criticized for leaving residents at high risk of cancer. Graphic: Andrew Munroe / The Narwhal

The Ontario government imposed new limits on the plastics plant owner, INEOS Styrolution, days later — but years after provincial officials identified the problem. Ontario’s Environment Ministry had known since at least 2019 that INEOS was emitting similar amounts of benzene regularly and failed to stop it, documents obtained by The Narwhal through freedom of information show. The company said it has always remained within its legal limits for emissions. The documents show the province knew the threshold for benzene posed a significant health risk to Aamjiwnaang First Nation long before imposing the new limits.

The Ontario government’s delayed action is one example of a pattern laid out in more than 250 pages of records obtained by The Narwhal, all dated from fall 2023 but detailing events that happened years earlier. In 2022 and 2023 alone, the Environment Ministry documented at least six incidents where the company leaked enough benzene to risk acute health problems for people nearby, according to the documents. That included two incidents where levels of the chemical were higher than what triggered the 2024 state of emergency — when the province took stricter steps to curb emissions.

Beyond that, the documents show government officials realized INEOS and other facilities were emitting more benzene than the Environment Ministry was originally aware of, in large part due to leaks from storage tanks. Despite this, officials still declined to take steps to limit them. Altogether, it paints a hazy picture of how industry is regulated in Chemical Valley, and just how bad the air really is.

A state of emergency in Ontario’s Chemical Valley

It’s an issue Aamjiwnaang First Nation has been raising red flags about for years — and increasingly taking into its own hands, establishing air pollution standards, increasing its oversight of the maze of pipelines that cross the reserve and working with the federal government on a pilot project addressing environmental racism. 

“We cannot wait for governments to be the one that acts for us,” Aamjiwnaang Chief Janelle Nahmabin said in an interview. “We need to be there as well.”

On June 13, Aamjiwnaang’s band council again recommended certain areas of the community be evacuated due to high benzene levels from the INEOS plant — though the levels were still legal under provincial guidelines. In a letter to several federal and provincial ministers and mayors, the band council wrote the community’s annual powwow was scheduled for the June 21 weekend, coinciding with National Indigenous Peoples Day. The event already saw lower than usual attendance last year “due to fear in the community over benzene exposure and potential health impacts.”

Aamjiwnaang First Nation Chief Janelle Nahmabin signed the terms of reference for addressing environmental racism in her community alongside the federal government this year. Aamjiwnaang was the first community to do so under Bill C-226, the National Strategy Respecting Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Act.

Ontario’s Environment Ministry did not answer detailed questions from The Narwhal about the documents and how it regulates air pollution in Chemical Valley. The Narwhal also sent detailed questions to INEOS Styrolution. The company did not answer most of them, but sent a statement saying it prioritizes safety and has “consistently operated within the strict limits” set by the Environment Ministry.

“INEOS Styrolution remains steadfast in its commitment to protecting the health and safety of our employees and the community, and we have consistently adhered to [the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks’] emissions requirements,” spokesperson April Ludwikowski wrote.

Benzene emissions in Chemical Valley higher than reported estimates 

Aamjiwnaang is located on the St. Clair River, just south of Lake Huron. The nation’s name means “at the spawning stream” in Anishinaabemowin. Today, about 900 people live on its reserve, where cul-de-sacs are lined with brick houses and a creek trickles past the nation’s community centre. 

Every year, as spring turns to summer, more than 10,000 sturgeon — a species that’s endangered on the Great Lakes — return to the river to spawn, many of them meeting below the Bluewater Bridge, which connects Sarnia to Michigan. When The Narwhal visited in February, a kingfisher dove to scoop fish from the icy waters while an eagle soared overhead. 

Still, Chemical Valley is nearly always visible over the tops of trees and fences, its stacks and tanks a reminder of the heavy industry a stone’s throw away. The Sarnia area’s history with petroleum and petrochemicals stretches back to the mid-1800s, when the first oil well in North America was drilled nearby, in a village now named Oil Springs. Refineries soon followed. During the Second World War, Sarnia produced synthetic rubber for the Allied forces. Even more companies followed after the war ended, and Chemical Valley now hosts about 60 refineries and chemical plants. 

Aamjiwnaang First Nation’s band office is directly across the road from INEOS Styrolution, which has long been allowed by the province to emit high levels of benzene, resulting in the office being temporarily closed and staff sent home feeling ill.

As workers flooded the area in the 1940s, a village called Blue Water sprang up outside the gate of the first plant in Chemical Valley. Governments ended up relocating residents away from it two decades later, concerned about how living there could impact their health. Aamjiwnaang’s baseball diamond is located about 800 metres from the plaque that now commemorates the old village site. The nation is still surrounded by industry.

INEOS is among the closest plants to the reserve, directly across the road from Aamjiwnaang’s band office and that same baseball diamond. The plant has been shut down since regulators stepped in last spring, and INEOS has announced plans to decommission it by the end of 2025. But for years it was a “heavy benzene emitter,” according to internal Environment Ministry documents — releasing “significantly more” than other facilities in Chemical Valley.

Benzene is a byproduct of petroleum refining that’s also found in crude oil and fuel. It’s one of the foundational ingredients in plastic that, along with other chemicals, can be used to make anything from food containers to car parts. At its Sarnia facility, INEOS Styrolution used benzene to make plastic and rubber. It stored the benzene — which regularly came from refineries in the area — in massive tanks that were known to leak, according to the documents. 

Aamjiwnaang residents are exposed to way more of the chemical than people living in big cities and other industrial areas: 30 times more benzene than people living in Toronto and Ottawa, according to the First Nation, and 10 times more than a city in California that has a similar mix of plants. 

The flags of Aamjiwnaang First Nation and the Anishinabek fly over the community at the shore of the St. Clair River.

“Ontario’s air pollution requirements to limit industrial pollution are lagging requirements in the U.S.,” said a briefing prepared for then-environment minister Andrea Khanjin in late 2023, noting the elevated levels of benzene and other pollutants near Aamjiwnaang.

“In many cases, Ontario’s facilities emit far more than comparable U.S. facilities.” 

Aside from the long-term cancer risk that comes from breathing in small amounts of benzene, exposure to a lot of it at once can cause headaches, tremors and dizziness. 

One set of provincial guidelines that consider cumulative sources of air pollutants, but aren’t legally binding, recommends benzene levels stay below a daily average of 2.3 micrograms per cubic metre. On April 16, 2024, during the event that sickened people in Aamjiwnaang, the daily average was 50 micrograms per cubic metre. On April 25, the hourly reading at a community air monitor reached 191 micrograms per cubic metre.

Ontario’s air quality regulation, which considered the long-term cancer risks posed by benzene, mandates average concentrations of the chemical be no higher than 0.45 micrograms per cubic metre annually. But the air quality regulation does not apply to some of the companies operating in Chemical Valley.

INEOS Styrolution’s Sarnia plant, along with six other facilities in the area, are exempt from provincial benzene emissions guidelines because it wouldn’t be “technically and economically feasible” to meet them, according to the Ontario government. Instead, the seven facilities follow a set of rules called “technical standards,” which are also common in other types of industrial sites, like pulp and paper mills and asphalt plants. The provincial Liberal government of the day created the standards covering petrochemical plants and petroleum refineries in Sarnia in 2016 after industry there pushed back on the province’s air quality standard for benzene, then a brand-new policy.

Just beyond Aamjiwnaang First Nation is the Suncor Sarnia Refinery, top left, which produces gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, among others. Throughout the community, areas are blocked off, right of ways cleared and markers stand up to note the location of pipelines underground.

Technical standards don’t put a hard limit on benzene emissions. The ministry instead requires companies to use the best available equipment to lower emissions as much as possible. To get there, the standards have requirements around emissions-reduction technology and air monitoring, among other things, and the Ministry of Environment can order more measures if it believes they’re needed. 

The technical standards affecting Chemical Valley were written based on an assessment of benzene sources in Sarnia. They used air monitoring and a review of how much several facilities were emitting at the time, the ministry said in 2016. 

Some of the estimates the ministry relied on were provided by industry — and in at least one case, they were wrong, according to a briefing note prepared for Khanjin in late 2023. The memo points to one company as an example: INEOS Styrolution, which it said was emitting maximum concentrations of benzene 15 times higher than what the province was aware of. 

The documents do not detail how the error happened, which other companies may have also submitted incorrect estimates or when the Ontario government realized its gauge of benzene emissions was wrong.

The Narwhal sent questions about the problem, including direct quotes from the documents, to every company in the Sarnia area that operates under a petrochemical or petroleum industry technical standard, a list that also includes Imperial Oil, NOVA Chemicals, Shell Canada, Suncor Energy and Diamond Petrochemicals. Two responded. INEOS denied giving incorrect information to the ministry: “At no point have we underreported our emissions or misled the regulator,” Ludwikowski said. Imperial said it “complies with air emissions reporting requirements under the applicable regulations” but “wouldn’t be able to speak to documents” that it hasn’t seen.

Factories and oil refineries have given Sarnia’s Chemical Valley its name, but long before they arrived here, Aamjiwnaang First Nation has used the area along the St. Clair River, just south of Lake Huron. The nation’s name means “at the spawning stream” in Anishinaabemowin.

Ontario’s Environment Ministry did not answer questions about the flawed figures.

The documents obtained by The Narwhal show the current Progressive Conservative government has been aware of how much benzene INEOS was actually emitting since at least 2019, when a new air monitor started picking up high levels at times when the wind was blowing from the direction of the plant.

Ludwikowski, the INEOS spokesperson, said the company maintains “full transparency” in its emissions reporting.

“Property line emissions monitoring at our Sarnia site is conducted by independent third parties, in accordance with [Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks] requirements, ensuring there is no internal influence over the results,” Ludwikowski said in a statement. Ludwikowski and INEOS Styrolution did not directly answer follow-up questions.

Aamjiwnaang has been fighting environmental racism for decades. Now, the First Nation has an agreement to address it

The Ford government was scheduled to review the policy in 2023 but skipped it — despite a warning in the 2023 briefing for Khanjin that said updates are “needed.” The same document also noted companies would likely push back. 

“Industry is looking for further simplifications and relaxations,” the memo said. “Will be opposed to more stringent requirements.”

The update to the technical standard was one of several air pollution-related moves the government hadn’t followed through on, the memo indicated.

Another was a planned update to a policy that, among other things, was aimed at addressing the cumulative effects of benzene emissions from multiple facilities both in the Sarnia area and Hamilton. The previous Liberal government introduced the policy in its last few months of power in spring 2018 and committed to reviewing it by 2020, but the Progressive Conservatives did not follow through. 

In April, Aamjiwnaang’s band council temporarily closed access to the community’s cemetery after a benzene spill from the adjacent Suncor refinery. A few days earlier, the company spilled hundreds of litres of crude oil into the river.

Ontario allowed INEOS to emit benzene levels higher than what led to Aamjiwnaang’s state of emergency 

In spring 2019, after the new air monitor near INEOS Styrolution’s Sarnia facility started to show how high its benzene emissions were, the Environment Ministry issued the first in a series of compliance orders, mandating the company take steps to gradually cut its benzene emissions. 

Compliance orders are usually legally binding, and the ministry can use them to compel companies to fix issues and prevent harm to people and the environment. In practice, however, Aamjiwnaang has said the ministry failed to engage with the nation about the orders, which were not enough to protect people from contaminants.

“Aamjiwnaang has not been involved in the decision-making” Nahmabin told The Narwhal. “And that’s what we’re looking for, because this is our territory, this is our home.”

The goal of the spring 2019 order to INEOS was to eventually get average benzene emissions below 4.5 micrograms per cubic metre annually, and 30 micrograms per cubic metre over a two-week period. The figures were higher than Ontario’s health-based standards, but would reduce the cancer risks to people nearby, according to the government records obtained by The Narwhal. 

Annual averages of benzene exposure: Left: 0.45 micrograms per cubic metre is Ontario’s legal annual average for benzene emissions, based on the risk of cancer. Many industrial facilities in Sarnia, Ont., are exempt from this limit and instead follow technical standards that require certain emissions-reduction technologies be used. Right: 4.5 micrograms per cubic metre is the annual average the Ontario government told INEOS in 2019 it should aim to gradually reduce its benzene emissions to. Graphic: Andrew Munroe / The Narwhal

But the order didn’t come with a strict limit and a timeline for getting there. It also appeared to clash with a letter the province sent in January of the same year, which included a looser target. They recommended benzene levels remain below an hourly average of up to 580 micrograms per cubic metre — three times more than the levels recorded in Aamjiwnaang as people went to the emergency room in 2024. Those benchmarks were based on standards from Texas, whose benzene limits are the loosest in the United States and have been criticized for putting residents at higher risk of cancer.

Aamjiwnaang Chief Nahmabin said the benchmarks were a “slap in the face.” 

“Why is that allowed when we’re right across the street?” she said. “That just seems very disheartening for the health of our community and our staff that are right there.”

Those January 2019 guidelines also included a limit of 30 micrograms per cubic metre over two weeks, in line with the province’s goal for INEOS. If the company breached it, the Environment Ministry warned it would be in touch to figure out the root cause and, “if necessary, identify corrective actions,” the letter said. The limits in the January 2019 letter were “not regulatory benchmarks,” the ministry wrote, but would instead be used to “assess acute exposures” of benzene.

Ludwikowski, the INEOS Styrolution spokesperson, said in her statement that the 580 micrograms per cubic metre was an “established” emissions limit set by the ministry, but did not answer follow up questions about it.

Despite the heavy presence and impacts of industry in Sarnia, nature is abundant around Aamjiwnaang First Nation.

“To further reduce emissions, INEOS Styrolution has proactively invested $50 million in modernizing the Sarnia plant,” Ludwikowski wrote. “As a result, our emissions have remained well below the [ministry’s] established limits of 580 [micrograms per cubic metre] over an hour. … These plans and timelines were developed collaboratively with the [ministry] and received full regulatory approval.”

The Environment Ministry did not answer questions about the benchmarks outlined in the January 2019 letter and how it applied them to INEOS. 

Air monitors near INEOS continued to detect spikes of benzene for five years after the ministry sent the company contrasting targets.

INEOS complied with the asks in the ministry’s 2019 order, but “elevated benzene emissions from the site” persisted in 2020, according to one internal ministry document. The ministry issued a second order that year asking the company to install more emissions control equipment. Those measures reduced benzene emissions in some areas around the plant, but not all, the ministry found — prompting it to send INEOS a third order in May 2023.

Benzene concentrations at one air monitor in particular “have increased every year following the issuance of the orders, indicating that benzene emissions at this location have not been addressed and may instead be worsening,” the 2023 order said.

The order also outlined six periods in 2022 and 2023 where air monitors detected “significantly elevated” concentrations of benzene from INEOS. In February 2022, for example, the ministry noted a two-week average of 122 micrograms per cubic metre, four times higher than the ministry’s goal for the facility. That August, the ministry detected an hourly average of 290 micrograms per cubic metre, a concentration of 100 cubic metres more than the peak levels of benzene that sickened people in Aamjiwnaang in spring 2024. An air monitor recorded even higher readings for three consecutive hours in January 2023, with levels in the 300s, the order said.

Hourly averages of benzene exposure: Left: 191 micrograms per cubic metre was the hourly reading recorded at an air monitor in Aamjiwnaang First Nation on April 25, 2024, the day the First Nation triggered a state of emergency. Right: 580 micrograms per cubic metre is the hourly average Ontario instructed INEOS to use in 2019 to assess acute health risks. It’s also based on the Texas standards, and is several times higher than the levels that sent people in Aamjiwnaang to the hospital in 2024. Graphic: Andrew Munroe / The Narwhal

INEOS told the ministry the benzene emissions were caused by spills, planned maintenance and the “prolonged storage” of waste containing the chemical in one particular area, the document said. 

None technically violated the laws governing the company, even though benzene concentrations in Aamjiwnaang had been so high they would bring a “non-negligible risk of cancer for those who may be exposed to such concentrations over the long term,” the order, signed by a ministry officer, said. 

“I believe that the [INEOS] site continues to be the primary source of the elevated benzene concentrations measured within the [Aamjiwnaang] community and that additional measures are required.”

Those measures included more technological upgrades and requirements to notify the ministry about various aspects of the operation of INEOS Styrolution’s plant. Like the previous orders, they did not include firm emissions targets for the company. 

INEOS pushed back, according to a document prepared by ministry officials that outlined the context for air quality measures in Sarnia: “INEOS [is] concerned that orders require them to do too much, too soon. They believed that since they were complying with the [standard], they shouldn’t have to do more.”

Ludwikowski didn’t directly answer questions about the company’s conversations with the Ontario government. 

A storage tank at Shell’s refinery in Sarnia features ‘Ojibwe Spirit,’ a mural by Aamjiwnaang First Nation artist John Williams, unveiled in 2022 to honour the land and people of Aamjiwnaang.

By the end of 2023, Aamjiwnaang had maintained the orders were “inadequate and slow,” according to the late 2023 briefing. And in the meantime, a long-anticipated health study funded by the Ontario government reiterated what people from the First Nation have been saying for a long time: air pollution from Chemical Valley was putting people’s health at risk in Aamjiwnaang. First Nations were “frustrated,” the briefing noted, because “proven technologies exist that can better manage and control” emissions of benzene and other pollutants.

“They also believe that [the ministry] provides priority access to industry and that [the ministry] continues to ignore the First Nations’ input,” the briefing said.

In one meeting between ministry staff and the nation, Aamjiwnaang representatives warned the Ontario government it would “take actions into its own hands” if the ministry didn’t act quickly to limit air pollution. 

The Environment Ministry did not answer questions about the meeting, and it’s not clear what steps it might have taken afterwards. In a notice sent to INEOS in 2024, which the province publicly posted online, the ministry said it had developed new interim guidelines in December 2023 — the month after the health study was released — about how staff should interpret the risks posed by benzene exposure.

Those internal guidelines indicated exposures of 90 micrograms per cubic metre over an hour, or 30 micrograms per cubic metre over 24 hours, would increase acute health risks. Those thresholds are dramatically lower than the 580 micrograms per hour the ministry recommended in its 2019 letter to INEOS, but still far higher than benzene standards that take long-term cancer risk into consideration.

A few months later, in April 2024, as benzene levels spiked in Aamjiwnaang and sent people to the emergency room, the ministry issued INEOS a fourth order. It required INEOS to notify the public if readings of benzene spiked, develop another plan to “address benzene from wastewater” and investigate where the carcinogen might be coming from. High levels of benzene were reported again a week later, prompting Aamjiwnaang to issue its state of emergency.

The following month, Ontario barred INEOS from storing benzene at its Sarnia site and suspended its approval to operate until the company made major repairs. The federal government stepped in at this point, issuing a temporary order to petrochemical companies in the area to cut benzene emissions. (The federal government has some jurisdiction to set nationwide air quality rules, like laws limiting emissions from new cars, but usually leaves local air quality rules to provinces and territories.)

Ontario followed suit, imposing benzene limits of its own on INEOS that came into effect that June. The limits, which remain in place, include a cap of 90 micrograms per cubic metre over an hour. It limited annual average emissions to 4.5 micrograms per cubic metre — 10 times higher than the province’s usual air quality standards. 

Ludwikowski said those limits were “stringent” and “imposed without prior notice, consultation or a sufficient time for implementation.” INEOS temporarily shut down the plant following the ministry’s 2024 order, and soon announced it would close the plant entirely due to the “economics of the facility within a wider industry context.” It said the situation was unrelated to the benzene spikes. 

“We cannot wait for governments to be the one that acts for us,” Chief Nahmabin said. She continues the fight against industrial pollution in her community, and for an end to environmental racism here.

The process of shuttering the facility is scheduled to be finished by the end of 2025. Aamjiwnaang’s state of emergency is still in place, and won’t be lifted as long as benzene continues to be stored at the site, Nahmabin said.

Benzene levels on Aamjiwnaang have mostly stayed lower since spring 2024, but the risk isn’t gone. As well as the most recent partial evacuation in mid-June, days before Nahmabin spoke to The Narwhal in late May, high benzene readings forced the community to close buildings and warn people away from the baseball diamond. In April, Aamjiwnaang temporarily closed access to the community’s cemetery after a benzene spill from the adjacent Suncor refinery — days after the company also spilled hundreds of litres of crude oil into the river. Suncor did not answer questions from The Narwhal about either incident.

In January, the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada told the Sarnia Observer that without INEOS accepting benzene produced as a by-product at other sites in Chemical Valley, companies had resorted to moving it out of the region by ship, rail and truck. 

Aamjiwnaang has asked the province for copies of any approvals it has granted to companies to store benzene in the area, Nahmabin said. “The problem is not going away, we just want to make sure that it’s being handled safely.”

Nahmabin is hopeful governments now understand they have to work with Aamjiwnaang to fix their oversight of Chemical Valley.

“It’s a big can of worms, and it’s peeling back decades of environmental racism,” she said. 

“We see the gaps, and this is where we feel like we can step in to effectively regulate Chemical Valley, because we’re here. This is our homeland. This is our Traditional Territory.”

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The first blow landed behind my head, a thump on the outside of the cabin vigorous enough to jolt my eyes open. Then came the second, a whack by my feet that shot me upright beneath my sleeping bag.

Frozen still, I could hear the deep, ragged breaths of whatever was on the other side of the wall, only inches of plywood between us. A black, coarse mass of fur brushed past one window, then the next. Every single footfall crunched as it clambered onto the front deck, where I could finally make out its face in the dark. It was the bear. 

I’d first seen it an hour before through the kitchen window. Hearing a bang in the yard, I assumed a deer had knocked something over, until I caught its round ears and glowing eyes in the beam of my flashlight. As I brushed my teeth at the sink, I watched it dig into the site of an old compost pile, buried under a layer of dead leaves and soil. We’d stopped using it that summer, worried about an unusual number of troublesome bears in town.  

It was August 2023, and I was alone at my family’s northern Ontario cabin, a little blue one-room shack in a clearing on the edge of the forest by Lake Huron. There were more black bears in the area than people when the last ursine census was taken in 2011 — we only outnumber them on Canada Day and August long weekends. Aside from a few times where bears got a little too comfortable in town or were shot during hunting season, we mostly coexisted just fine. We tried not to attract them; they fled when they ran into us. This one, which looked a bit smaller than a fully grown adult, didn’t seem too concerned with me and my flashlight. So I let it be, climbed into bed and tried to drift off to sleep. I figured the bear would move on soon. In nearly three decades of summer visits to the cabin, I’d never had a problem with them. It was the first time one had wandered onto the deck. 

Air horns and bear spray are common deterrents for black bears, and they can be effective — if you have them close at hand. Illustration: Kagan McLeod / The Narwhal

I tried to tell myself not to panic. Maybe the bear just bumped into the cabin by accident, I thought. The bear proved me wrong with another robust thump, this one aimed squarely at the front door. Then another. Another. Another. Did I double-lock it before turning in for the night? Yes. But just inside the door was a flimsier screen door, and each blow from the bear was strong enough to pop it open, its hinges creaking as it snapped shut. The floor beneath my feet shook. Can a bear bust through solid wood? 

The cabin was half a kilometre from town. If I screamed, no one would hear me. I fumbled around for my phone. The odds of me actually reaching anyone were slim — cell service rarely covers the cabin and even when it does, it’s too weak for calls. I texted a friend’s dad up the road. “This is Emma,” I typed with shaking hands, hitting send. “Bear is at my camp and trying to get in.” Send. “Help help help.” Send. The first message went through but the others bounced back. I was alone, with little more than a kitchen knife to defend myself.

We don’t keep guns at the camp. I don’t know how to use one, and I’ve often joked that I’d be more likely to hurt myself than anything else. No one around here carries bear spray, either. A few times over the years, I wondered if I should buy a canister but dismissed the thought. These were timid black bears, not grizzlies. Only paranoid city people would be worried about bears, I thought, and I was determined not to be one of them. 

Without other weapons, my best defence was an air horn a family friend loaned me earlier in the week after a bear appeared at my driveway, locking eyes with me before taking off down the road. Black bears startle so easily that, most of the time, a loud noise sends them scurrying back into the bush. I’d been keeping the air horn next to the door so I wouldn’t forget to grab it when I went out — the same door that now had a bear banging on it. I inched up to the woodstove, seizing the poker like a sword. I lunged toward the door and snagged the air horn before retreating to the centre of the room, hammering on the button to activate the noise.

In a little blue cabin in the woods, writer Emma McIntosh had a brush with a bear that had her reconsider the way she viewed our ursine neighbours, and her own actions. Photos: Emma McIntosh

With the first blast, the bear retreated off the deck and out of my view. But after a few more, the horn ran out of air. I probably should have started banging on pots and pans. Instead I reached for the radio, which had an emergency siren setting. I turned on CBC by mistake, blasting staticky jazz on maximum volume for a minute before I found the right dial. Not only am I going to die, I’m going to die because I’m stupid. I fired off increasingly desperate texts to my friend’s dad. “It’s banging at the door,” I wrote. “Help help help.” None of them went through.

Outside, I could see the outline of the bear in the moonlight, pacing by the woodpile. I wondered how many more blows it would need to shatter the door. An enormous paw would crack through splintered wood, claws shredding the screen like tissue paper. I would have to run out the side door and sprint to the four-wheeler, or maybe try to slip out the back. My phone buzzed in my hand. It was my friend’s dad, who had guessed why I was texting him in the middle of the night. 

I heard his four-wheeler start in the distance, almost teary with relief as the sound drew closer. As he roared into the driveway, a gun slung over his shoulder, the bear bit into the handle of an empty, tightly sealed garbage can, another item we’d stopped using to avoid attracting bears. It took off into the woods behind the cabin at an awkward gallop, the bin still clenched between its teeth as it melted back into the night. 

I know this was a freak event. Black bears are usually harmless. They’re skittish, bashful. They’re often more afraid of us than we are of them. Problem bears are uncommon in Ontario, attacks rare. If they do become aggressive, it’s usually because people have been careless with food, conditioning them to return for future meals. I’ve read the fact sheets and the studies and statistics. Since the incident, I’ve even forced myself to watch cute videos of them, as if seeing bears sit sweetly at picnic tables and stare curiously into a trail camera could undo the fear that had lodged itself in my chest. 

I spent my entire life up to that summer feeling like my family had a social contract with the bears. We did our best not to leave out things that could attract them, or so I thought. We warned them when we were coming, making plenty of noise when we were out in the bush. In return, it always seemed they were happy to leave us alone. We weren’t friends or even friendly, but we didn’t need to worry about defending ourselves either. Once, a sow and cub accidentally blundered into camp while my mom was there alone — she banged on a pan with a wooden spoon and they quickly scurried away. That’s the way this was supposed to work. 

But that summer, something fundamental shifted, at least for me. Was the long-held contract between us and them starting to fray? 

In the days after my bear encounter, I felt like the creature was the one who reneged on our deal. In reality, the bears have probably been feeling that way about us for a long time. As cities push outwards, people have whittled away at their habitat and tempted them closer with new sources of tasty, calorie-dense eats. Climate change, which is disrupting bears’ food supplies and natural rhythms, raises the risk of clashes even more. Though the provincial government has tried to manage the relationship, mostly by reinstating a controversial spring bear hunt, research shows the number of animals harvested has no effect on the number of human-bear interactions that end badly.

What happened that August could have unfolded almost anywhere in Ontario, where the vast majority of the province is bear country. More and more, our two species are rubbing shoulders in ever-closer proximity, uneasy neighbours separated by thin walls. 

Ontario has the second-largest population of black bears in North America, yet we seem to be uniquely bad at living with them. For one thing, we complain about them an awful lot. One 2007 study from the International Association for Bear Research and Management looked at how often people in different jurisdictions reported problematic bear encounters to government agencies in a single year. Ontario topped the list with 10,000. Quebec, for comparison, recorded a fraction of that with 1,156. The most common complaint from Ontarians wasn’t seeing an aggressive bear — it was seeing a bear at all. 

Nearly always, our perception of bears as dangerous beasts is wrong, a false idea that can be traced back to the European colonization of North America. Most encounters between humans and bears end with both sides unharmed. Indigenous nations across the continent have long had different relationships with their ursine neighbours — in Anishinaabe culture, for example, bears are protectors. 

Settlers have rarely treated them with that same respect, and although the province has one placed atop its coat of arms, Ontario’s history is littered with dubious anecdotes. Take the story behind the children’s book character Winnie the Pooh, which was based on a real black bear cub from White River, Ont. A soldier bought her from a trapper on a train platform there in 1914, toting her along with a Canadian cavalry regiment posted in England for a few years before depositing her to the London Zoo, an ocean away from home — where a monument now tells her story. 

Up until 1961, the Ontario government considered black bears vermin, and for a while even offered a bounty for killing them. After hunters pushed for bears to be valued and managed, the province moved to recognize them as a game species like deer or moose, giving them defined hunting seasons and setting rules for how to harvest them. But difficulties continued: in 2007, The Globe and Mail reported staff from the Ministry of Natural Resources had quietly been piling the carcasses of nuisance bears at dump sites rather than distributing them deep in the woods as they’re meant to. Former NDP MP Charlie Angus questioned at the time whether the government’s only plan for handling bears was to “shoot, shovel and shut up.” 

Indigenous nations have long had different relationships with their bears. In Anishinaabe culture, for example, they’re seen as protectors. When Europeans colonized North America, they brought along the idea of bears as vermin and then beasts to be afraid of. Illustration: Kagan McLeod / The Narwhal

Shooting bears, or at least allowing them to be hunted, is still a cornerstone of Ontario’s strategy for managing them. Like most provinces, Ontario has two bear hunting seasons, one in the spring and one in the fall. More people participate in the fall one, but the spring hunt is more controversial and emotionally charged. As trilliums burst into bloom in forests across Ontario, sows are especially vulnerable as they come out of hibernation thin, in search of food and nourishment for themselves and their young. And those cubs have a low chance of survival should they become orphaned. 

It’s illegal for hunters to shoot female bears with cubs during the spring season, but the province doesn’t publish data about how often it charges people for bear hunting-related offences. Critics of the hunt say mistakes can happen without being noticed. For example, if a mother bear stashes her cubs somewhere while finding food, she might appear to be alone and fair game. Hunters argue cubs can be orphaned for many reasons — such as their mother being hit by a car — and say it’s unfair to put all the blame on them. 

As concerns mounted about the ethics of the spring hunt in 1999, the Progressive Conservative government of the day cancelled it and lengthened the fall season instead. In northern Ontario, many were furious. Some hunting outfitters worried about the loss of business from tourists visiting Ontario in the spring to bag a bear. Others were concerned bear populations could grow uncontrolled, putting our species in contact with theirs even more. By and large, people felt frustrated that laws largely affecting rural northern Ontario were being written by urbanites to the south who they felt didn’t understand hunting or the culture around it. 

In the years that followed, media coverage of the issue hit a fever pitch and complaints about black bears shot up in Ontario. But in a study published in 2010, a group of Ontario government scientists found the complaints weren’t the result of soaring bear numbers putting more people at risk. Instead, their data showed the number of problem bears killed and trapped stayed relatively stable. People were just complaining to the province more. While the end of the spring hunt made people less tolerant of bears, it didn’t actually make our two species bump into each other more.

Human-bear conflicts do tend to spike some years, Martyn Obbard, one of the authors of that 2010 paper, tells me over the phone. But the evidence shows it has more to do with whether bears are able to feed themselves well in the forest, or if they need to forage in dumpsters and trash cans, where they’re more likely to come into contact with us.

Obbard is retired now, but spent most of his career as the resident bear biologist at Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources. “I just loved working on bears,” he says. “I have so much respect for their intelligence and their problem-solving ability. I mean, it’s phenomenal when you look at how they can figure out how to get into what we think are bear-proof containers.” That human food is the real problem, he says. The solution isn’t to shoot more bears, it’s to crack down on the many ways people inadvertently feed them. 

Still, people’s fear of black bears in the early 2000s was palpable. On some level, I understand why. One close brush with a bear was enough for me to wonder whether I was foolish not to have a gun at the cabin. Hunting offers at least an illusion of control over the bear situation, while other factors that bring more bears to our doorstep feel out of our hands — even if they aren’t, exactly.

Human-caused climate change has radically changed the terms of our social contract. If bears have easy and ample access to natural foods, humans are far less likely to interact with them. But the increasingly volatile climate — fuelled by our greenhouse gas emissions — has thrown off both bears, whose hibernation instincts are disrupted by changing temperature patterns, and the plants they eat, which are becoming less reliable because of droughts and floods. 

The availability of food is one of the biggest contributors to human-bear conflicts; that can mean limited natural food for bears, due to the changing climate, or an abundance of garbage for them to rummage through due to careless people. Illustration: Kagan McLeod / The Narwhal

A late spring frost, for example, can wreak havoc on berry supplies, a staple in bear diets, Obbard tells me. Female black bears usually have cubs every two years, with about half of the population reproducing one year and the other half the next. But when food supplies plummet and sows don’t have enough body weight, they won’t get pregnant — instead, most of the females will sync up and have cubs all at once the following year. “That happened in Ontario in the mid-’90s,” Obbard says. Young and reckless teenage bears are the most likely to get into conflicts with humans, so when many of them leave their mother at once, it can also lead to more encounters like mine.

While the provincial government can dictate how many hunters take bears in any given season, it can’t dictate how many cubs are born, or how hard-pressed they’ll be to find food.

Throughout the 2000s, hunting groups lobbied hard for the return of the spring hunt. “I was under tremendous political pressure to approve a spring bear hunt,” Obbard says. “They probably expected I was going to cave a lot sooner than I did, but I just dug my heels in.” The science just didn’t back it up, he says: Obbard was among a group of provincial experts who worked on a report concluding public education would be more effective. The Narwhal reached out to the Chiefs of Ontario and Anishinabek Nation for comment on the spring hunt, but neither provided statements.

In 2014, the provincial government, then under Liberal rule, brought the hunt back as a pilot project, arguing it would help keep people safe from problem bears. The current Progressive Conservative government, in its first term, reinstated it permanently in 2020, holding the first spring hunt in more than two decades the following year. In between, Obbard retired. His replacement kept studying the issue, collecting data about bear populations across the province to better inform decisions about hunting. Researchers collected fur samples to take a look at bear genetics, searching for hints at how many of them might populate specific areas. 

The data showed Ontario may need to look at different mechanisms to control bear hunting. While the research isn’t public, an Ontario government scientist shared some findings with a group of North American bear experts in a virtual presentation last spring that was posted to YouTube. Black bears aren’t threatened or endangered in Ontario and experts aren’t concerned for their populations as a whole. But the number of bear hunters in the province nearly doubled in the decade leading up to 2019. In some areas of northern Ontario, particularly around Sudbury and Thunder Bay, bear populations appear to have dropped, raising concerns about whether the province might need to manage hunting differently.

There are very few human-bear conflicts reported in Ontario, rather Ontarians have a tendency to report bear sightings, regardless if there is an issue or not. Illustration: Kagan McLeod / The Narwhal

Ontario doesn’t have a quota for how many bears it allows hunters to harvest. Though the province can limit hunting by visitors to Ontario, it generally gives a bear tag to any resident who applies each season. 

“If we have been overharvesting then we probably can’t sustain continued growth in our resident hunter population, and probably need some sort of control on that,” the scientist said.

During the presentation, a Minnesota scientist asked why Ontario doesn’t just limit how many bears can be shot each year to ensure the hunt is sustainable.

“Social determinants of policy, I think, is the easy answer there,” the Ontario scientist said. “I don’t think that would be palatable for decision-makers.” Bear hunting contributes $50 million per year to the province’s economy, the scientist later added.

Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources didn’t answer questions about the research, or how it balances economic concerns with scientific evidence as it manages black bears. 

There are other ways to handle bears. Ontario tried some of them for a while. After Obbard and his colleagues concluded public education would cut human-bear conflicts better than hunting ever could, the province established a program called Bear Wise in 2004. Bear Wise had staff on the ground in districts across the province, going into schools to teach kids bear safety and visiting homeowners to advise on best practices, like removing bird feeders in the spring, cleaning barbecues and securing garbage. They even did pilot projects, testing electric fences and other tools to keep bears away from landfills.

“We had really phenomenal levels of financial support for that program. And we did a lot of good things in the first few years,” Obbard tells me. Maybe they didn’t get everything right, but they were really trying. The team talked to social scientists, who warned it wouldn’t be so easy to engineer a shift in how our society treats bears — it could take 25 to 30 years. “Of course, we never got anywhere near that,” Obbard says. About eight years in, he recalls, the Dalton McGuinty government cut the budget of the Ministry of Natural Resources. The program shrunk. These days, Bear Wise is a web page with safety information and a hotline for the public to call to report issues. A sign made as part of the program is still posted on the highway along my route to the cabin, warning the public not to feed wildlife. 

Versions of the idea exist across the continent. One of the more popular programs is Get Bear Smart, managed by a U.S. nonprofit focused on bear management in North America. Get Bear Smart’s program was first developed in Whistler, B.C., and the provincial government there encourages communities to get on board. It counts 12 that have voluntarily adopted standards to better manage living with bears. In Alberta, the Town of Banff has taken things a step further, limiting fruit-bearing trees, a major animal attractant that played a role in the deaths of many bears in the town and the surrounding Banff National Park over the years, including a notable grizzly named Bear 148. For years, the town has run a program to replace fruit-bearing plants on private property with native species that won’t draw bears, at no cost to homeowners. In 2023, it also tightened its bylaws to give the town power to order problematic trees be uprooted.

In Ontario, some communities have also sought out bear education programs. The northern city of Elliot Lake, for example, is a notable Get Bear Smart success story: it was the first in the province to implement the program, creating a set of rules in 2003 to ensure garbage was stored away from wildlife. There were more than 500 human-bear conflicts and three bear deaths the year before implementation. The year after, those numbers dropped dramatically, to 87 conflicts and zero bear fatalities. Sudbury and Timmins have also written bylaws to restrict garbage. But Ontario doesn’t encourage or support communities to stick to any particular set of wildlife management standards.

Sitting around the cabin’s dinner table on summer nights, my friends and I used to quite literally laugh at the type of precautions Bear Wise suggests. We had a deck of Get Bear Smart playing cards displaying safety tips, which we’d read aloud between rounds of crazy eights and dissolve into giggles. “Don’t linger in areas that might be attractive to bears, e.g. salmon-filled streams,” read one. “Don’t let children play in forested, heavy-use bear habitat,” read another. It certainly wasn’t something I took seriously — until summer 2023.

As we infringe upon bear country, it’s incumbent upon people to be good, and bear aware, neighbours: keep a clean camp and have deterrents on hand, like a radio with an emergency alarm to deter curious critters. Photos: Emma McIntosh

I’ll never know exactly what brought the black bear to my doorstep that summer. I do know I should have been far more careful. Covering the compost pile with leaves and dirt wasn’t enough — there probably shouldn’t have been one at all. The empty garbage can we kept around was another problem. It must have still had some remnants of food in it, and it wasn’t wildlife-resistant. My mom and I found the lid on a stroll through the brush behind the camp the following year, the bin nowhere in sight.

Or maybe what attracted the bear was a citronella candle I put in the outhouse in hopes it might repel mosquitoes — turns out bears love the potent, citrusy smell. 

I was stupid, but I didn’t die, and it’s bears that overwhelmingly pay the price when people fail to uphold the social contract between us. When they learn to seek food from humans, Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources often steps in — and in the vast majority of those cases, the authorities shoot the bear for the sake of public safety. That happened to one black bear that wandered into a Toronto suburb in 2015 and perched in a tree in someone’s backyard. More bears are also shot and killed in self-defence, though the province doesn’t publish data about how frequently it happens. 

The morning after the young black bear visited my cabin, I was set to return home. After a few uneasy hours of sleep on my saviour’s couch, I hurried to pack up, keeping one eye on the door as I tossed clothes back into my suitcase. A few days later, I heard someone in town had shot a black bear in self-defence. I’ll never know if it was the same bear, but a wave of relief swept through me, followed by a queasy guilt. 

I resolved to do better, to finally make good on my end of the deal. Before my family shut down the cabin for winter, we got rid of the compost pile and did away with the citronella candles. We take garbage straight to the landfill, which has a bear-resistant dumpster. Last summer, we also stopped on our way north to grab more air horns and a few cans of bear spray. 

Across Ontario, there is limited education for the public on bear awareness and no standard regulations to help keep bears out of towns. Without those, some people live in fear — others in ignorance. Illustration: Kagan McLeod / The Narwhal

These things have helped settle my anxious mind a bit. But without larger, systemic change in how we approach bears, the problem won’t stop — it’ll only move elsewhere, Obbard tells me. Bears return to places where they’ve found easy access to human food. They pass that knowledge on to their cubs. They also wander vast distances in search of the calories they need, which means even if one municipality locks down its garbage, it can still have nuisance bears passing through on their way to a town that isn’t so careful. 

Experts flagged this as a problem in the early days of Bear Wise, Obbard says, and asked the government to write a province-wide regulation. “Politicians were reluctant to do that,” he says. “They didn’t want to be telling the municipalities what to do.”

The Ministry of Natural Resources didn’t answer questions about whether it has or would consider province-wide regulations. For now, bears emerge from their dens each spring to ever-shifting bylaws and landscapes.

Back at my cabin a year after the incident, I spotted another bear. I was moseying around town one evening, about to head home, when it strolled onto the road a block away from me and paused under a streetlight. Another young one. I hustled back to my four-wheeler and hopped on, reaching for the pocket-sized air horn tucked in my jacket. My movement was enough to startle the bear. It vanished back into the night, into the bush or toward someone else’s porch.

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The trouble started up again as winter gave way to spring last year, and walleye gathered at their spawning grounds in White Lake in northern Ontario.

For years, people in Netmizaaggamig Nishnaabeg — an Anishinaabe community tucked along the lake’s eastern shore — had alleged poachers were catching huge quantities of fish from the waters. For about as long, the nation says it asked the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, which enforces fishing-related laws, to investigate and charge the people responsible. Most of the time, the requests had gone nowhere. 

Walleye are most vulnerable during the spring spawning season, a sacred time in Anishinabek culture and a period when Ontario’s laws bar most people, though not Indigenous Rights holders, from harvesting them. Each spawn is critical for their ongoing survival — walleye numbers on White Lake have dropped in recent years, a trend the community blames on spring poaching. So when reports of alleged poaching started to trickle in again in April 2024, Netmizaaggamig sprung into action. The nation says it asked the Ministry of Natural Resources for help but was told there weren’t enough conservation officers to patrol the lake. So the community decided to take the issue into its own hands. 

“This is where our people get our food source from,” Chief Louis Kwissiwa told The Narwhal. “Without that, how are we supposed to live?

Netmizaaggamig set up around-the-clock checkpoints of its own on the lake, an enormous undertaking for the nation with about 1,000 members, about 400 of which live on two reserves located just inland from Lake Superior about halfway between Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay. The nation also called on leaders from neighbouring communities for help, hoping their presence on the water would deter alleged poachers from netting walleye in spawning areas. 

Last year’s conflict over the walleye is now part of a court case unfolding in northern Ontario, with broader implications for Indigenous Rights. In it, Netmizaaggamig says the alleged poachers were members of two other First Nations — but lays the blame for the situation squarely at the feet of the Ontario government. 

White Lake, which has Netmizaaggamig Nishnaabeg’s reserves on one side and a provincial park on another, is a popular fishing spot. Its waters drain into Lake Superior, and walleye gather here every spring to spawn.

Strictly speaking, Netmizaaggamig’s court filings are focused on mining, not fish. In documents filed in divisional court over the winter, the nation said it wants a judge to review the Ontario government’s decision to include two nations — Ketegaunseebee, also known as Garden River First Nation, and Batchewana First Nation — on the list of communities to be consulted about two mining projects near Netmizaaggamig’s reserves on White Lake. 

Garden River and Batchewana both have reserves around Sault Ste. Marie, hundreds of kilometres from White Lake as the crow flies. Batchewana also has reserve land on Lake Superior, at Batchawana Bay, but both are signatories to a treaty that covers areas of Lake Huron — not Superior. Nonetheless, both say they have documented, longstanding ties to Lake Superior, and that their traditional territories, including common hunting areas used for generations, extend northwest to the area around White Lake.

Netmizaaggamig disagrees, arguing the other two nations have never shared territory with Netmizaaggamig and should not be included in two mining consultation plans. By including them, Netmizaaggamig alleges, Ontario emboldened members of Garden River and Batchewana to “make expansive claims that harm [Netmizaaggamig’s] rights and interests,” the nation argues, culminating in the alleged fish poaching.

Life on the frontlines of Ontario’s critical mineral boom

Netmizaaggamig’s claims have not been tested or proven in court, and Ontario and the other nations involved have strongly contested them. Garden River First Nation in particular challenges the use of the term “poaching.”

“As long as our members are adhering to the rules of sustainable harvesting, they are exercising their legitimate rights to harvest within our shared traditional territory,” Garden River said in a written response to The Narwhal’s questions. 

“It’s important to clarify that the core issue here is not about unlawful activity but rather about our collective rights to our traditional territories. The claims made in this case seem to overlook the broader context of those rights, which we’ve maintained over time, and the misunderstanding around terms like ‘poaching’ only complicates the conversation.” 

Batchewana First Nation declined to comment for this story, and has argued in court that the case should not be allowed to proceed.

The Ontario government did not respond to questions about the walleye crisis on White Lake or the unfolding court case. In the past, the province has said that its conservation officers patrol the lake regularly during spawning season, and in court, its lawyers have argued Ontario is on solid legal footing in consulting Garden River and Batchewana about the mining projects. 

It’s unclear when or even if the case will have a day in court. Netmizaaggamig was unable to meet a legal deadline to file its application due to the situation on White Lake last spring, and has asked a judge to allow it to proceed with its application anyway. The Ontario government, Batchewana and Garden River have asked the court to deny that request.

Regardless of where or how it may eventually be resolved, the roots of the dispute can be traced back over 170 years to a report written by Crown representatives a year before the treaties covering the northern shores of lakes Huron and Superior were signed. The result is a mess created by the Crown, leaving First Nations divided.

Netmizaaggamig Nishnaabeg is located on White Lake. Garden River and Batchewana First Nations are centred a few hours’ drive away near Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., but have said their traditional territories extend northwest along the Lake Superior shoreline. Map: Shawn Parkinson and Andrew Munroe / The Narwhal

The Robinson Treaties take shape and create complications around Lake Huron and Lake Superior

The northern shores of Lake Huron and Lake Superior are covered by two treaties signed in 1850, both bearing the name of Crown representative William Robinson. From the beginning, there have been disagreements over their meanings, with wide-ranging implications for First Nations. 

At the time, getting some sort of treaty in place was an urgent task. The British colonial government of the day had granted mining permits to a flood of settlers in the upper Great Lakes region, without the consent of the Anishinabek who had lived there since time immemorial. Anishinaabe leaders called for the miners to leave — or for the Crown to agree to a treaty that gave their nations a share of the profits of resource extraction from their territories. Tensions simmered. 

In 1849, the Crown sent two representatives, Alexander Vidal and Thomas G. Anderson, to talk to the nations in the upper Great Lakes region and assess the situation. The same year, anger in the region boiled over and three Anishinaabe chiefs led a group to shut down a mine at Mica Bay on Lake Superior. Vidal and Anderson’s report urged the government to act fast and resolve the issue of land rights. The Crown sent Robinson north the following year to get something in writing with the chiefs on lakes Huron and Superior, telling him it was especially important he negotiate a deal for land around the Mica Bay mine. 

Billions have been made on Robinson Huron Treaty lands. First Nations could finally get a fair share

Robinson met with a group of Anishinaabe leaders in what is now Sault Ste. Marie — or Bawating in Anishnaabemowin, meaning the place of the rapids — where lakes Huron and Superior connect along what’s now known as the St. Marys River. The rapids have long been an important gathering place for nations in the region. (Spellings of the name in Anishinaabemowin vary — others include Baawaating and Bawahting.)

By the time those negotiations were done in 1850, Robinson had signed two treaties, reaching an agreement with the Superior chiefs present a few days before the ones from Huron. The results were the Robinson Huron Treaty and the Robinson Superior Treaty. The boundary between them, according to the texts, was a line between Lake Superior’s Batchawana Bay and the height of land separating the Great Lakes basin from watersheds to the north. 

The problem is, no one knows exactly what that means. Where on Batchawana Bay? Its warm, shallow waters and sandy beaches stretch on for kilometres. Where on the height of land, which follows an irregular course all the way around Lake Superior? And how do you draw a line between those two places, anyway? Robinson didn’t say — not in the treaties, not in his own diaries, nowhere. 

The boundary between the two Robinson Treaties is around Batchawana Bay on Lake Superior, but no one knows exactly where, and different groups of people disagree about whether the line between them even matters.

Batchewana and Garden River are both located in Bawating, at the junction between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Both signed the Robinson Huron Treaty, but say their traditional territories include areas of Lake Superior as well. Garden River has said they understood the two treaties to form one single agreement, and regardless that they reserved the right to continue to use the land where and how they always have beyond the borders of the Robinson Huron Treaty.

And, to make it even more complicated, Netmizaaggamig and a half-dozen other Lake Superior nations have never signed a treaty at all. 

The events of 1849 and 1850 — particularly Robinson’s vague wording, and disputes over the accuracy of the Vidal and Anderson report — set the stage for future conflict. Before the treaties, the communities would have dealt with territorial disputes nation-to-nation. But the treaties, the boundary lines drawn in them, added layers of complication. Versions of this problem are playing out across Canada in communities covered or not covered by different treaties, each with a unique set of problems and uncertainties. 

The Robinson Treaties guaranteed various rights to different nations depending on where and how they used the land as of 1850 — but ever since, there has been disagreement over where exactly those rights apply and how.

Netmizaaggamig and Garden River have different views that each nation says are backed up by oral history, colonial documents and modern studies. Batchewana declined to comment on its perspective.

Netmizaaggamig Nishnaabeg Chief Louis Kwissiwa says the walleye on White Lake are now so depleted, it could take them 20 years to recover.

Unclear wording in treaties leads to conflicting interpretations

Batchewana and Garden River, both Robinson Huron signatories, have long said their traditional territories include areas of Lake Superior as well. Batchewana has reserve land on Lake Superior at Batchawana Bay, an hour’s drive north of Bawating, and its Elders say the nation’s original territory extended farther northwest to an area that includes White Lake. Garden River says its traditional territory also extends up the Lake Superior coastline to White Lake, and community members who are alive today “vividly remember” their parents and grandparents harvesting there.  

In a January 2024 court filing responding to Netmizaaggamig, the Ontario government has sided with Batchewana and Garden River, saying the two nations do have rights on land Netmizaaggamig asserts is its sole traditional territory. The province points to the 1849 Vidal and Anderson report: in Ontario’s interpretation, the two Crown representatives described a huge stretch of land near Lake Superior, encompassing White Lake, as common hunting territory shared by multiple nations, including Garden River and Batchewana.

Netmizaaggamig, however, contests Ontario’s interpretation of the 1849 report and denies it had common hunting grounds with Batchewana and Garden River.

“The commissioners included in their report unclear wording and roughly sketched entries on a map, regarding the areas occupied by bands north of Lake Superior,” Netmizaaggamig wrote in a court filing.

“These cannot be cogent evidence of [Batchewana or Garden River’s] rights outside their treaty territory.”

Last spring, Netmizaaggamig set up checkpoints on White Lake during walleye spawning season in hopes of deterring any alleged poachers. Councillor Vern McWatch was among those posted by the water. The nation is planning to do the same this year.

Netmizaaggamig said Vidal and Anderson missed their community when they passed through in fall 1849. Netmizaaggamig people traditionally ventured farther inland to hunt at that time of year, while Vidal and Anderson mostly stuck to areas closer to the Lake Superior shoreline. 

Netmizaaggamig has been pushing the Ontario and federal governments to recognize its rights since the 1970s, and has spent decades negotiating a title claim, a process that has not yet been resolved.

Garden River told The Narwhal it sees this history differently: the nation says Netmizaaggamig’s traditional territory was farther inland, in an area known in 1850 as Rupert’s Land, which the Crown granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Netmizaaggamig told The Narwhal its historical research, which has underpinned its title claim negotiations with Ontario and Canada, does not support Garden River’s conclusions. Netmizaaggamig says its traditional territory has been centred on White Lake and the surrounding area since time immemorial, with areas both north and south of the height of land. 

Sault Ste. Marie, also known as Bawating, has long been an important gathering place for First Nations on the upper Great Lakes. Bawating sits along the rapids of the St. Marys River, which connects Lake Huron and Lake Superior.

“We know our own territory and who was here,” Netmizaaggamig said in a statement. “[Netmizaaggamig] had to establish the validity of its claim based on a lot of solid evidence before it was accepted for negotiations.” 

Another complication is a 1994 court decision centred on whether a man from Batchewana was within his rights to shoot a moose on a different nation’s territory, about halfway between Bawating and White Lake, on the lands of the Robinson Superior Treaty. The justice of the peace who decided the case also weighed in on the line between the two Robinson Treaties after consulting a historical expert witness, affirming the existence of the common hunting ground Vidal and Anderson wrote about.

Netmizaaggamig argues the 1994 court case isn’t a fair precedent. The case made no mention of Netmizaaggamig, the community wasn’t represented in the hearings and the nation questions whether a justice of the peace has the authority to decide First Nations’ territorial rights.

Netmizaaggamig Nishnaabeg, also known as Pic Mobert First Nation, has never signed a treaty with Crown governments. It has been negotiating a title claim with Ontario and Canada for decades, a process that has still not been resolved.

Netmizaaggamig prepares for the walleye spawning season

With ice melting off northern lakes and spring now arriving, the question of the walleye is on everyone’s minds again. 

In their court filings, Batchewana and Garden River say Ontario’s decision to consult them about mining projects near Netmizaaggamig doesn’t encourage people to poach fish from White Lake. Batchewana said the allegations are “bare” and “underscore a lack of merit” in the case. 

These are “serious and inflammatory allegations,” Garden River said, “supported only by hearsay.” 

Both say they’ve been consulted about mining projects in the area for many years without issue, and their inclusion on the consultation lists doesn’t affect Netmizaaggamig or its rights. Instead, they see the consultation as an affirmation of rights they’ve always had, to know about what’s happening in a common hunting and fishing area. 

Walleye are also known as pickerel, pike perch or walleyed pike. On White Like, in northern Ontario, the population is depleting, and some allege it’s due to poaching. Illustration: Sherman Foote Denton / Annual Report of the Commissioners of Fish, Game and Forests of the State of New York, 1896

If anything, Garden River alleges, the mining companies involved have used Netmizaaggamig’s perspective as a justification for not addressing Garden River’s concerns.

“The claim of Netmizaaggamig of alleged poaching or unsustainable harvesting isn’t relevant to the case we’re discussing,” Garden River told The Narwhal in its written response to questions, adding that Netmizaaggamig should report poaching to the “appropriate authorities” instead of using them to “throw mud” at Garden River.

“The matter at hand is their application to remove Garden River from the consultation list, and that’s the key issue we need to focus on. [Netmizaaggamig] is trying to remove Garden River’s rights.”

Netmizaaggamig said the nation feels it’s being bullied into conceding its rights. “These are trespasses to our land and our resources,” the nation said in a statement.

It’s not clear when or if Netmizaaggamig’s allegations will get a day in court. The nation is currently waiting for a judge to decide whether it can continue to pursue its current case.

Netmizaaggamig’s court filings don’t make it clear exactly who it is accusing of illegally poaching fish from White Lake and when incidents happened, though the nation said it has evidence that has not been presented in court. Police were present on White Lake last spring, but responsibility for fish and wildlife offences rests with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, which Netmizaaggamig says has so far declined to lay charges or intervene. 

The ministry did not respond to questions about its handling of alleged poaching on White Lake.

Netmizaaggamig says it is preparing to have staff and community members out on White Lake again this year to protect the walleye as they spawn, and that the nation is talking with the ministry this spring about the situation.

After a long fight, Garden River First Nation is getting its land back — one cottage at a time

Meanwhile, the nation’s case continues to wind through the courts. It’s unclear when or even if all sides will have the chance to fully share their perspectives, as lawyers debate Netmizaaggamig’s motion to extend time after the late filing.

Garden River told The Narwhal it seeks a “resolution that aligns with Anishinaabe law, upholds our cultural traditions and respects our sovereignty as guaranteed by the Crown in the signing of the Robinson Treaty.” The nation says it has made “good faith efforts” to work with Netmizaaggamig and hopes they can still arrive at a solution.

The conflict on White Lake is one example of a problem playing out across Canada, as different treaties have created unique sets of problems and uncertainties. 

“This situation puts First Nations, including Garden River, in a difficult position,” Garden River said. 

“We are forced to make a choice between dedicating limited community resources to fund a court battle to protect our rights or investing those same resources into essential community infrastructure and operations. This is an unjust and untenable situation for any community to be in, especially when our rights and concerns are not being adequately addressed.”

In their court filings, Netmizaaggamig also says it would prefer to settle concerns through Anishinaabe decision-making processes, though it fears a court proceeding might ultimately be necessary.

“Ontario created this mess,” Kwissiwa told The Narwhal. “We’re going to have to fix it.” 

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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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.

[Table of contents]

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.

[Table of contents]

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. 

[Table of contents]

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.

This story is a collaboration between The Narwhal and The Local, a non-profit online magazine covering urban health and social issues in Toronto. You can read more about the Ontario 2025 election results over here.

The Greenbelt scandal is the elephant in the room of Ontario’s 2025 election, even as Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives try to leave it in the rearview.

It’s been more than a year since the RCMP opened an investigation into the boondoggle, which saw the Ford government open sections of environmentally protected land outside Toronto for housing construction in fall 2022. That move came at the request of a select group of well-connected developers who stood to make more than $8 billion from the deal. Though Ford ended up reversing course on the plan the following year, losing two cabinet ministers and two senior political staff in the wake of the scandal, questions remain as long as the police probe continues — and they’re quietly shaping the 2025 campaign.

The potential fallout from the Greenbelt scandal may even be among the reasons Ontario is having an election at all right now, more than a year earlier than its due. Though Ford has claimed he needs a strong mandate from voters to address tariff threats from the United States, he has been hinting at an early election since the fall — months before tariffs were even on the table and around the same time a trickle of news stories showed the Mounties were beginning to close in on members of Ford’s inner circle connected to the Greenbelt affair. Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie has since said the election call was an attempt to “cling to power” ahead of whatever moves the RCMP may make. 

A fresh round of revelations related to the scandal have even bubbled up in recent weeks. In early February, The Trillium reported that two former Ford government staffers — one a central figure in the Greenbelt changes who resigned amid the fallout, the other an employee of Ford’s re-election campaign — are being sued by a developer alleging they accepted money in exchange for promises to use “backchannel contacts” to rezone land, but did not deliver. Through a lawyer, both defendants have denied the allegations, which have not been proven in court. The Progressive Conservatives have declined to answer questions about the campaign staffer’s alleged involvement in the lawsuit but said Ford was unaware of it, and the province has never considered changes to the properties at issue. 

It’s yet another angle to a scandal that has been percolating for three years with no sign of resolution. 

The 15 sites the Ontario removed from the Greenbelt in 2022, as they were listed in a report from the province’s integrity commissioner. At the same time, the province also added some land to the protected area along some urban river valleys and on the Paris Galt Moraine. The Progressive Conservatives returned the land to the Greenbelt in late 2023 while leaving additions in place, meaning it’s now a bit larger than it was before the scandal. Map: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

Deleted records, a stag-and-doe and massages in Las Vegas

Though Ford has apologized for the Greenbelt scandal, the whole affair left enough stink and unanswered questions for his critics to dine on for another four years. 

Ford’s complicated relationship with the Greenbelt stretches back two elections: in 2018, when the former Toronto city councillor had just become the leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives, the Ontario Liberals released a video of Ford talking about his plans to cut into the protected area at a closed-door campaign event. 

“We will open up the Greenbelt,” Ford says in the video, adding that he got the idea from some of the country’s biggest developers. “Not all of it, but we’re going to open a big chunk of it up and we’re going to start building, and making it more affordable and putting more houses out there.”

The year of the Greenbelt: how Doug Ford’s bid to build housing on protected land backfired

The Greenbelt, a stretch of protected land the size of Prince Edward Island that arcs around the Greater Toronto Area, has been a fixture of life around the city and its suburbs since it was created by the Dalton McGuinty government in 2005.

Most development is off-limits in the Greenbelt. McGuinty’s government intended it to protect a slice of rich farmland and green space from rapidly expanding urban sprawl in Toronto’s suburbs. Today, the protected zone encompasses popular hiking trails and farms that feed the region, from Niagara peaches and wine grapes to carrots and onions from the Holland Marsh. Its unpaved land absorbs rainwater and snowmelt that may have otherwise caused floods. It also absorbs about a fifth of the carbon emissions reported annually in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, a University of Toronto study concluded last year. 

Ontario’s Greenbelt is a ring of protected farmland and green space that encircles the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Though polling shows the public is generally in favour of it, some landowners have taken issue with its restrictions on development and how it can affect property values. Photos: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Even if few Ontarians know the details of the Greenbelt and some developers have opposed it over concerns about how it hampers land values, polling consistently shows the Greenbelt is a popular piece of public policy. So Ford quickly took back his remarks amid furious public backlash and promised he would leave the Greenbelt alone, a pledge that helped carry him to the premier’s office.

Ford didn’t repeat that pledge in the June 2022 provincial election. Behind closed doors and before voters finished casting their ballots, his staff had already started drawing up plans to reconsider opening the Greenbelt for development. 

Under examination by both Ontario’s auditor general and integrity commissioner, various government staffers have given different accounts of what that plan was actually supposed to be: some said they thought they’d been ordered to quickly develop and roll out a policy, while others said the government only wanted to examine the possibility. But either way, the chief of staff to then-municipal affairs minister Steve Clark embarked on a process the integrity commissioner later said was “chaotic and almost reckless” as he sought to pick parcels of Greenbelt land to carve out. 

Most of the land involved in the Greenbelt carveouts was at least partially owned by two developers who approached the chief of staff to former housing minister Steve Clark at an industry gala. The staffer, Ryan Amato, passed those requests on to public servants. Illustrations: Jarett Sitter / The Narwhal

More than 90 per cent of the land tangled up in the fiasco was at least partially owned by two developers who approached the chief of staff, Ryan Amato, at a development industry gala to ask for Greenbelt carveouts. And when the staffer didn’t immediately say no, a developer rumour mill started churning and more requests poured in. Amato passed them on to a small group of public servants at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing who were working under non-disclosure agreements. The auditor general and integrity commissioner’s reports found he altered the criteria for Greenbelt carveouts and even the boundaries of some proposed sites to allow them to go forward.

Efforts to dissect exactly what happened during this time have been hampered by problems with the Ford government’s retention of key records. Amato, for example, kept no documentation of pivotal conversations about the Greenbelt, and the Housing Ministry team working on the carveouts referred to it using code words. Former Ontario auditor general Bonnie Lysyk found political staff routinely deleted emails and used personal accounts for government business.

What’s undisputed, though, is that Clark brought the proposal to the entire Progressive Conservative cabinet, which signed off on the plan. It would open 7,400 acres (3,000 hectares) of Greenbelt land, spread out in 15 snippets of property, for housing construction that Ford argued would help Ontario’s housing crisis. 

Ryan Amato, a former Ontario government political staffer and a key figure in the Greenbelt scandal, resigned in 2023. Illustration: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

The move created more than $8 billion of wealth for the landowners, according to an estimate from the auditor general. It also prompted attention from journalists, who soon revealed developers stood to be the main beneficiaries. Ontario’s auditor general and integrity commissioner released twin reports in August 2023 that were chock-full of bombshell revelations. The public was furious, while Ford remained defiant, even as Amato and Clark resigned from their roles. (Clark has remained an MPP in the Progressive Conservative caucus, and was named government house leader last June.)

But there were also spinoff scandals. One revolved around a pre-wedding stag-and-doe party for one of Ford’s daughters in the months before the Greenbelt changes — developers were invited, and attendees were encouraged to give cash gifts to the happy couple in addition to the $150 ticket price. Another involved a Las Vegas trip involving key Tory figures and a would-be Greenbelt developer that happened in 2020. There were also allegations about an alleged unregistered lobbyist dubbed Mr. X who had close ties to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.  

Finally, in September 2023 — as new salacious details mounted about a Tory MPP getting a massage at the same time as a would-be Greenbelt developer during that Las Vegas trip, prompting more resignations in the Progressive Conservative government — Ford took it all back and apologized.

“I made a promise to you that I wouldn’t touch the Greenbelt. I broke that promise, and for that I am very, very sorry,” Ford said.

The RCMP continue to investigative the Greenbelt scandal, more than a year after Ford reversed his changes to the protected area. The Mounties haven’t said who or what is a focus of that probe, and it’s not clear when it might be finished. Photos: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The Greenbelt was never a solution to the housing crisis

Ford has maintained that he didn’t know what was going on at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and had no idea how the parcels of land carved out of the Greenbelt were chosen. He’s also said he and his party want to put the axed plan to build on the protected area behind them.

“I think I was pretty clear. I said I was and then I wasn’t and then I went ahead and did it,” Ford said during a debate on Feb. 17, before taking aim at his opponents. “But in saying that, I apologized to the people. Unlike any of you, when you do something wrong, you don’t apologize. I apologized to the people, we’re moving forward, we’re building homes.”

Still, he and his government have never really answered for some parts of the scandal, like campaigning for re-election in 2022 without mentioning a major shift in policy was already underway.

That’s a point the opposition leaders have landed over and over again during the 2025 campaign. “He says one thing to the public, if he does dare show up to a scrum, and another behind closed doors,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said of Ford after the debate on Feb. 17, referring to the Greenbelt scandal. Ford didn’t show up to that scrum to face questions from reporters. 

Even if construction had gone ahead on the Greenbelt, it would have resulted in only a small fraction of the homes Ontario needs to tackle its housing crisis. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Another obvious critique: though Ford has maintained his only goal with the Greenbelt cuts was to build homes, Ontario’s housing crisis is now worse than ever. Even if his plan had worked, it likely wouldn’t have helped. At best, the Greenbelt carveouts were set to allow the construction of 50,000 homes — a drop in the bucket of the 1.5 million homes the provincial government has said it needs. And the government didn’t even assess whether the properties were well-suited for development. Many weren’t yet hooked up to municipal services like water and electricity and the majority of one particular property near Hamilton would have been undevelopable due to its proximity to an airport. 

After years of fighting and unfavourable trends in the housing market, Ontario is now building fewer homes than it was in 1955.

“The only homes that Doug Ford seems to want to build are mansions in the Greenbelt, benefitting wealthy land speculators and putting the profits of those speculators over the affordability needs of first-time home buyers,” Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner told supporters recently. 

It’s exactly the type of critique that will continue to dog Ford’s Progressive Conservatives even through their likely re-election — until the RCMP investigation proves otherwise. 

For more stories about how Ontario’s 2025 election will affect Toronto, head over to The Local.

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.

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Aamjiwnaang First Nation and the federal government will work together on a pilot project to address environmental racism.  

The nation, located in Sarnia, Ont., has spent decades fighting to stop pollution from a cluster of petrochemical plants known as Chemical Valley that surround it. On Monday, Aamjiwnaang Chief Janelle Nahmabin and Environment and Climate Change Canada signed the terms of reference to kick off the Lighting of the 8th Fire conference, bringing together various nations, as well as industry and government, to discuss the impacts of development on communities. The terms of reference includes the creation of a new joint committee aimed at addressing contaminants in the air, water and soil.

The agreement stems from the federal government’s Bill C-226, a law aimed at addressing environmental racism — the ways Indigenous, Black and other racialized communities in Canada disproportionately bear the harm of pollution and contamination. The bill, which passed last year, requires Canada to come up with a national strategy to prevent and address environmental racism, in collaboration with the most affected communities.

“Today is a significant day that will chart a course that acknowledges the historic and ongoing injustices that people of Aamjiwnaang have endured,” Nahmabin told an audience at Aamjiwnaang’s community centre for the signing ceremony. 

Aamjiwnaang First Nation Chief Janelle Nahmabin, top right, signed terms of reference for addressing environmental racism with John Moffet, top left, the associate deputy minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada, during the Lighting of the 8th Fire conference. The conference brought together various nations, as well as industry and government. Photos: Carlos Osorio / The Narwhal

“Although we are strong, resilient, beautiful people who are rich in community and ambition, we still have been impacted for decades by systematic pollution and lack of environmental protection … Aamjiwnaang will be a pilot for how this rolls out across Canada, and we are ready.”

Aamjiwnaang is an Ojibwe community tucked alongside the St. Clair River, a stone’s throw from the southern tip of Lake Huron. Studies have confirmed what many in the community have been saying for decades: air pollution from industrial plants, particularly the cancer-causing chemical benzene, are putting people’s health at risk in Aamjiwnaang and Sarnia.

The terms of reference, which were read aloud after the signing, lay the groundwork for Aamjiwnaang and Environment and Climate Change Canada to co-develop “tangible and meaningful” solutions through the joint committee. The federal government agreed to follow Aamjiwnaang’s protocols for consulting with the nation. The terms of reference also acknowledged the nation may need capacity funding to fully participate in the joint committee. 

The Suncor refinery, located near Aamjiwnaang First Nation, is one of many operating in the area around Sarnia. The nation experiences worse air quality than both Toronto and Ottawa, and even cities with comparable industrial development. Photo: Carlos Osorio / The Narwhal

John Moffet, an associate deputy minister at Environment and Climate Change Canada, signed the agreement on behalf of the federal government. In a speech before the signing ceremony, he thanked the nation for its leadership on environmental justice and said the government recognizes the need for trust and honesty.

“We have to be honest about how we got to where we are, honest about the actual impacts in the community,” he said. “We have to be honest with each other about what is possible for the future.” 

Aamjiwnaang has been pushing for change in Sarnia’s Chemical Valley for decades 

Sarnia has a long history with the petrochemical industry. The first oil well in North America was drilled just southeast of Sarnia in the mid-1800s, in a village now named Oil Springs. Further wells followed in the area and, in the 1890s, Imperial Oil bought one of the first refineries to open in Sarnia. More refineries also followed, and during the Second World War, synthetic rubber for the Allied forces was produced in Sarnia. 

More companies set up shop once the war ended, and today, Chemical Valley is home to about 60 refineries and chemical plants. 

Air monitoring data shows Aamjiwnaang residents are exposed to 30 times more benzene than people living in Toronto and Ottawa, the nation has said. And the pollution is worse than in other cities with heavy industries — Aamjiwnaang experiences 10 times more benzene exposure than a city in California with a similar mix of facilities.

A state of emergency in Ontario’s Chemical Valley

Aamjiwnaang’s then-chief and council declared a state of emergency in April 2024, when air monitors in the community picked up massive spikes of benzene. The carcinogen appeared to be coming from the INEOS Styrolution plastics plant across the road from Aamjiwnaang’s band office, and people in the area were hit with headaches and nausea. Band members were warned to stay away from the office and outdoor recreation areas near the plant. Later in the fall, when the company removed benzene from a tank, part of the reserve was evacuated. 

Following the incident, both the Ontario government and Environment and Climate Change Canada ordered the company to cut its benzene emissions. The company temporarily shut down the plant last spring, and has since announced it will permanently shutter and decommission the site. But other industrial sites continue to emit pollutants and, in recent months, Aamjiwnaang has called on the provincial government to crack down and address the problem.

Chief Nahmabin told the crowd gathered for the Lighting of the 8th Fire conference that Aamjiwnaang First Nation can lead the way in addressing how environmental harm disproportionately affects Indigenous and other racialized communities in Canada. Photo: Carlos Osorio / The Narwhal

Speaking in Aamjiwnaang on Monday, Nahmabin acknowledged the efforts of people from the community who have spent years advocating for environmental justice, including some who have passed away. It will take time for the nation to undo years and years of environmental damage, Nahmabin said, but the nation knows what needs to change and is ready to lead the way. 

“What we want for our community is clean air, less pollution, pristine waters, plants we can grow and not be afraid to eat,” she said. “And the most basic ask for every living being on this planet: a healthy environment.”

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The federal government advised Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives to reroute their signature Highway 413 project to protect endangered species, internal documents reveal. 

The recommendation was made by Environment and Climate Change Canada officials in a June 2024 presentation given to federal and provincial bureaucrats as part of a joint working group for Highway 413. The Narwhal obtained copies from both federal and provincial governments through federal access to information rules and provincial freedom of information legislation. 

If built, Highway 413 would connect Toronto’s north and western suburbs, running though Ontario’s protected Greenbelt and swaths of endangered species habitat along the way. It was a major tenet of Premier Doug Ford’s 2022 election campaign, and continues to play a prominent role in his party’s current bid for re-election that will see voters headed to the polls Feb. 27. But the federal government has also had some oversight of the highway since 2021. 

What the federal government really thinks about Ontario’s Highway 413

That year, the federal government highlighted concerns about how the highway would affect protected species at risk of extinction and said it would review the project, a process known as an impact assessment. But the federal government dropped the assessment last year amid a court challenge from Ontario, saying the two levels of government would instead try to iron out their differences in the voluntary working group. The federal government declined a request to restart the impact assessment late last year, citing the working group as one reason a full review would no longer be needed.

The internal document obtained by The Narwhal indicates the two governments are still clashing about the project even as Ontario enters a provincial election campaign — and a federal election likely isn’t far behind.

Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass are both signature projects of the Doug Ford government, and cut through Ontario’s Greenbelt. Map: Jeannie Phan / The Narwhal

In the presentation, Environment and Climate Change Canada said its experts were “not aware of a plan” from Ontario that would “sufficiently” lessen impacts to species at risk. For some species along the route, like the western chorus frog — which the federal government classifies as threatened but is not protected under Ontario law — and a dragonfly called a rapids clubtail, it “may be very challenging or impossible to offset” habitat that’s set to be destroyed by the highway, the experts noted. 

Highway 413 would run across Ontario’s largest remaining patch of habitat vital to the western chorus frog’s survival in the province, destroying an area equivalent to about 30 soccer fields. The federal government warned Ontario in 2023 that minor shifts in the highway’s route would be unlikely to help, as the frog can be impacted by highways up to 2.4 kilometres away. 

Avoiding harm in the first place “will be key,” the presentation said. The federal department recommended Ontario move sections of the highway that pass through at-risk species habitat, outlining specific concerns about the portion of Highway 413 that would pass over the Humber River, which empties into Lake Ontario in Toronto’s west end. 

Another slide in the presentation shows Environment and Climate Change Canada warned Ontario that federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault “must recommend” an emergency order under the Canadian government’s Species At Risk Act “if he is of the opinion that the species faces imminent threats to its survival or recovery.” 

These emergency orders are rarely used, but allow the federal government to impose a stricter set of rules to protect at-risk species on land where the province normally has jurisdiction — Guilbeault issued one in 2021 to conserve western chorus frog habitat in a Montreal suburb. If the federal government were to issue an emergency order for species living along the Highway 413 route, it could substantially delay construction, which the Ford government has said could begin as soon as this year.

The federal government redacted the line about the possibility of an emergency order in the version of the slide deck it released, but it was left in the copy The Narwhal obtained from Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation.

The Narwhal obtained two copies of a slide deck Environment and Climate Change Canada presented to the federal-provincial working group on Highway 413, one from each level of government. A key line about the risk of the federal government issuing an emergency order for species at risk near Highway 413 was redacted in the version released by the federal government (right) but not the one released by the province (left).

Environment and Climate Change Canada “welcomes the opportunity to review and collaborate with Ontario on mitigation plans to reduce this risk,” the slide said. 

The documents don’t show how the province responded to the federal government’s overtures, and it’s not clear whether Ontario’s plans have changed since last June. Ontario’s Transportation Ministry didn’t answer questions about the presentation and whether it changed the route in response. 

Guilbeault’s office redirected questions to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. In a statement, the agency said discussions with Ontario about Highway 413 are ongoing. The agency did not directly answer questions about whether Ontario has heeded the federal government’s suggestions, or if Guilbeault is willing to pursue an emergency order if the two sides can’t agree.

The Ontario government’s own research has confirmed at least 11 species at risk are living along the planned route of Highway 413. Clockwise, they are: butternut tree, bobolink, chimney swift, bank swallow, rapids clubtail, redside dace, western chorus frog, wood thrush, eastern meadowlark, barn swallow and olive-sided flycatcher. Illustration: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

Neither Ontario nor the federal government have given any public sign that the route has been changed, though Ontario announced in December it had finished its initial design for 90 per cent of Highway 413, including all bridges and crossings. Last fall, Ontario also passed Bill 212, which weakened environmental oversight of Highway 413.

The presentation also hinted at another possible roadblock for the highway: under a slide labelled “Policy and Legal Risks,” Environment and Climate Change Canada noted two First Nations — Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and Six Nations of the Grand River — have raised concerns about how Highway 413 could impact Treaty Rights. Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation in particular is concerned its members are losing space for harvesting and ceremonies as projects like the 413 bring more urbanization to their territory, the slide noted. 

Doug Ford’s Highway 413 and bike lane bill prompted internal warnings around Indigenous Rights and federal intervention

Mark LaForme, the executive director of intergovernmental affairs for Mississaugas of the Credit, declined to comment on the document but said he’s disappointed the First Nation wasn’t included in the working group. Highway 413 will directly cross the nation’s territory, and Mississaugas of the Credit have significant concerns about its environmental impacts — especially on waterways.

Highway 413 is expected to cross 95 rivers, creeks and streams, and runoff from roads can drive pollution into watersheds. Harm to those waterways could impact the First Nation’s rights to use the water for sustenance fishing and boating, among other things, LaForme said.

Highway 413 will pass over the Humber River, one of many waterways along its route. The Humber River valley is a major wildlife corridor connecting Lake Ontario to protected Greenbelt land to the north. Photos: Katherine KY Cheng / The Narwhal

“We believe this will have significant impacts on our rights,” he said. “The water is very important to us.”

But when the nation brings up those concerns, its representatives are often speaking to bureaucrats who aren’t decision-makers, while Canada and Ontario talk behind closed doors.

“We were just excluded from that process completely, so we weren’t aware of the working group that Canada and Ontario set up to deal with this,” LaForme said. “Why were we not a part of that group?”

For years, the federal government has warned Ontario that it’s falling short on its consultations with First Nations. LaForme said Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation has been “quite forthcoming” with consultations recently and seems to be taking the process more seriously, though there’s no sign the province intends to change its plans for the 413.

“Doug Ford’s going to build this damn highway, that’s all there is to it,” LaForme said.

Six Nations of the Grand River did not answer an interview request. 

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As Ontario heads into a snap election called for late February, Premier Doug Ford’s environmental track record bears scrutiny, from Highway 413 and the Greenbelt to natural gas and electrification. 

Luckily, we’ve been keeping tabs (and notes) since his second-term win in 2022 — and before that, if you want to peruse Ford’s impacts on green spaces, species at risk of extinction and energy policy during his first term.

Over the last two-and-a-half years, Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have opened up the protected Greenbelt to development, only to reverse course after public outcry. (That was followed, ahem, by a few resignations and investigations.) They’ve also rewritten the rules for conservation authorities, the organizations tasked with protecting watersheds across densely populated parts of the province. 

The Conservatives have made it easier to build highways and natural gas pipelines alike. But they’ve also started to get serious about electric vehicles. After cancelling hundreds of projects back in 2018, they’re even talking about renewable energy again — but tying those ambitions to a critical mineral rush.

Here’s a not-fully comprehensive list — we mostly blame them for that, see #1 — of the Progressive Conservatives’ big environmental moves. 

1. Doug Ford is still changing Ontario environmental policies without meaningfully consulting or notifying the public
2. Doug Ford is looking to rip out downtown Toronto bike lanes
3. Ontario cut into the protected Greenbelt at the request of developers — then reversed course

The year of the Greenbelt: how Doug Ford’s bid to build housing on protected land backfired

1. Ontario made it easier to build on wetlands
2. Ontario gutted conservation authorities to speed up development
3. Doug Ford forced Ontario municipalities to open farmland to development — then flip-flopped

Ontario favoured unnamed third parties over experts when forcing Hamilton to expand: court docs

1. Ontario’s plan for York Region’s sewage threatens the health of the Great Lakes, possibly violating an international agreement

York Region desperately needs increased sewage capacity as it prepares for its population to nearly double by 2051. The Progressive Conservatives’ plan is to pipe it to Durham instead, and then release the treated water into Lake Ontario. Illustration: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

Dereliction of doodie: Ontario’s plans for York Region’s sewage could hurt Great Lakes — and U.S. relations

1. Ontario is bringing back solar and wind power — while also conferring with Enbridge Gas to keep natural gas as a staple of the power grid
2. Ontario is building two highways through the Greenbelt, and changing laws to do it faster

Doug Ford’s Highway 413 and bike lane bill prompted internal warnings around Indigenous Rights and federal intervention

1. The Ontario government is making it easier to open mines — and First Nations don’t like it

Life on the frontlines of Ontario’s critical mineral boom

1. Ontario is moving to speed up environmental assessments — again The Duffins Rouge Agricultural

Preserve in Pickering, east of Toronto, was one of the areas the Doug Ford government removed from the protected Greenbelt, with a developer proposing to build 30,000 homes here. That move has since been reversed. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

1. The Ford government is ending a prohibition on sequestering carbon underground

Governments are investing billions into carbon capture in the Prairies. Here’s what you need to know

1. Ontario begins manifesting its electric vehicle battery bonanza — with more to come
2. Ontario launched a plan and funding for emergencies, including natural disasters
3. Ontario has opened a new provincial park and conservation area — and promised new Muskoka campsites

After coming into power in 2018, the Doug Ford government scrapped existing electric vehicle buyer incentives, by calling it a credit for “millionaires,” and ripped out charging stations. The Ford government has since learned to love electric vehicles, and the economic benefits that come with them. Illustration: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Ontario is ignoring internal advice that supported Indigenous-led conservation

1. Ontario has abandoned a cornerstone of its environment plan, the Carbon Trust
2. Ontario restored some — but not all — of the funding it cut from its Environment Ministry

Ontario is about to slash environmental protections. It already wasn’t funding them, auditor general says

1. Ontario is under fire for its approach to protecting woodland caribou
2. Ontario made more sweeping changes to convert land into suburbs

The lonely Lake Superior caribou and a lesson in limits

1. Ontario made its controversial land zoning orders even stronger — while reversing some previous orders
2. The Progressive Conservatives are redeveloping Ontario Place — without an environmental review of the spa they want to build there

Ontario is trying to make it easier to convert land into new suburbs — again

1. Ontario scrapped plans to reform its lagging recycling system
2. Doug Ford has delayed stronger green building standards

A Lake Superior woodland caribou crosses a narrow straight of water in Slate Islands Provincial Park. The herd is one of many threatened across on Ontario, where the provincial government is facing federal backlash if it doesn’t create more robust protection plans. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

1. The Ford government is proposing to exempt companies that transport hazardous waste from scrutiny
2. Doug Ford wants to ‘streamline’ stormwater management to help developers
3. Ontario imposed a pollution price on industries after losing a court battle with the federal government

—With files from Jacqueline Ronson

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The Narwhal originally published this story based on information from a source with firsthand knowledge of the announcements, who was not authorized to speak publicly on it. The federal government has since made the announcements that confirm our reporting.

Rouge National Urban Park will grow by thousands of hectares, preserving part of a wildlife corridor connecting Lake Ontario to protected land northeast of Toronto.

The expansion news came in twin announcements from the federal government Monday as Transport Canada abandons a plan to build an airport next to the park in Pickering, Ont., east of Toronto. For the last 50 years, Canada has planned to construct the airport on an expanse of agricultural land and green space known as the Pickering Lands — now, most of it will be transferred to Parks Canada instead.

Adding most of the land to the park is a win for conservationists, Indigenous leaders and farmers who have been pushing for decades for the Pickering airport plan to be cancelled. It also guarantees protection for a huge slice of green space in a region that’s also been sought for urban development. 

Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation Chief Kelly LaRocca — whose community is one of 10 in Rouge’s Indigenous advisory circle and has long opposed the Pickering airport — said she hopes the move marks the start of a better path forward. That could include co-management of the land and a First Nation Guardians program, she said in a press release, adding that her nation has asked Parks Canada to work with First Nations to develop a harvesting agreement for the park.

“The region’s natural and agricultural lands are disappearing at an alarming rate,” she said. “This land is a precious resource that can never be replaced.”

For years, Transport Canada has been holding onto a tract of land for a planned airport east of the Scarborough area of Toronto. The majority of that land is now set to be transferred to Parks Canada. Map: Wildlands League

The federal government first expropriated the Pickering Lands in 1972, taking ownership of about 7,500 hectares of prime farmland with plans for an international airport. But the government put that plan on hold in 1975 amid backlash from citizens, instead expanding Toronto Pearson International Airport and leasing the Pickering properties to residents and farmers, including some who had owned them before expropriation. 

As Transport Canada left the plan in limbo for decades, the Pickering Lands have remained undeveloped, a rare pocket of biodiversity close to Toronto. The majority of the land is now within Ontario’s Greenbelt, which the province created in 2005.

The federal government under former prime minister Stephen Harper released about 4,100 hectares of the original Pickering Lands to help form Rouge National Urban Park, which was established in 2015. Other levels of government chipped in as well, and today, the park spans more than 7,900 hectares, straddling Toronto, Pickering and the neighbouring communities of Markham and Uxbridge.

Up until now, Transport Canada held onto about 3,500 hectares in case it needed to build the Pickering airport. But its choice to axe the airport plan entirely means the majority of that land  — including the areas with the highest conservation value — will now be transferred to Parks Canada. The federal government’s intent is for the land to be added to Rouge National Urban Park, pending consultation with Indigenous communities.

It’s not clear exactly how much land will be going to the national park, though the source said Transport Canada intends to hold onto some for now and consult the public about how best to use it.

Parks Canada also announced plans Monday to build a new visitor centre for Rouge National Urban Park. 

The federal government made the announcements Monday to give the public an answer on the future of these lands before a snap provincial election, a source with firsthand knowledge told The Narwhal. Premier Doug Ford has said he intends to call that election on Wednesday, with voting set for Feb. 27. In general, the federal government avoids making local announcements while a provincial election is underway there.

The federal government may also face an election of its own this spring. 

Federal decision will conserve more land in an important wildlife corridor

Various governments have been hinting for years that the writing was on the wall for the Pickering airport idea. A Transport Canada report commissioned in 2016 concluded a new airport wouldn’t be needed in southern Ontario before 2036. The federal department announced a new study in April 2023, saying it could ultimately conclude the project wasn’t necessary. 

Around the same time, Pickering City Council withdrew its support for the project. All the while, advocates have been pushing for the airport lands to be added to Rouge National Urban Park. 

The Pickering Lands are part of the last intact wildlife corridor between Lake Ontario and the Oak Ridges Moraine, a protected rocky ridge to the north that’s also part of the Greenbelt. The corridor allows wildlife — including species at risk — to move between habitats, giving them a stronger chance of survival. The lands are directly beside the existing Rouge National Urban Park, and connected to another part of the Greenbelt to the south known as the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. 

The Pickering Lands are part of an important wildlife corridor connecting to the existing Rouge National Urban Park and the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve. It’s one of the last intact routes for wildlife to move from Lake Ontario to protected land farther north. Photos: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

But over the years, developers and politicians have also said the general area is a prime location for housing development, given how close it is to Toronto’s red-hot housing market. The area was in the spotlight during the 2023 Greenbelt scandal after the Ford government opened the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve for housing development. At the time, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault warned Ontario the biodiversity of the urban national park could be harmed by development in close proximity.

“If there was a large commercial industrial project that was announced on the edge of Banff National Park or Jasper National Park, I think that most Canadians would be outraged from coast to coast to coast,” Guilbeault said in 2023, as he launched a study to take stock of the impacts.

Ford ended up reversing the Greenbelt changes later that year, but his government has continued pushing for more housing construction in Pickering outside of protected areas.

Updated on Jan. 27, 2025, at 5:13 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include comment from the chief of Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, and to reflect that the federal government has confirmed the announcements.

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