Summary

• In 2025, the government under Premier Doug Ford replaced the long-standing Endangered Species Act with the less-stringent Species Conservation Act, despite significant opposition.
• Internal analysis from the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, viewed by The Narwhal and validated by several sources, illustrates the level of concern the proposal saw.
• Of 17,000 comments made in response to the new at-risk species law, 98.98 per cent were opposed.

The Doug Ford government weakened Ontario’s species-at-risk law despite feedback from thousands of residents, conservation experts, municipal representatives, First Nations and more decrying the proposal as “a significant step backward in environmental protection.”

The opposition is outlined in internal analysis by Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks staff that was reviewed and verified by The Narwhal. 

It breaks down the more than 17,000 responses received about the government’s 2025 proposal to replace the Endangered Species Act — once considered the gold standard for at-risk species laws in Canada — with the Species Conservation Act, which removes provincial protection for many species and limits how habitat is considered and protected. 

Most of these responses were received through the provincial environmental registry, where the government is required to post certain changes to environmental regulations. While a summary of the concerns is available for the public to view on the registry, the internal ministry analysis viewed by The Narwhal provides a more granular breakdown, showing the government pushed forward despite overwhelming concern and opposition. 

The internal analysis reveals 98.98 per cent of responses to the proposed changes received were unsupportive. It says that nearly all the responses have “a strong criticism of prioritizing economic growth over environmental stewardship and concerns about the erosion of public trust and accountability.”

The analysis also includes summaries of informational meetings held by the ministry for government staff, as well as environmental experts and industry leaders. It shows there was “confusion” — a repeated word throughout — over many details, including which species were no longer protected and why, and who would be making decisions on permit applications under the new law. 

The new law also introduces an online registration system for permits to harm at-risk species that doesn’t require government review, and “allows most projects to begin as soon as they register,” according to the province. The government has previously said these changes would facilitate “sustainable economic growth.” 

But the internal analysis shows there was little clarity on how this would be achieved before the Species Conservation Act became law in March 2026. 

“The proposed changes are seen as a significant step backward in environmental protection, with potential long-term negative impacts on Ontario’s biodiversity and ecological integrity,” reads the internal ministry analysis from March. 

Neither the Ministry of the Environment nor the premier responded to The Narwhal’s questions before publication. 

Consultation on new at-risk species law drew ‘frustration’

The internal analysis viewed by The Narwhal shows that environmental concerns were repeatedly raised at the Ministry of the Environment’s series of information sessions in the fall of 2025, held for provincial, federal and municipal staff, as well as conservation authorities, conservation experts, mining and development leaders, lawyers and more. 

These stakeholders expressed concern about the effectiveness of the new law, including the lack of accountability mechanisms embedded in it. 

“Multiple questions expressed frustration over … limited opportunity for public input,” the internal analysis says. It also noted that participants of these sessions “questioned the rationale” for exempting development permit applications from public consultation under the new law. 

Federal staff expressed concern over the new law’s move to eliminate provincial recovery plans for endangered species. “A participant wondered how the province will know where it is going in terms of conservation without these plans,” the analysis says. In response, Ministry of the Environment staff explained the province is working on “a more strategic and flexible approach to recovery planning, focusing on high-need species.” 

This isn’t the only criticism of the new species-at-risk law from inside government. The Narwhal previously reported that provincial bureaucrats in Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources advised that the new act “may weaken oversight and accountability,” prior to it being enforced.

Ontario’s public postings on the Species Conservation Act shared some concerns and considerations

The province received comments on the proposed changes to at-risk species protections  when the Species Conservation Act was first proposed via Bill 5 in April 2025, and later when the proposed regulations for the law were released in September 2025. After comment periods on Ontario’s environmental registry close, the government generally provides a summary of comments made and concerns raised at the bottom of the post, as it did for those related to the at-risk species law. 

Under the public summary of comments made on the September posting, the province noted that changes were made to address some of the concerns. Amendments included adding a requirement that a qualified professional develop a conservation plan for affected species, and providing more detail about what types of development activities are permissible under the new law. 

In the past, the level of support and opposition for a government proposal has been shared publicly through the environmental registry. But, as the Auditor General of Ontario has reported, the Ford government has been using the registry selectively. 

In recent years, the government has exempted several projects from posting, including the Ontario Place redevelopment. It has also exempted specific activities: under Bill 5, the omnibus bill designed to expedite development in Ontario, there is no requirement to post applications for permits to harm at-risk species. 

The auditor general has repeatedly called out the Ford government for failing to adhere to its own laws — at times “deliberately” — that require it to meaningfully consult and inform the public through the registry.

In late 2022, for example, the government received more than 30,000 comments about its plans to remove land from the protected Greenbelt. Despite this, “no changes were made to the proposal as a result of public consultation,” the government’s posting on the registry read. One year later, amid public outcry, the province reversed its Greenbelt plan entirely.

Methodology: 

After The Narwhal viewed the internal government analysis on which this story is based, it was verified by speaking to two different sources with knowledge of the matter.Separately, The Narwhal also received feedback on the new Species Conservation Act via freedom of information legislation. The Narwhal reviewed these comments, which included those that are publicly available on the environmental registry, to confirm the volume of opposition highlighted in the internal analysis. 

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Summary

• Wildfires in northern Ontario are putting many First Nations at risk, and two communities have already burned entirely.
• First Nations leaders are criticizing the provincial government’s response to the emergency. They say the government was too slow to identify the risks facing remote First Nations, and that jurisdictional issues prevent First Nations from accessing resources in an emergency. 
• Several First Nations chiefs are calling for the resignation of senior government officials, as well as a public inquiry into the provincial government’s emergency response.

In the summer of 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of Nishnawbe Aski Nation personally presented Ontario Premier Doug Ford with an 82-page plan to support northern Ontario during emergencies, like wildfires. 

The organization that represents 51 northern Ontario First Nations had developed the plan in response to a series of disasters between 2009 and 2019, both from flooding and wildfires, which are laid out across 27 pages. But those past disasters are nowhere near the scale seen this summer alone, with northern Ontario dealing with what’s now estimated to be the worst wildfire season on record.

The framework identified a series of “deficiencies and gaps” in emergency management for First Nation communities. They include a lack of clear roles for the federal and provincial governments in the event of a disaster; a lack of recognition of the unique challenges facing remote Indigenous communities, many of which are not incorporated like a municipality and are hard to access; a lack of pre-disaster resources and funding for both impacted communities and host communities for evacuees; and no legal framework giving First Nations emergency powers to persuade the province to take action. 

The plan includes 20 recommendations, without which “the need for robust and comprehensive First Nation emergency management will continually increase.”

“That was five years ago,” Fiddler told The Narwhal. “There’s been no response.”

Everything that was highlighted in the report, Fiddler said, is coming to a head today in northern Ontario.

In the span of 11 days, two communities — Collins and Whitewater Lake First Nations — have entirely burned down. By last government count, around 1,800 people have been evacuated, though local emergency officials believe this number may be low as they say there is no coherent government-led system to support or track evacuations in remote Indigenous communities. At least 13 other communities are under evacuation orders, eight of which are First Nations, according to Chiefs of Ontario. As of publication time, there remain more than 170 active wildfires, per Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources, in northern Ontario. 

This season’s 562 fires (versus 371 last year and a 358 10-year average) have already burned down an area almost as large as the entire Greater Toronto Area, which, last week, had some of the worst air quality in the world because of wildfire smoke.

The fires are “behaving differently than what we’re used to,” Sharon Bak, an emergency responder based in Thunder Bay with 30 years of experience, including at the provincial level, told The Narwhal. “There have been more ‘hold my breath’ moments than I’m used to.” 

Weather projections started looking deadly on July 12, with Thunder Bay heading into a week of record heat, hitting — and in some places surpassing — 40 C. Low humidity, combined with bone-dry conditions across northern Ontario’s boreal forest, plus a major lightning event and windy conditions the week before, made for a dangerous combination. 

“The signs were all there,” Bak said. 

“This wasn’t the norm,” she added. “With northern Ontario fires, we’re prepared. We expect them. But this isn’t the norm. We’ve had fires that are close to critical infrastructure and areas where people live. We’ve had fires going one way that changed direction overnight to get closer to communities, and fires joining together.”

“That’s some pretty huge red flags that a lot is going on that needs to be monitored,” she said. “The question is, ‘Who is watching the clock?’ ”

While the ignition points of the 2026 wildfire season are outside government control, the consequences — how fast warnings went out, whether crews were adequately resourced, whether First Nations were supported in evacuation decisions — are the parts local officials and Indigenous leaders say were within the province’s control and completely failed this wildfire season. And while it’s been one for the record books, that may not be the case for long as wildfires get more severe and intense every year due to global warming caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

Impacted First Nations communities have reported needing to vacate themselves, not receiving timely and accurate information from government officials and finding spaces to flee to by themselves. 

In the face of this systemic failure, several chiefs are now asking for the resignations of senior government officials — including the Ministry of Natural Resources director of aviation, forest fire and emergency services and the assistant deputy minister overseeing fire operations — and an independent public inquiry into the province’s response writ large.

No one from the office of the premier, the minister of natural resources or the minister of emergency preparedness responded to detailed questions from The Narwhal. In a July 17 press conference, Ford said of First Nations communities, “We’re supplying anything that they need, and they’ll be safe.” 

“The emergency response from both Ontario and Canada have been completely inadequate,” Chief Fiddler said. “I’ve been on Zoom calls with senior government officials asking them basic questions like ‘What is your capacity? How many beds are available? Where are the host sites?’ ”“So far they haven’t given us a response,” he said. “Numbers keep moving, I get it, but you should have a baseline. ‘We don’t have that information’ is not a good baseline when people’s homes and lands are burning down.”

‘It took too long to recognize the danger’: First Nations in northern Ontario describe failed government communication and self-evacuations

At 2:30 p.m. on July 13, Whitesand First Nation’s band manager was informed of a large fire close to their community. A Ministry of Natural Resources official said it would send a helicopter to investigate, and later reported there was no fire despite visible smoke, Chief Lawrence Wanakamik told reporters this week. 

By 4:00 p.m., the nation’s leadership began arranging transportation to Thunder Bay and booking hotels anyway. Some of their members started leaving soon after. 

An hour later, a council member went to a Ministry of Natural Resources meeting, in which they said they were assured their community was safe and there was nothing to worry about. The member “requested the assurances in writing” but never received it, according to Chief Wanakamik. 

At 6:30 p.m., he added, Elders advised the community be evacuated, despite the ministry maintaining that a full evacuation wasn’t needed and that only “vulnerable” people should be moved. (The ministry did not respond to questions about this sequence of events.)

The ministry issued a mandatory evacuation order three hours later. By then, the entire community was already moving away from their homelands. 

“It took too long to recognize the danger, too long to issue a clear direction and too long to order the evacuation,” Chief Wanakamik told reporters on July 21. “Whitesand’s own preparation and decision-making helped prevent an already dangerous situation from becoming worse.” One person, Elder Stella Watson, died in this harrowing experience, he said, adding she was “having a hard time with her breathing from all the smoke.”

Whitesand First Nation wasn’t the only community to experience this provincial emergency response breakdown. Collins, or Namaygoosisagagun, First Nation Chief Helen Paavola said her community, the first to be evacuated, did so without any notice or support. “My community was devastated by a forest fire that overtook the homes with great speed and heat,” she said in the same press conference. “My members barely escaped with the clothes on their backs.”

“This community burned to ash,” she said. “It burnt to the ground because of a failure of the province in their monitoring. And further to that, the emergency management arm of the province also ought to be held accountable for this disaster.”

Her community isn’t formally recognized by the Canadian government, despite predating Canada, which means community members are locked out of disaster-recovery programs now when they need it most, she said. 

Whitewater Lake First Nation Chief Pauline Drake, whose community has also entirely burned down, said they vacated by themselves, with her mother being the last to leave their land. 

“I really wish things were different,” she said. “I wish we could turn back time and go back and be notified. ‘Okay, there’s a fire in your area. Please be ready.’ ”

The three chiefs, along with six others representing communities impacted by wildfires across northern Ontario, all said that no provincial leaders had reached out to them, neither Ford, nor his Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford or Minister of Natural Resources Mike Harris. And they dispute Ford’s narrative that Ontario is doing a great job fighting these fires. 

“The premier may not yet have a full understanding of the extent of the operational dysfunction and systemic issues within the current wildfire management structure,” Chief Wilfred King of Gull Bay First Nation, which has been given an evacuation order, said in the press conference. “What he is saying is not true. … He’s creating the narrative so that he can basically lie to Canadians and lie to the people of Ontario.”

“What’s required is a complete overhaul of the system,” he said.

‘There’s been limited capacity in the system for a long time’: Ford government hasn’t fully implemented auditor general recommendations

This pattern of failed communications, lacklustre response and poor planning has been a feature of Ontario’s emergency response system for over two decades — and “all the gaps show this time,” Bak said. 

A 2005 internal government review showed the emergency processes and funding were “not currently sufficient to ensure that Ontarians and the resources of the province are adequately protected against emergencies and disasters.” That review itself was cited in a 2017 auditor general report that noted the cabinet committee on emergency management had not met once in five years. In 2022, the auditor general made 30 recommendations to improve the process, noting that it took longer than four hours to dispatch fire crews to 15 per cent of fires from 2017 to 2021.

“Establishing effective emergency management programs can save lives and better protect property and the environment,” the 2022 report said. “More needs to be done to assess the risks of natural hazards so that the province is ready to respond quickly to future environmental events and to make sure we don’t repeat past mistakes.”

As of two years ago, the auditor general found the government has “made little or no progress” on implementing most of their recommendations over the years. 

“There’s been limited capacity in the system for a long time,” Bak said.

Chiefs say that’s left northern Ontario particularly vulnerable as there has been no full-time emergency management coordinator. There are no resources available and ready to mobilize over a much larger geography if needed, they say, adding there is no regional response centre or controlled coordination system. And there is no ready list of resources, including hotels and donated goods and services, for those who have to respond in real-time. 

“The fires this year overwhelmed communities faster,” Bak said. “And there was a delay in acknowledging the problem and delivering the resources we needed.”

Yet, there were recent signs that this trend was shifting. 

Emergency response has generally been undertaken by a stand-alone government agency under the solicitor general, one of the structural issues identified by the auditor general. That changed in March 2025 when the Ford government elevated it into its own ministry, with resources, employees, modernized legislation and a new volunteer organization called Ontario Corps. This new Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response works with other ministries depending on the type of emergency; in northern Ontario, that particularly includes the Ministry of Natural Resources, which manages and monitors forests and fires. 

Emergency Preparedness Minister Jill Dunlop told CBC As It Happens that the government’s response is focused on safety. She said the ministry regularly conducts “after-action reviews” following emergencies and that any communication or coordination concerns “will be considered as part of that process.”

But when pressed about why First Nations were left in the dark during the worst of the wildfires, one of her staff pulled her off the air.

Emergency response in First Nations continues to be broken

Ontario’s emergency response also depends on federal funding, an agreement which assumes provinces have a robust system they can use to respond to disaster scenarios. In other words, Ottawa funds emergency response to First Nations, but Ontario controls the decisions about how that response gets executed. 

Fiddler believes part of why the system is broken is because the First Nations are not at the table in making those decisions. As outlined in the Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s report, Ontario’s entire emergency management system is built for municipalities, and First Nations don’t fit that model — legally, financially or structurally.

To start, a First Nation’s declaration of emergency has no impact on the political system; it doesn’t unlock funding or resources, or force higher levels of government into action. 

Financially, there’s not enough money being spent in the right places, the plan notes. Using federal data from 2012 to 2016, it shows Ontario received 31 per cent of all national emergency management funding for First Nations, with the vast majority going to response and recovery, not prevention or mitigation. Meanwhile, the government has consistently underbudgeted for fire response: in the 2025 budget, the Ford government allotted $135 million for its emergency forest firefighting fund, but ended up spending double that: $271 million.

And then there’s the matter of human resources. Citing the 2020 auditor general report, Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s plan notes that in 2021 Ontario had one field officer per 1.8 million residents, versus one for 137,000 residents in B.C. and one for 273,000 in Alberta. These field officers only show up during emergencies, allowing for little trust-building or preparedness before communities. 

And per Ontario’s emergency response rules, municipalities are expected to self-fund emergency management partly through property taxes and can apply for provincial disaster assistance after the fact. But almost no First Nations in Ontario have a property tax regime, so this financing model doesn’t support them.

Compounding all this is the fact that wildfires in northern Ontario often shut down access to remote communities. That means wildfires cut off an entire essential supply chain of food and medicine. For that reason, Neskantaga First Nation declared a state of emergency this week and has begun evacuating its members. 

These issues are all playing out in northern Ontario right now, with local responders and Indigenous members left asking questions about one central theme: “Why have we been left all alone?” 

“Doug Ford talks a lot about our critical minerals and other resources in our territories,” Fiddler said. “He comes this way when it’s for photo opportunities and cutting ribbons and shaking hands with people in these communities. But when it comes to climate change and its impacts, I haven’t heard him make any commitment.” 

Ford has said he will propose a national fire strategy at a meeting of First Ministers and Prime Minister Mark Carney in Charlottetown this week. But for many people The Narwhal spoke with, that’s not the solution; it’s merely passing the buck. Especially as northern Ontario’s calls to declare a provincial state of emergency, which would theoretically unlock resources, go unheeded. 

“Everything starts at the local level, especially responses to emergencies like wildfires,” Bak said. “You think of what happened at Fort McMurray and Jasper, and you thank God it hasn’t happened here. Well, now it’s happened here and it’s clear we didn’t learn anything.”

Updated on July 23, 2026, at 4:47 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to clarify that the current wildfire season in Ontario is estimated to be the worst in terms of the amount of land burnt, but not lives lost.

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Summary

• On Wednesday, Toronto’s air quality was the worst in the world, as wildfire smoke from northern Ontario blanketed the city. 
• Research suggests even moderate levels of wildfire smoke can pose significant health risks.
• The federal government uses the Air Quality Health Index to communicate the severity of air pollution. The higher the index score, the more precautions people — especially those with health conditions — should take to stay safe and comfortable.

On Tuesday, Sol Mamakwa was driving to Thunder Bay, Ont., sunshine behind him, darkness ahead. 

The Ontario NDP MPP represents the large, remote northwestern Ontario region that is currently burning at extreme rates. More than 100 active wildfires in his riding have displaced six communities so far, and put dozens more under threat as temperatures reached close to 40 C on July 15.”

Meanwhile, choking smoke from these fires has spread more than 1,000 kilometres away, making Toronto’s air quality one of the worst in the world. (On Wednesday, it was even the worst in the world and hospital visits are on the rise.) 

Ontario is not the only province burning. Per the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System, 858 active forest fires across the country have impacted 2.4 million hectares to date; 111 of these fires are considered out of control. Such wildfires are fuelled by warmer-than-average temperatures and drier conditions which make forests more prone to burning and lead to fires spreading faster and further. 

This year, there have already been 483 wildfires recorded inside Ontario’s fire region, compared to 351 last year and the 10-year average of 320. The number of fires has been climbing sharply, with 31 new fires discovered in a single day earlier this week.

“It’s eerie to be in my part of Ontario right now,” Mamakwa told The Narwhal. “The situation is unprecedented, and it’s getting worse.”

As the number of wildfires grows, so do the health risks of smoke, which is more toxic than normal pollution as it can linger in the air for weeks and travel thousands of kilometres. 

“Wildfires in my region have gotten worse and are getting worse,” Mamakwa said. “It needs to be treated like the emergency it is. Every possible measure needs to be taken to keep our communities safe.” 

Here are some things you need to know.

Wildfire smoke may increase health risks

Wildfire smoke continues to cloud much of Ontario, forcing people to stay inside as much as possible. 

This kind of smoke has three main ingredients. There are gases, such as carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds, like benzene, toluene and butene. There is also particulate matter, which can include soot, dust, pollen and spores, as well as chemical particles. The particles are classified according to size and fine particulates — the really tiny ones, less than 2.5 microns in diameter and typically referred to as PM2.5 — pose the greatest threats to human health because they can travel deeper into the lungs than larger ones.

The more particulates in the air, the hazier it becomes. Extremely poor air quality due to wildfire smoke is hard to ignore, often resulting in new reports and public health warnings to stay indoors and take precautions.

Research suggests even moderate levels of wildfire smoke can pose significant health risks, especially for people with chronic lung diseases like asthma or emphysema that make them more vulnerable to negative health impacts. Fine particulates found in smoke and other types of air pollution have been linked to damage in several organ systems, including the heart, brain and reproductive system.According to a study by the Canadian Climate Institute, long-term exposure to increased toxic wildfire smoke is associated with an estimated 2,500 premature deaths annually in Canada. The study found wildfire smoke caused an estimated total of $5.3 billion in acute health damages between 2014 and 2025.

Most air quality advisories in Canada are now the result of wildfires, not other pollution

Wildfires are now the most common reason for air quality advisories, which are issued when concentrations of particulate matter and hazardous gases rise to levels that can negatively impact human health.

To help Canadians understand the health risks stemming from current air conditions, authorities use the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI), a colour-coded scale of one to 10 (with a plus sign if it’s off the charts), based on concentrations of ozone, particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide — the pollutants found to have the greatest health impacts. 

The higher the health index score, the greater the risk and the more precautions people — especially those with health conditions that make them vulnerable to poor air quality — may need to take to stay safe and comfortable. Avoiding polluted air by staying inside and using air purifiers is the most effective protection but avoiding strenuous outdoor activity and wearing a respirator can also help.

Small amounts of wildfire smoke also come with long-term health risks

At the University of British Columbia, physician Chris Carlsten is leading an effort to shed light on how wildfire smoke affects human health over the short and long term. His team was recently awarded a federal grant to support its work.

Carlsten said the team is focusing on chronic exposure to any amount of wildfire smoke versus acute exposure to high levels, even though the short-term peaks are “problematic.” 

“There may be more health effects, ultimately, from the more common but lower-concentration exposures,” Carlsten said in an interview. The team will also explore how wildfire smoke affects people differently based on age, sex, genetics, exercise habits and socio-economic status.

Better data will help improve public health policy and planning when wildfires flare, allowing people to make more informed choices about how to reduce their risk.

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Federal Minister of Indigenous Services Mandy Gull-Masty has unveiled a new and long-awaited bill to provide safe drinking water to First Nations, which she says was written to ensure “we have provincial partners at the table.” Ontario chiefs say they were shut out and their right to clean water was not recognized. 

Gull-Masty denied her government caved to provincial pressure in Bill C-37, or An Act respecting water, source water, drinking water, wastewater and related infrastructure on First Nation lands, that sets out principles to provide safe drinking water and disposal of wastewater for First Nations.

“My conversations with leadership and the chiefs that have spoken to me understand that we are trying to pass a bill that is going to be protected and stand the test of time,” the minister said at a press conference on Parliament Hill on June 16.

“I’m not trying to put a bill forward that is going to be challenged,” she said. “I’m trying to put a bill forward that partners, provinces and territories feel can advance, that they can work with us.”

The Chiefs of Ontario, however, say First Nations were not consulted in the process. The group is “cautiously optimistic” but remains concerned about the approach to this issue by the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney.“Unlike previous legislative efforts, which were developed through meaningful dialogue and partnerships with First Nations Knowledge Keepers [and] technicians, Bill C-37 was introduced without broad or meaningful input from First Nations,” Linda Debassige, Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief, and a member of the Chiefs of Ontario leadership council, said in a Tuesday press conference in Rama, Ont. 

“Our letters of advocacy have been met with a deafening silence, to be honest. We do not have access to parliamentary privileged dialogue or cabinet discussions in relation to this.”

It’s been over a year since the Liberal Party promised in their election platform to “immediately introduce and pass legislation affirming that First Nations have a human right to clean drinking water.” In the last six months, two First Nations in northern Ontario have declared severely worsening water crises due to failed infrastructure; one of the communities, Kashechewan, remains entirely evacuated.

The bill released this week states that the quality of water on First Nations lands must at minimum meet either federal guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality and for wastewater, or the standards in place in the province or territory where the lands are located. It’s backed by $4.6 billion for First Nations communities to build, operate and maintain water and wastewater systems, according to the press release, which adds to the $9.4 billion committed to these projects over the past decade.

The minister will still have to come out with regulations for a “protection zone,” which the bill leaves undefined. The use of these zones would hand First Nations jurisdiction over water sources adjacent to their lands — that is, if the nation and the federal and provincial governments have all agreed on the rules in force. 

“We have to acknowledge that [water] is not stagnant, it moves around,” Gull-Masty said. “For water that is adjacent or flowing in and out, I think that the important part of the work that we’re undertaking is that partners and territories understand that they also have a role to play.”

In addition to defining “protection zones,” the bill empowers the minister to come out with regulations on a dozen different aspects of water services, including source water protections, training and certification, occupational health and safety, monitoring and inspections, emergency planning, permitting and more. The government can even design regulations to govern the disclosure of information.

But the bill doesn’t commit to the same kind of rights language that the Liberals promised in their platform. Instead, it declares that the government’s policy is to “further the progressive realization, for individuals on First Nation lands, of the human right to safe drinking water as protected by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.” That covenant is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations that came into force in the 1970s.

“To me, [this] is insane,” Debassige told reporters. “It’s been a progressive realization for many of our nations for decades.”

Debassige has been working on First Nations water issues for more than a decade and has been involved in negotiations over previous federal bills on the matter. She said that by excluding language like “in collaboration with First Nations” in Gull-Masty’s new legislation, the Carney government is “hiding from their obligations.” 

“We must remember that most of the drafters of Bill C-37 have never spent time in our community,” she said, citing the speedy passage of the federal Bill C-5 and the provincial Bill 5, both of which aim to “fast-track” infrastructure and mining approvals and construction. “And we’ve seen the pushback on the previous iteration of this bill. And now we see the results of that weakening of our inherent rights to pave way for economic development.” 

“I think it’s a deflection of responsibility, a fear of provinces, a fear of nation-building projects not coming through because our nations want to protect water.” 

The bill comes as tensions grow over these issues between the federal government, provincial governments and First Nations. 

Some chiefs, particularly in Treaty 8 territory, which spans northern B.C., Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, asked the federal government to rethink its approach. Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation’s chief said the bill didn’t meaningfully incorporate inherent and Treaty Rights to water while Mikisew Cree First Nation’s chief said the bill didn’t do enough to deal with the potential release of oilsands wastewater into rivers.

Last July, the environment ministers from Ontario and Alberta asked the federal government to “refrain” from introducing a new First Nations water bill, claiming it would “undermine competitiveness, delay project development and disproportionately harm specific provinces and territories without any quantifiable benefits to the natural environment.” 

Ontario’s Environment Minister Todd McCarthy apologized for any “confusion” the request may have caused First Nations. But First Nations have not been convinced by the apology. The Ontario government has skirted meaningful consultation with First Nations in its push to open the Ring of Fire region in northern Ontario, with significant implications for water use and sources, and broadly speed up mining approvals and development. It has also signalled its own plans to make broad changes to provincial clean water rules.

As Canada and Ontario rush to expedite major projects, including in the mining sector, First Nations have long been asking for the same expediency to pass laws to protect drinking water before shovels hit the ground. With a few days left before MPs are scheduled to rise for the summer, this bill is unlikely to become law before the fall. 

“I wish one of Canada’s major projects were to provide us clean drinking water,” Knowledge Keeper Sally Gaikezheyongai said, as she offered a prayer to begin the Tuesday press conference by the Chiefs of Ontario. “I ask the Creator to make sure that happens hopefully within my lifetime.” 

Why does Canada need a law to protect access to clean drinking water on First Nations? 

Indigenous Services Canada reports that there are 36 Indigenous communities that have been under orders for more than a year to boil their drinking water for one minute. Most of these communities are in Ontario. The longest-standing boil water advisory is for Neskantaga First Nation in northern Ontario, just south of the Ring of Fire region. It hasn’t had clean drinking water since 1995. (The federal count is not comprehensive, as some jurisdictions, such as B.C., track their own boil-water advisories in Indigenous communities.)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to end all these boil-water advisories by March 31, 2021, but did not succeed. Post-colonization, and as stated in the Indian Act, the federal government has a fiduciary obligation to ensure safe, potable drinking water for First Nations. Instead, there is a regulatory black hole for and chronic underinvestment in on-reserve water and wastewater services.

A month before Trudeau’s deadline, a government audit found that Indigenous Services Canada “did not provide the support necessary to ensure that First Nations communities have ongoing access to safe drinking water,” thus prolonging boil water advisories. 

The impacts of these failures are severe, including preventable illnesses, costly reliance on bottled water and long-term evacuations. 

Kashechewan First Nation, a community of 2,000 residents, has been entirely evacuated since January due to a catastrophic sewage pump failure. There is still no access to safe drinking water on their reserve. 

In May, Pikangikum First Nation declared a second state of emergency, a year after the original declaration, due to collapsing water and wastewater systems. The community’s only water treatment plant is operating beyond capacity, even as more than 300 homes remain without direct water service. The community’s reservoir is also at critically low levels and is losing water at a rate roughly four times greater than it can be filled.As a result, the nearly 4,000 on-reserve residents are dealing with daily water rationing and forced evening shutdowns. As wildfire season looms, Pikangikum is now suing the federal government. 

“It’s so important that we take action as a country, as First Nations leadership, to ensure that there are no more Kashechewans, that there are no more Pikangikums,” Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, told reporters. 

“It’s unacceptable that this is a reality that many of our communities are being put in: to try to negotiate on big, major nation-building projects while they’re trying to make sure that their children and their youth can have access to water to drink.”

Why is the federal law to protect clean drinking water on First Nations so delayed?

There have been different iterations of this legislation, Kathleen Padulo, director of environment for the Chiefs of Ontario, told The Narwhal in a conversation before Bill C-37 was released, but none have proved durable.

Since the 1970s, the federal government has been promising to provide Indigenous communities with water and wastewater systems equal to those enjoyed by most Canadians, but no matter which party is in power, it has continuously fallen short of that goal. 

In 2013, the Stephen Harper government passed the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act. This law created a regulatory regime to govern water infrastructure on First Nations lands, but without any financial backing or centring Indigenous decision-making or rights. It also didn’t protect the sources of water flowing onto First Nation lands.

“It had no teeth, and it was really watered down,” Padulo said. “It was a piece of paper just floating around for years.” 

As a result, this law was met with widespread disapproval from First Nations. Several, including Neskantaga, launched a class action lawsuit in 2019, claiming “Canada has been negligent, breached its fiduciary duties, breached the honour of the Crown and breached various rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Ottawa settled that lawsuit in 2021, agreeing to provide $1.8 billion in compensation and spend $6 billion on water infrastructure over nine years. The federal government also promised to repeal and replace the Conservative law. 

That didn’t happen until 2023 when the Trudeau government introduced Bill C-61, or the First Nations Clean Drinking Water Act. The landmark bill involved First Nations in its creation, doing so over a two-year-long consultation and co-development process. This bill established clean drinking water as a human right, set minimum standards for drinking water and wastewater on reserves and pledged funding for water-related infrastructure. This bill also created an Indigenous-led First Nations Water Commission to help implement the law and monitor its impact. 

After weeks of consultation with First Nations, the bill did not pass before Parliament was prorogued in January 2025. Then-Indigenous services minister Patty Hajdu said the delay was the fault of opposition parties. 

Padulo said they’ve been waiting for this bill to re-emerge and be passed “with the speed of light like Bill C-5” and then put it in place in communities right away. 

“What is happening here is colonization at the end of the day, that’s what it is,” Padulo said. “And Canadians not understanding that not everybody has basic human rights.”

What happens next?

Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Debassige is asking the government to ensure “sufficient engagement” with First Nations as this bill goes through the parliamentary process, urging the government to move quickly from legislation to action. 

“We’re cautiously optimistic,” she said, but with the Liberals holding a majority government, “It’s going to be a difficult process.”

“Water is a human right. Full stop,” Debassige said. “We are looking to Canada to help us champion a shift from the outdated and colonial perspectives of First Nations being viewed as second-class citizens to ensuring our people can enjoy the same clean and safe drinking water guaranteed to non-First Nations across this country.” 

Gull-Masty said the government supports consultations with First Nations governing bodies to develop the many regulations that the bill authorizes. 

Ontario Regional Chief Abram Benedict told reporters that the government needs to focus on accountability to ensure First Nations communities have “confidence in the drinking water.”  

“We are calling on the federal government to move swiftly from legislation to action. The goal must not only be to eliminate advisories, but to prevent new ones from coming on,” he continued. “Legislation is only the beginning of ending these challenges.”

“Our communities have waited long enough.” 

Updated on June 16, 2026, at 8:40 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include the amount of federal funding dedicated to building, maintaining and operating water and wastewater infrastructure in First Nations communities as part of Bill C-37.

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Summary

• The amalgamation of Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities into nine regional bodies is expected to take effect in early 2027.
• A new directive from Environment Minister Todd McCarthy orders conservation authorities to halt any major decision-making processes, such as changing staffing structures or purchasing property, in the meantime.
• After a meeting between Environment Ministry officials and conservation authority staff on May 6, 2026, one public servant told The Narwhal, “The province has essentially handcuffed conservation authorities.”

On Friday, May 1, Ontario Environment Minister Todd McCarthy sent a letter to all conservation authority heads directing them to halt any “significant financial, asset or employment decisions” as the government begins consolidating the agencies tasked with protecting watersheds. 

The letter signals that the work to amalgamate authorities from 36 to nine, and shift oversight to a new government agency that takes direction from McCarthy’s office, has begun. 

Five days later, senior ministry officials told authority staff in an internal meeting that this reorganization will be complicated and still contains many unknowns. 

The directives “were not easy to write,” a senior official said at the meeting. “I’ll be frank to say that this required us to get into the [conservation authority] business in a way that we as a ministry aren’t typically.”

A recording of that meeting, which included discussion of the consolidation on drinking water protections, was shared with The Narwhal by one participant and independently verified by another. The Narwhal is not identifying the officials who led the meeting by name to respect their privacy as public sector workers with limited authority.

In it, a director in the ministry’s conservation and source protection branch notes the directive McCarthy sent out to authorities was not meant to affect the day-to-day business of conservation authorities, but to “put some guardrails in place that would sort of mitigate against any decision, like extraordinary decisions that would not be to the benefit of the regional [conservation authority].” 

Such guardrails are common in government-initiated mergers, the official said, to protect agencies and organizations from decisions that may harm their consolidated form. A staff member from McCarthy’s office, speaking unofficially, told The Narwhal this is “standard operating practice” for any amalgamation, designed to “essentially keep things stable.”  

Rhonda Bateman, chief administrative officer of Lower Trent Conservation, said in an email to The Narwhal, “It was not a surprise. We were expecting some direction.” 

“When businesses amalgamate or are merged, there needs to be a baseline of information available and I believe this is the intent behind the direction,” she said.

Along with the recording, The Narwhal was sent a copy of McCarthy’s letter, which was later publicly posted by the ministry. The Narwhal reached out to 10 conservation authority officials for comment, with most saying they were not allowed to comment, could not comment for fear of repercussions or were still trying to understand the implications of the directive. Five people agreed to speak to The Narwhal for this story, all on the condition of confidentiality. 

“The province has essentially handcuffed conservation authorities,” one public servant who attended the meeting told The Narwhal. “Conservation authorities are not in control now [of the consolidation], and it seems that they won’t be in control moving forward.” 

One conservation authority official in central Ontario said they were “surprised” by the “sweeping” nature of the directive, and felt that the consolidation was “out of our hands.”  

Conservation authorities are tasked with protecting Ontario watersheds by safeguarding local drinking water sources and reducing the risks from natural hazards like flooding, erosion and drought. The government’s move to amalgamate them from 36 agencies to nine is the biggest disruption since the agencies were created 80 years ago, and has created widespread concern about their continued ability to preserve access to fresh water for more than 80 per cent of Ontario residents.

The government’s 2026 budget officially greenlit the consolidation and gave the environment minister powers to issue directives as needed. It also created a new Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency, which will oversee the 36 conservation authorities during the transition, under the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks. This agency will work with Hassaan Basit, a longtime conservation authority official who is now the province’s chief conservation executive, and is staffed by a handful of bureaucrats, with a five-person board of directors made up of deputy ministers from other ministries. The agency’s goal is to see resources equally shared among the consolidated conservation authorities.

McCarthy’s first directive on the consolidation restricts conservation authorities’ actions to what has already been set out in their 2026 budgets. That includes making any changes to staff or governance structure, acquiring or disposing of any land, approving any new projects (like wells, for example) or making major purchases without explicit authorization from the government.

The official from McCarthy’s office told The Narwhal they expect conservation authorities to be able to do things that are beyond their budget. “We’ll likely approve it,” they said. “Conservation authorities remain independent.” They also noted that the restrictions don’t apply to land donations, as “they are not an expense.” 

The directive notes there will also be exceptions in responding to “an immediate danger to human life, health or property.” The official from McCarthy’s office said, for example, this could be “if the conservation authority has a dam and the dam is on the verge of breaking and they need to make emergency repairs.” 

These restrictions are in place until at least Feb. 1, 2027, when the consolidation is expected to take effect. They can be amended any time “at the sole discretion of the minister,” according to the letter.

Ontario’s drinking water is tied up in conservation authority changes but officials have few details

The details of how McCarthy’s directive will affect conservation authorities’ work protecting drinking water remain unclear. 

The authorities work closely with community-led source protection committees, which include directors from industries like agriculture, manufacturing and tourism to protect and properly manage drinking water. 

The province’s 19 source protection committees were created on the heels of the deadly water contamination crisis in Walkerton, Ont. They are supported by staff from conservation authorities, who provide data and carry out protective actions as the source protection authority.

The Narwhal reported in April on the impacts of consolidation on source protection committees, and the fact that 15 of the 19 committees had vacant chair positions. The government began seeking people to fill the chair positions soon after.

Many source protection staff were in attendance at the May 6 meeting hosted by Ministry of Environment officials after McCarthy’s directive was issued. 

In the recording of the meeting, ministry officials are heard assuring attendees that they were happy to keep working with conservation authority staff, and that the government remains committed to preserving drinking water protections. But the officials repeatedly said things are still being figured out, with “a range of scenarios” being considered. They acknowledged the lack of answers was “not terribly reassuring” and “anxiety producing, probably” for conservation authorities.  

During the two-hour meeting, ministry officials did not answer direct questions about whether the source protection regions would also be consolidated. 

“I think that is probably the first question that needs to be answered, and we can’t answer it,” the official responded. “Obviously, that has to come from the decisions from whoever is making them.”

McCarthy previously told The Narwhal the 19 source protection committees will remain as they are and work with the nine regional conservation authorities, but said their jurisdictions are “a work in progress.” The government has said changes to the Clean Water Act will be needed but hasn’t specified what those changes will be.  

“We’ve got eight months to sort out the details,” the official from McCarthy’s office told The Narwhal. “The point is not to rush this. We just started the process.”

During the meeting, ministry officials gave two explanations for their inability to answer attendees’ questions. First, they said they weren’t directly part of the decision-making process as the transition is being run by the new Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency, “not the ministry.” And second, they cited cabinet confidentiality, referring to private policy deliberations between Premier Doug Ford, his ministers and senior ministry officials. 

“Typically, sometimes the reason you have to, like, back away and stop engaging is because things become cabinet confidential at a certain point,” a senior official said in the meeting. “I’m not allowed, right? Because it’s become a cabinet process.”

They continued that staff in the ministry were working to ensure source protection plans, for example, weren’t being unnecessarily rewritten, though much of the consolidation process was still being sorted out.

“This isn’t a change many people were asking for and want necessarily, and I fully appreciate that I can’t necessarily know what all this means to you,” one official said in the meeting. They added that they hoped to help conservation authorities understand “what our thinking has been around the transition planning.”

“This is a government that is set to do this,” the official said. “This is happening.”

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Summary

• With the climate changing and energy demands increasing, many cities set out energy efficiency and other green requirements for new builds.
• Across Ontario, cities have also created grants and other programs to help home and business owners retrofit older buildings with things like heat pumps or insulation.
• The Ford government’s Bill 98 will prevent municipalities from requiring new builds to be green, meaning a whole new generation of buildings could be added to the retrofit backlog.

Over the past decade, Ontario municipalities — and the taxpayers who foot their bills — have spent tens of millions of dollars retrofitting buildings to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

Local governments across southern Ontario have given homeowners grants to transition houses away from natural gas, protect them from extreme temperatures and safeguard their basements from flooding. Businesses have used such funds to cut office energy consumption, reduce the risk of birds crashing into their windows and increase access to nature around their buildings. 

For cities, the idea was simple: fortify structures built before the climate emergency and create rules that ensure new development is prepared for it to worsen. 

At the local level, there’s been broad demand for the initiatives, and positive outcomes as a result. 

In Kingston, Ont., one homeowner lowered the annual emissions of their 1,500-square-foot semi-detached house by 91 per cent by replacing windows, installing a heat pump and insulating the attic, basement and exterior walls. And that translates directly to lower energy bills.

In Toronto, more than 4,000 development projects have met the city’s green standards, which have been in place since 2010. These rules mandate that each building has shared outdoor spaces that aren’t covered by concrete or asphalt, but permeable coverings that absorb stormwater to prevent flooding, among other eco-friendly features. 

Yet despite the climate imperative and public interest, the ability of cities to incentivize greener builds like these is about to get a lot more complicated — and costly in the long run.

Earlier this month, the Doug Ford government introduced new legislation that would block municipalities from taking action to ensure future development is sustainable. The government’s Bill 98, the Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act, prevents Ontario cities from requiring developers to include electric-vehicle parking spots or bird-friendly windows, among other things. If the majority Progressive Conservative government passes this bill, local governments won’t even be able to require trees on residential properties.

The Narwhal spoke to four officials who serve in the planning or environment departments of Ontario cities, all of whom asked for confidentiality as they weren’t authorized to speak on the issue. All four said their teams are still analyzing the impacts of Bill 98 to properly respond to the government’s proposal, but that ultimately, they expect local budgets to absorb the likely higher — and unavoidable — costs of deep retrofits. 

“Anything that we require as a standard to protect the environment or reduce emissions through the planning process, we could no longer do if this bill passes as is — including requiring developers to make sure there’s a tree in every yard,” one rural Ontario official said in an interview. “That essentially means that we can’t hold developers accountable, and we’ll have to spend money ourselves to fix what they don’t do. So brace for impact, I guess.” 

Municipal green standards developed in place of scant provincial requirements for building efficiency

For more than a decade, green standards were adopted in either mandatory or voluntary forms by Ontario cities including Toronto, Mississauga, Halton Hills, Markham, Vaughan and Richmond Hill. 

Cities across Durham Region, including Whitby, Ajax and Pickering, for example, have standards for private development that promote green roofs, urban forest protection, stormwater management, renewable energy systems and green spaces. These have been implemented as Durham as a whole develops a green development program for new builds, in an effort to have 100 per cent of new housing achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. 

These cities introduced their standards in part because the provincial building code hasn’t been updated since 2017 and makes no mention of eco-friendly features. It came under scrutiny from the provincial auditor general in 2020 for not being strong enough to substantively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Buildings are the source of 24 per cent of Ontario’s emissions, mainly from the use of fossil fuels like natural gas for heating. And these emissions are likely to increase as the province encourages faster construction to support a rapidly growing population, without requiring energy efficiency. 

If Bill 98 passes, developers would only be held to that now decade-old rulebook on building standards. Municipalities would be thwarted in their efforts to keep new building emissions down. The province recognized this in its own analysis of the changes, stating that ending green standards will result in not just “shifting burden from the development sector to municipalities for sustainability measures” but “unintended environmental impacts.”

“Unfortunately, right now, the only way that municipalities can really afford to build those kinds of infrastructure projects is by borrowing money, incurring debt and then paying it over time … or through development charges,” Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti said last week, explaining why he opposed the bill’s provisions on green standards. 

“We do not have to turn our back on environmental standards,” Scarpitti said. “The environmental standards can actually be set, and then those projects will meet them.” 

Cities have already been trying to soften the blow of energy efficiency costs on developers. Local green standards are often tied with financial incentives to urge developers to make the shift to greener construction. In 2021, the City of Kingston created a program that offers property tax rebates to builders and private developers who voluntarily construct buildings that strive for net-zero emissions. 

Toronto’s green standards offer a partial refund on development charges for buildings that meet their rules. The more rules a building meets, the higher the refund. Since its inception, this scheme has delivered almost $120 million in refunds to developers.

The success of these programs has inspired other Ontario municipalities to begin working on their own green standards. That includes Hamilton, Ottawa, Waterloo Region, Guelph, Clarington and Oshawa. But their efforts have been paused since Bill 98 was proposed, because it makes building green more complicated.

Ottawa officials, for example, have noted the bill would prevent municipalities from even asking developers to include electric-vehicle spaces in their buildings, even though a process for putting them in place has already been developed.

In an April 8 memorandum, Marcia Wallace, general manager of planning, development and building services for the City of Ottawa, said staff would explore “enabling approaches” like partnerships with the private sector and financial incentives. It did not note whether those incentives could come from taxpayers’ dollars.

Axing green standards means Ontario municipalities have to spend more taxpayer money on building retrofits 

It’s difficult to quantify the cost of building sustainably from the get-go, which depends on size, location and other factors. One study from The Atmospheric Fund in 2012 and another from City of Toronto staff in 2017 suggest the cost of construction would increase by two to four per cent, depending on the building type and community. 

What’s more certain is that retrofitting existing buildings to both lower emissions and withstand some of the symptoms of climate change is a lot more expensive than building green from the start. One Canadian green homebuilder says retrofits can be 50 per cent more expensive. A 2023 study by United Way Greater Toronto estimates a deep energy retrofit of an existing apartment building in Toronto would cost $200,000 per unit.

And all of that is cheaper than leaving homeowners to rebuild after severe flooding. Flood insurance premiums in Ontario have jumped up to 26 per cent in the last two years, according to a new report by a Canadian real estate firm and insurance-rate aggregator.

Many Ontario municipalities are already spending millions to retrofit public buildings and incentivize companies and homeowners to do the same. Now, rather than being able to shrink that budget over time as modern buildings are made more resilient, cities are looking at an exponential growth in cost. 

Guelph and Kingston, for example, have robust home retrofit programs that have been financed to the tune of millions of dollars with support from the federal government. Residents have been eager to take them up on it. 

In April 2022, Kingston’s local retrofit program had to be paused due to “overwhelming interest” resulting in a lengthy waitlist. As of October 2024, it had supported 250 projects. These programs, and several others aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions, fall under the city’s climate leadership division, which in 2025 had a budget of more than $800,000. That works out to $11 on the average tax bill, according to the budget. For a city of 130,000 people, with a limited tax base, that investment is paying off. 

In Guelph, 637 households have registered for this kind of funding and 448 have either completed their retrofits or are currently doing so.  

In Durham Region, more than 1,600 residents have signed up to lower energy consumption and reduce emissions. By 2023, almost 200 retrofits had been completed. In 2024, the region expanded the program to include commercial buildings. 

One Greater Toronto Area official said they expect demand for retrofits to increase if Bill 98 passes: “If there’s no way for us to ensure development is done according to the needs of the climate emergency, I imagine we’ll have more buildings to retrofit than we can handle in the very near future.”

The costs of doing so will ultimately be borne by taxpayers, especially as the province is still in the process of amending its own building code to acknowledge the realities of how climate change will affect buildings across Ontario.

“The building code will be updated. We’re going to go through it section by section,” Ontario Housing Minister Rob Flack told The Narwhal last week. “With respect to green standards, we’ve asked various stakeholders to be part of the process. … They’ll be involved in the process of redefining the building code.”

When pressed on the timeline of this process, Flack said, “ASAP.”

“We’ve started the process of getting people in place,” he said. “It’s going to take a while. It’s a big document.” 

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Piping plovers have returned to Wasaga Beach, as they have done every spring for nearly 20 years. This time, their beachfront home has undergone some major changes, as a court case pressuring the federal government to ensure the plover is kept safe develops. 

That case was filed in April by Ecojustice, on behalf of Environmental Defence and Ontario Nature. Now, Environment and Climate Change Canada says it has begun an imminent threat assessment to determine whether an emergency order is needed to protect the tiny endangered birds and the habitat they love — natural sand dunes and shrubbery make for perfect nesting ground — on the world’s longest freshwater beach. 

For decades, both the Georgian Bay beach and the plover have been protected by the Ontario government through two main tools. First, the designation of Wasaga Beach as a provincial park, which meant development and disruption of the sandy shore was off-limits. Second, the plover was offered extra protection under the provincial Endangered Species Act. 

Neither of those protections stand anymore.

Last fall, the Doug Ford government removed a majority of the beachfront from Wasaga Beach Provincial Park and transferred it to the local municipality in an effort to boost tourism development. And in March, the government officially repealed the Endangered Species Act and replaced it with much weaker legislation that no longer recognizes the plover in its list of protected species. 

The town has promised it will protect the plover after the transfer — and has begun working with Birds Canada on its habitat protection — but residents are not convinced. Two local officials agreed to speak to The Narwhal on the condition their names be kept confidential, for fear of retribution. They said on April 13, a tractor owned by the municipality was seen raking more beachfront than was previously permitted — an action that could damage habitat and destroy plover nests. Though the raking hasn’t been repeated, many are concerned the beach is unprotected. The town did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment by the time of publication. 

As a result, environmental groups are taking the matter to federal court. 

In January, Ecojustice, on behalf of Environmental Defence and Ontario Nature, petitioned the federal government for an emergency order to offer protections for the piping plover by March, before machines are usually brought in to clear the beach after winter, and the birds begin migrating back.  

The federal government did not respond by that deadline. In April, the groups asked the Federal Court of Canada for a judicial review into the delay and to compel Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin to make a recommendation to cabinet to issue the emergency protection. 

The groups also asked the court for an urgent, temporary order — or an injunction — to prohibit any raking or harmful development on the beach, which is federally recognized as a critical habitat.

An official from Environment and Climate Change Canada told The Narwhal the federal government is assessing whether the piping plovers face an imminent threat. “At this time, we are unable to comment further due to litigation,” Keean Nembhard, the minister’s press secretary, wrote in a May 29 email.

The ministry-led assessment is an option offered to Canada’s environment minister under a little-used provision in the federal Species At Risk Act. The minister is obliged to recommend to cabinet an emergency order if the assessment shows a species faces imminent threats to its survival or recovery. The last time the government employed this option was in February 2023 to save Canada’s last spotted owls.

In his email, Nembhard said the government “remains committed to working collaboratively across jurisdictions to advance the protection and recovery of at-risk species such as the piping plover.” 

Concerned citizens received a letter dated May 7 from a regional director at the federal environment ministry informing them of the assessment, noting this assessment would be done “in a timely manner.” 

Here’s what you need to know about the tiny bird and its fate in Wasaga Beach.

What are piping plovers? And why are they endangered?

Piping plovers are sprightly shorebirds, each no bigger than a cotton ball, that can sometimes be seen bounding over Great Lakes beaches in the summertime. But seeing them isn’t easy — their sandy colour blends into their surroundings and they’ve become extremely rare in Ontario due to human encroachment.

“The main threat to the piping plover is human disturbance,” according to the Government of Ontario, “since the sandy beaches where plovers live are also popular for human recreation which can destroy nests.”

Plovers generally spend winters in the United States and Mexico, but return to more northern climates to nest for the summer.

For a long time, the Great Lakes were a prime destination for would-be plover parents. It’s been estimated that the region was once home to up to 800 breeding pairs. But the Great Lakes plover population cratered in the 1960s and ’70s, and the bird was considered extinct in Ontario by 1986.

But in recent decades, plovers have been staging a tentative comeback in the Great Lakes. A breeding pair returned to Sauble Beach (now Saugeen Beach) in 2007, sparking hope and enthusiasm among bird watchers and conservationists in the area. The birds have been spotted in the region annually since then.

But plovers’ hold is anything but secure. Some years pass with only a handful of breeding pairs observed, and other years come and go with no fledglings reaching maturity.

Why is Wasaga Beach important to plovers? And what do they like about it?

“Wasaga Beach is the most important and most productive nesting site for piping plovers in our province.”

That’s what Sydney Shepherd, the Ontario piping plover coordinator for Birds Canada, told The Narwhal last summer. The beach has been home to 59 nests and 87 fledglings since the birds returned about two decades ago, according to Birds Canada, a national conservation group. 

While plovers have been observed on other beaches in the Great Lakes region, none are anywhere near as popular with plovers as Wasaga Beach. The plovers that have been born on Wasaga Beach make up nearly 50 per cent of all fledglings in Ontario, and many of them have gone on to establish their own nests elsewhere in the region. 

Plovers tend to value Wasaga Beach for different reasons than human beachgoers. While tourists might prefer a well-groomed beach for lounging, plovers require naturalized shorelines: shrubbery and sand dunes offer cover from predators. That means of all the 14 kilometres of beachfront at Wasaga, only a small fraction near the northeastern tip of the park is suitable plover habitat.

What’s happening at Wasaga Beach?

The fortunes of the Town of Wasaga Beach have long been tied to the sandy shoreline that gives the town its name. Tourism to the area is the main economic driver, drawing more than 1.6 million visitors a year according to the municipality’s website.

But while tourism brings opportunity to the residents of Wasaga Beach, it also puts pressure on plover habitat. Until recently, that tension was managed by staff at Wasaga Beach Provincial Park, who were mandated to preserve and protect the sand dunes and other beach areas that plovers frequent.

The vast majority of the beachfront had long been within the boundaries of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park, and some in the town believed the park hindered efforts to spruce it up and develop new amenities and attractions to boost tourism revenue.

The Doug Ford government heard those concerns and acted on them. Ontario would sever more than half of the beachfront from the park and hand it over to the town to manage, Ford announced in 2025. Earlier this year, the province confirmed its intention to move forward with that plan, despite 98 per cent of formal citizen feedback on the plan being negative.

The Narwhal confirmed that transfer has now happened. 

All of the suitable plover habitat on Wasaga Beach is within the land set to be removed from the provincial park, meaning the habitat will no longer be protected by a provincial park designation.

The town, for its part, says it’s committed to protecting piping plovers. But it has yet to release its full redevelopment plans, and that leaves conservationists worried that the beach’s plover habitat is threatened.

Shepherd told The Narwhal this week that Birds Canada is in the process of formalizing their role with the Town of Wasaga Beach. The group is “seeking a committed partnership” to support the long-term protection and recovery of piping plovers that would enable them to monitor and protect the nests and the birds, and also increase education and awareness of the species. 

“So far, we have collaborated for one training session for [town] staff to begin to introduce what piping plover conservation entails,” she said in an email.

Are piping plovers otherwise protected?

The removal of provincial park designation from plover habitat on Wasaga Beach comes on the heels of other policy changes that weaken species protection in Ontario.

In 2025, Ontario repealed its Endangered Species Act and replaced it with new legislation called the Species Conservation Act, a weaker set of rules that drops some key protections.

One difference between the two acts is the newer one adopts a more narrow definition of “habitat” than the former act. When it comes to legal protections for the habitats of endangered species, the new legislation’s scope is limited to the specific area an animal nests or dens in, rather than the larger area it uses to travel or find food.

But even that limited protection doesn’t stand for piping plovers, which have been removed from Ontario’s list of protected species. With the loss of provincial park status, the plover habitat has been stripped of another protection that could have restricted the beach grooming activities that render Wasaga Beach unsuitable for plovers — and appear to have already begun.

That’s why environmental groups are now turning to the federal government to fill the gap. Nationally, there is a species-at-risk law that can be invoked for the protection of an endangered species and the broader habitat it needs to survive. The question is whether the federal government will use it to save the piping plover’s favourite Ontario beach.

Updated on May 29, 2026 at 2:52 p.m. ET: this story has been updated with new information about the federal government’s imminent threat assessment and to note the plovers’ most recent arrival at Wasaga Beach.

Updated on April 22, 2026, at 2:55 p.m. ET: this story has been corrected to note that piping plovers have been removed from the Government of Ontario’s list of protected species, meaning even the individual and its nest are not provincially protected.

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.

Summary

• Under the Clean Water Act, community-led groups called source protection committees write plans and oversee the protection of drinking water sources in Ontario.
• The jurisdiction of the committees is aligned with the boundaries of conservation authorities, and experts say the recent amalgamation of authorities could also affect the committees.
• The province has not appointed 15 of the 19 source protection committee chairs, leaving some experts questioning whether change is afoot.

As the Doug Ford government moves to consolidate conservation authorities from 36 to nine, many are concerned about the impact on Ontario’s drinking water. 

Conservation authorities have long been tasked with protecting Ontario watersheds by safeguarding local drinking water sources and reducing the risks from natural hazards like flooding, erosion and drought. But the government’s legislation for their amalgamation — the biggest disruption to the agencies in 80 years — indicates there may be changes coming to the way they help preserve access to fresh water for more than 80 per cent of Ontario residents. 

Since 2006, municipal drinking water has been governed by 19 source protection committees, community-led groups with directors from industries like agriculture, manufacturing and tourism that hold conservation authorities and municipalities accountable for properly managing drinking water. Within each conservation authority, designated staff serve as liaisons to these committees, providing necessary data and carrying out any suggested protective actions.

“Source protection committees are purposefully local. They’re the people that drink the water they are protecting,” Katie Stammler, water quality scientist and project manager for the source water protection committee at the Essex Region Conservation Authority, told The Narwhal.

The committees were created on the heels of the water contamination crisis in Walkerton, Ont. In May 2000, seven people died and some 2,300 people became ill when manure from a nearby farm leached into a well due to a failure of safety checks in the local water treatment system. 

An inquiry into the crisis resulted in dozens of recommendations, including creating source protection committees. These groups were officially enacted by the passage of the Clean Water Act. Each one was designed with the boundaries of conservation authorities in mind and tasked with writing a plan to protect the sources of drinking water in that region from threats such as fuel, sewage, road salt and agricultural runoff.

In the years since they were formed, source protection committees seemed to be “untouchable,” Lynn Dollin, once long-time chair of the South Georgian Bay-Lake Simcoe Source Protection Committee, told The Narwhal. Successive Ontario governments didn’t want to change anything “because no one wants to risk another Walkerton.”But things might be changing now.

The Ontario government’s move to reduce the number of conservation authorities has meant that each authority now covers a much larger area. The Narwhal obtained a government slide deck presented to conservation authorities leaders earlier this month that shows drinking water source protection “remains a core mandated responsibility” for the nine proposed regional authorities, and that source protection plans “will continue to be carried out.” 

But in the same slide deck, the government also notes “changes may be needed under the Clean Water Act and associated regulations” to “clarify” how source protection committees would operate under the new structure. 

“We’re not making any fundamental changes [to source protection committees],” Ontario Environment Minister Todd McCarthy said in an interview with The Narwhal: the 19 committees will remain as they are and work with the nine newly proposed regional conservation authorities, though he said their jurisdictions are “a work in progress.”  

“Clean water is absolutely essential, and Ontario’s is best protected in the world. That’s going to continue,” he said. “The idea is to make sure it doesn’t change by better resourcing and better supporting [them] equally across Ontario.”

McCarthy added that there may be some legislative “housekeeping” in the fall to ensure “alignment” between the new regional conservation authorities and source protection committees. 

The absence of details raises red flags for experts. 

“They cut. Now they cut and tinker,” one central Ontario conservation authority official said. “They’re saying nothing is going to change, but in practice, that remains to be seen. … All the changes they’ve made so far have delayed work operations. They like to pretend otherwise.”

The Narwhal spoke to 12 people, including lawyers, members of three source protection committees and several conservation authority staff, many of whom spoke anonymously for fear of retribution. As conservation authorities get bigger, these experts worry about the loss of local input, knowledge and protections. 

Already, the chair positions at 15 of the 19 committees are vacant. To many, this quiet erosion of leadership and a loosening of water laws in the province are indicators that a system put in place to prevent another drinking water crisis is now in flux. 

Most source protection committees still don’t have government-appointed leaders

Nearly 20 years ago, Dollin, now mayor of Innisfill, Ont., was one of 19 source protection committee chairs appointed by the Ontario government to help take care of the province’s complex system of local drinking water sources.

Back then, her committee’s first task was “a little unnerving,” she said. “I was shocked how there was no good, complete list of where our municipal drinking water systems were.” So they created one, along with guidelines on how to protect them to ensure local drinking water sources don’t become contaminated or overused. 

Dollin’s term as head of South Georgian Bay-Lake Simcoe Source Protection Committee ended in August 2025; she was told by a ministry official she would not be reappointed, though she said no reason was given. Her position hasn’t been filled since. 

As of April 14, the government had not appointed several chairs — something it is legally required to do under the Clean Water Act — since summer 2025.

“The absence of appointed chairs over the past year has created some uncertainty at the committee level, particularly around governance, leadership continuity and decision-making authority,” John Mesman, managing director of property, conservation, lands and community outreach for South Nation Conservation, told The Narwhal. 

A lack of chair appointments, others say, may indicate source protection committees are a low priority amidst the amalgamation of Ontario’s conservation authorities. Many told The Narwhal communication between conservation authorities and ministry staff have been eroding since the government under former premier Mike Harris first cut funding in 1995.

“It seems the ministry doesn’t understand the source protection program, so it doesn’t bother to think about it,” the central Ontario conservation authority staff member said. “We started getting alarmed by ministry decisions a while ago on a number of issues. It’s been consistent, our comments are not being heard.”

That’s especially challenging as water supply gets more complicated. In recent weeks, the government has proposed permitting communal wells for private development. That would mean a new subdivision, for example, could draw from its own well instead of tapping into municipal water services. Sources who spoke to The Narwhal were concerned about this because communal wells aren’t currently overseen by source protection committees. 

“We need source protection leaders now more than ever to be present at the table,” a conservation authority official in western Ontario said. “As this government pushes approvals for development, we need to make sure water is not an afterthought.” 

A Ministry of Environment official told The Narwhal, “a competitive process will soon be underway” for source protection committee chair appointments. 

New boundaries of conservation authorities could affect source protection committees 

Not only do many source protection committees not have leaders right now, but they also don’t know what their jurisdictions will be post-conservation authority amalgamation.

“I don’t think [the government] contemplated a whole scale change like this,” Theresa McClenaghan, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, said. “A lot of people don’t realize that most local drinking water sources are protected by plans that were created by these committees over many years.” 

Per the requirements of the Clean Water Act, the government has two options, McLenaghan said: realign source protection boundaries and governance to reflect the new larger regional conservation authorities or maintain the current structure within the new regional authorities. 

Minister McCarthy told The Narwhal the boundaries “are not changing at this time,” but the exact boundaries will be finalized in the fall, informed by consultations with new local watershed councils the ministry is creating to facilitate the transition. 

“We’ll have to see how this works out,” he said. “Right now, the reality is nine watershed-based regional conservation authorities are what we proposed … and with those 19 [source protection committees], we’ll have to see how their boundaries match up or align.” 

McLenaghan said if the committees stay as they are, “that’s good news,” but “there will still be some potential disruptions” as several source protection regions combine under a single conservation authority.

Right now, some source protection areas, such as Essex County, stand alone, while others like the Thames-Sydenham Source Protection Region, combine several conservation authority jurisdictions. Per a preliminary analysis by the Canadian Environmental Law Association, the amalgamation would see the inverse of this, where one regional conservation authority has several source protection regions within it. For example, both the Lake Huron and Western Lake authorities would each incorporate three source protection agencies.

The new regional conservation authorities will be “very, very busy” managing so many source protection committees under the new system, the central Ontario conservation authority official said.

Under the amalgamation plan, Stammler’s Essex County Conservation Authority now falls under the Western Lake Erie regional authority, which has boundaries spanning from Niagara through Halton and Peel Region.

She, and others, said they’re concerned this will result in a reduction in the hyper-localized focus on water that conservation authorities provide.

“I think it’s going to undermine Ontario’s ability to protect drinking water,” Ontario Greens Leader Mike Schreiner said. “I think the amalgamation of [conservation authorities] is going to contravene the recommendations of the Walkerton inquiry around source water protection.”“I mean, how can you have 19 source water protection committees across the province and nine [conservation authorities]? And how is that going to work together, especially when you’re undermining local decision-making expertise?”

It’s something local industry representatives are similarly concerned with. 

Chris Snip, an independent agronomist and water protection advocate from Essex County, has built a career helping farmers grow better crops with less impact on the environment from fertilizer use. He joined the Essex region’s source water protection committee six years ago to support the group’s understanding of agriculture and the sector’s role in maintaining water quality.

As with many in Ontario’s farming community, the Walkerton tragedy casts a long shadow for Snip. With the Ford government’s changes to water protection, in favour of easing development, Snip wonders if the province is forgetting lessons of the past.

“People died, and the policies around source water protection were based on recommendations from those deaths and injuries, and this provincial government is basically, you know, turning its nose up to it, not caring about what happened then,” he said.

“History is bound to repeat itself, especially if we don’t remember.”

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.

Summary

• The Government of Ontario is overhauling the mine permitting process to funnel all stages through the relatively new Ministry of Energy and Mines, under the “one project, one process” system.
• Many First Nations leaders have voiced concerns about how this will impact consultation, and the burden it places on Indigenous communities.
• Some mining companies are already seeing how this fast-tracking could play out, and say no corners will be cut.

In early March, dozens of digital billboards across Toronto’s Union Station repeatedly flashed four words that have become synonymous with economic survival for the Doug Ford government: “one project, one process.”

The phrase welcomed people travelling through the central transit hub on their way to the world’s largest annual mining conference, held by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. It was an overwhelming four-day affair, where more than 32,000 people talked deals, investments and pretty rocks in faraway places and how to get them out of the ground. 

This year’s conference — the largest ever — began a day after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, setting in motion a crippling squeeze on oil supply that has raised gas prices to levels not seen in decades and killing thousands of people. But that didn’t hamper the very loud buzz at the conference. In some respects, it may have upped the volume.

The urgency for a homemade solution to tackle global crises (mainly Donald Trump) had increased once more — and Ontario had a (four-word) plan that is still, for all the fanfare, an untested experience, unknown to many.

Though outward-facing, the plan is actually predicated on reshaping the way the government works internally, to guide and greenlight proposals for mining and development faster through the bureaucracy. The promise: one project ushered through one massive, clear and quicker process. 

“It’s a huge shakeup,” one former Ministry of Mines official told The Narwhal. “It’s a huge disruption from how we would all typically work.”

The enormity of this internal shift was evident in the sprawling halls of the Metro Convention Centre. There, government ministers, led by Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce, met seemingly every global delegation with the message of “one project, one process” — colloquially called “1P1P” — and how it would turn Ontario into “the world’s reliable partner.” Ministry staff answered questions in packed rooms about how to figure out if “1P1P was right for you.” The three companies that had already been accepted into the fast-tracking process were the stars of a crowded trade show, including one that talked at length with The Narwhal.

While expediency might yield positive results for the mining industry, for some First Nation leaders who attended the conference, there is an obvious loss: important things, like consultation and consent, could also be fast-tracked, or missed completely. There was also frustration over the many crises that, for decades, have not been granted the same urgency: clean drinking water, basic health-care services, housing. 

“We still don’t have any clarity on what fast-track or ‘one project, one process’ really means,” Ontario Regional Chief Abram Benedict told The Narwhal. “We’re all still kind of unsure.” 

Four other First Nations leaders told The Narwhal the same thing: no one in government had talked to them yet about the process, let alone what it means for their communities, which are already on the frontlines of resource extraction and its aftermath. 

The next 12 to 18 months, Benedict said, will “become the real test” of the government’s four-word fast-tracking policy, both provincially and nationally.

‘A trailblazer or a guinea pig’

Just outside Red Lake, Ont., 100 kilometres east of the Ontario-Manitoba border, is the proposed site for the largest lithium mine in the province. The company hoping to build it, Frontier Lithium, says the mine could help supply electric-vehicle battery manufacturers. It was the first project to be designated on Ontario’s “one project, one process” list. The Sudbury-based mining company was assured a 24-month approval by the Ford government. 

“We’re either a trailblazer or a guinea pig,” Clara Lauziere, Frontier Lithium’s director of sustainability, told The Narwhal.

Three years ago, Lauziere was working in the Ministry of Mines, navigating a process she described as inefficient and uncoordinated. “Had I known 1P1P was coming, I might have stayed,” she said. 

As she explains it, the regulatory system in Ontario and Canada has some of the highest environmental standards, but it’s also one of the most complex globally. “There’s never been a real road map on how to permit a mine and how to do it effectively,” she said, because every project is different. Until last October, mining companies had to work with multiple ministries that didn’t communicate well, which she said resulted in a lot of repetition and confusion for both industry and Indigenous communities. 

“Consultation fatigue was huge,” she said. Some of the communities she spoke to as a ministry official had received six or seven letters from several different ministries about the same project. In the same vein, companies were receiving multiple directives from different ministries about which Indigenous communities to consult about different parts of the project. 

All of this inevitably resulted in delays for permits; 15 years of delay, according to the Ford government, though it hasn’t given examples of when bureaucracy alone tangled a mining project up for that long. With the new process, that will purportedly go down to two years. “Certainty is everything,” Lauziere said, “especially when you’ve never had it.” 

That’s why she was bombarded with questions in every room she went to at the conference. “People want to know if they can really believe this is actually going to happen,” she said. The short answer appears to be yes, but it depends on a sustained commitment from industry to also be ready and committed with the right paperwork, detailed studies, accurate data and robust consultation plans. “I think the key is really just being willing to work with the government and communities,” she said. 

In other words, as a government official told a packed room at the mining conference, “this is not a one-way street” but “a tremendous effort that requires everyone to be at the table.”

When Frontier Lithium was accepted into the new system, the company “had everything ready,” Lauziere said. In response, they were assigned a bureaucrat to be their main point of contact throughout the process, leading a team of officials across ministries. The company was provided a detailed 24-month timeline of steps this team would be completing in partnership with them. 

In early March, the Independent Electricity System Operator, the Crown agency in charge of electricity supply and demand, proactively reached out to Frontier Lithium to discuss energy needs for their proposed mine after the company was selected for fast-tracking. “So there’s a lot of coordination and pressure there on priority projects,” Lauziere said, including from the mining minister himself. 

In mid-March, Frontier Lithium received a single directive identifying all the communities that need to be consulted for the entire project. “Now, we can have confidence that we know who we need to talk to and what the potential impact on rights are going to be, so we can have meaningful conversations,” Lauziere said. “That level of detail and consolidation is incredibly valuable for communities and companies.”

Frontier Lithium is expecting a permit by the fall of 2027, so the new process does appear to be faster. Lauziere said if any concerns crop up with their proposal over this period, the company expects to resolve them with the government and communities. 

“No corners are cut in the process,” she added. “And nothing changes on the consultation front.” What “one process, one project” does is make the consultation process clearer for every company. 

“Yes, we want to build a mine,” Lauziere said, “but we also want a relationship that lasts 50 years.” 

“As the first, we all kind of have to get it right.”

Fear of the fast track

Ontario’s push to fast-track mines, and promises it can happen without sacrificing free, prior and informed consent from First Nations, hasn’t landed with everyone. 

“The idea of fast-tracking really scares me,” Natasha Martin, Deputy Grand Chief of Mushkegowuk Council, told an overflowing room of miners and government staffers at the March conference. 

She repeated the same sentiment to The Narwhal in an interview later. “That means that it’s a very fast job — a rush job — and we’re taking something that has taken years prior down to six months. That scares me, because then there will be things that won’t be properly captured or looked at.”

Martin’s fear highlights a deep disconnect in the ways industry and First Nations understand “one project, one process.”

While companies are quickly gaining extensive knowledge of what it all means for them, many First Nations say they have been left in the dark. And they remain especially skeptical about the effectiveness of environmental and community risk assessments under the streamlined process. In no small part, because it was initially proposed in Bill 5, a controversial legislation that allows for “special economic zones” where “designated projects” can evade provincial laws.

Bill 5 was written without the government holding a single consultation with Indigenous communities, although many would be significantly impacted by an increase in mining and development activity — and have historically not reaped the financial or social rewards of such industry. Nine First Nations have challenged the law in court, arguing that it is unconstitutional.

Complicating matters further is that just as Ontario speeds up development approvals, the federal government has created its own office with a similar mandate. The Crawford Nickel project, outside Timmins, is being considered for fast-tracking at both levels. And recently, Frontier Lithium has been named to another list of projects for “federal permitting coordination.” 

On the one hand, Lauziere credits the “one project, one process” system for setting them up perfectly for federal fast-tracking. On the other hand, early signs show choppy collaboration between levels of government could be a new drag on momentum, even as First Nations around Red Lake appear ready to work with both.

Lauziere agreed that if things are going to be sped up, there will inherently be added pressure on First Nations. She called it “an unintended consequence” that will require Ontario to actively work on better informing and communicating with Indigenous communities. 

“We really haven’t seen much of a difference on the ground yet,” Jason Batise, the executive director of the Wabun Tribal Council, told The Narwhal. The regional council for five First Nations around Timmins has honed a consultation framework to manage the deluge of mine consultations over the last two decades. That includes Crawford Nickel, with whom Batise says the First Nation has a good relationship.

Batise is clear: “Consultation has never been a bottleneck to responsible development.” 

“We don’t really yet see any sort of distinct acceleration of 1P1P, but we know it’s coming,” he said. “And if I had one concern, it would be the expectation from developers to fast-track consultation.” 

“Because at that point, 1P1P is going to get challenged by the nations.” Historically, mining projects have been delayed by protests or legal challenges from nations that feel their constitutional rights were not properly met.  

Batise isn’t the only one watching the fast-tracking process carefully. Many Indigenous leaders came to the mining conference with messages of vigilance, reminding attendees that First Nations were not “carbon copies,” and neither are their territories.

Even as the process to approve mining projects speeds up, communities like Neskantaga First Nation, in the Ring of Fire region, are dealing with simultaneous crises. When Bill 5 passed, the nation’s only health-care centre was flooded and inoperational. There continues to be a chronic housing shortage; those that are standing are plagued by mould. There is a 31-year boil advisory in effect, the longest in the region. 

“It’s hard to understand. It’s moving so fast,” Chief Gary Quisses told The Narwhal at the mining conference. He fears that despite its moniker, the “one project, one process” system will open the doors to multiple projects in their communities that all bypass First Nations consent, and needs. 

“I don’t even have 9-1-1, I can’t even use that number. I don’t have a fire truck. I don’t have an ambulance, paramedics, anything,” he said. “And here, the government is trying to push and take our resources away.”

Batise is cautiously hopeful, noting that industry has lately had its “come-to-Jesus moment with First Nations,” developing meaningful partnerships based in equity. But he too worries the fast-tracking process may become a catalyst for companies to prioritize their bottom line. 

“The government is telling industry 1P1P will be better for them. They’re also telling nations that faster is better for them,” he said. “The difference is that industry is getting what they want, but communities are not.”

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.

Summary

• A working group of First Nations and the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada released an interim report on the cumulative impacts of development in the Ring of Fire.
• Among the participants and collaborators in that report, the Government of Ontario was glaringly absent. The report says the province hasn’t shared valuable data on caribou, polar bears and other regional species that are needed to complete the assessment.
• Ontario NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa said, “By not providing any information or any data to the process, they are essentially muzzling the process itself.”

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Ontario has not been involved in the federal government’s regional assessment of the Ring of Fire, withholding scientific data and funding needed to understand the impact of mining development, even as the province ushers it through. 

The province is absent in the regional assessment working group’s interim report, released Feb. 23. In multiple instances, the group, made up of representatives from 15 First Nations and the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, makes clear Ontario has yet to sign on. 

There is still an “opportunity for collaboration with the province of Ontario in the regional assessment,” the group wrote in the report. The group said it’s preparing what “specific information” it will need to request from the province.

Ontario’s absence is notable as the Doug Ford government continues to push through development in the Ring of Fire, an environmentally sensitive area of boreal forest and peatlands in the James Bay Lowlands, known as Bakitanaamowin Aki, which means “the Breathing Lands,” and Mammamattawa, or “many rivers coming together,” by the First Nations that call it home.

“If they really, really cared about [the assessment], they would work with the federal government,” Ontario NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa, who represents the Ring of Fire region, told The Narwhal. “By not providing any information or any data to the process, they are essentially muzzling the process itself.”

A spokesperson for the federal Impact Assessment Agency confirmed to The Narwhal that the working group understands “several areas it must assess are within provincial expertise.” It will “request information from Ontario as needed” in addition to consulting publicly available data, the spokesperson added.

The Ontario government is hoping the region will be the centre of new mining activity. During a press conference with Prime Minister Mark Carney in December, Premier Ford said Ontario is on track to get “shovels in the ground this June” to build a road to the remote region.

But the regional assessment has also been in the works for at least seven years. Aroland First Nation and environmental groups asked for a federal regional assessment in 2019.

The Ontario government has signed deals with three First Nations along the proposed roads to the Ring of Fire, even as other local communities urge the government to pause and properly address environmental protections and long-standing issues on the ground, such as boil-water advisories, health care and housing.

The interim regional assessment report reiterates some of these concerns, recommending the existing conditions for First Nations in northern Ontario be “thoroughly examined” and for “immediate interventions” to be made, even as mining and development are greenlit. 

“There are a lot of things happening in these First Nations and their territories that both Canada and Ontario need to address,” Mamakwa said. 

“Before the conversation turns to mining, conditions need to be properly assessed and improved.” 

The working group’s plan, updated in November, shows it has already built an information sharing platform, held technical sessions, developed community-led studies and begun to evaluate cumulative impacts of development in the Ring of Fire.

It’s now seeing through evaluations and studies and continuing to engage with communities to eventually compile a final report, which the group expects to land around June 2027. 

Whether or not Ontario will come to the table for the next phase is not yet clear.

“I think [the Ford government] is not happy with the federal assessment,” Mamakwa said. “The process itself, I think, they don’t want to be part of. And they just want to do their own thing.”

Ontario’s participation was ‘TBD’ — now it’s non-existent

Last January, when the working group finalized its terms of reference, it described an “outer ring” of contributors, such as experts and industry representatives and listed Ontario as one of these — but with “TBD,” or to be determined, attached to its name. 

The latest report suggests Ontario is not participating despite having a trove of scientific information readily available about the region. 

While 22 federal departments and agencies show up on a list of respondents to the working group’s public call for information and data, no provincial ministries are listed.

Even Wyloo Metals, the company behind the Eagle’s Nest mine, currently in the exploration phase in the Ring of Fire, contributed to technical sessions of the regional assessment, according to the report.

All of this is raising questions about whether the Ford government is preventing Ontario public servants from participating in the regional assessment. 

Without Ontario at the table for the regional assessment, “staff obviously won’t be given the mandate to participate,” Kerrie Blaise, the founder of the non-profit Legal Advocates for Nature’s Defence, told The Narwhal. 

“One hundred per cent, there would be staffers who would have knowledge and things to contribute. Without the direction to do so, they’re barred from doing so.”

In an interview at Queen’s Park on March 23, The Narwhal asked Ontario Environment Minister Todd McCarthy about the province’s lack of involvement in the regional assessment. He said he’d look into the matter.

McCarthy also told The Narwhal the province is “co-operating” with the federal government, citing a Dec. 18 agreement between the two levels to streamline the environmental assessment process. 

In that agreement, Ontario promised to lead any assessments for projects that are subject to both federal and provincial jurisdiction. But this deal covers single projects, whereas the Ring of Fire regional assessment isn’t examining a project, instead looking at cumulative effects of development in the region.

McCarthy said Ontario’s absence from the interim regional assessment report was “an exception.” 

“I suspect that Ontario is part of that conversation, and will be part of the conversation and will continue to co-operate and lead in terms of sharing data … to get all of it done,” he said.

“If the sense is that we’re not there at the moment, as I speak to you, we’re going to be there as we are all the time in terms of co-operating and leading.” 

The Narwhal sent specific questions to Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources, as well as the premier’s office, the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks and the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs and First Nations Economic Reconciliation, about the government’s direction to public servants and financial willingness to support First Nation participation in the federal assessment. None responded to those emails by publication time.

Ontario is withholding scientific data on the Ring of Fire from the regional assessment

Within its interim report, the assessment group wrote that “several priorities for the regional assessment would benefit from provincial expertise.”

There are hints of what kind of expertise the group is hoping to get, in a submission by Environment and Climate Change Canada filed in January in response to one of the group’s requests for information.

In a question about Indigenous consent for non-Indigenous uses of land, the Environment Department pointed out that most traditional territories in Ontario are on non-federal lands, and the province is responsible for hunting and fishing regulations there.

The department also pointed out how the province has been monitoring boreal caribou and undertaking research to fill gaps in knowledge about the animal, and that the province holds valuable data such as aerial surveys on polar bears in the southern Hudson Bay subpopulation. 

Ontario also hosts the Natural Heritage Information Centre, which has historical data and continues to track biodiversity in the Ring of Fire region, the federal Environment Department noted, and directed questions about the centre to the provincial government.

“There are certain things the federal government cannot touch,” Blaise said. “So even if there’s a comment deadline, and people bring up concerns, if it’s not all within federal jurisdiction, you’re not going to have those players at the table to actually respond to those information gaps and requests.”

Without Ontario’s participation, the working group will be forced to go to the province to request information. That could result in more delays and extra costs, Blaise said.

When the Government of Alberta successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Impact Assessment Act at the Supreme Court of Canada, the judges emphasized in the 2023 ruling that “respect for the division of powers” between the federal and provincial governments helps put in place strong environmental protection laws and “facilitates co-operation between the two levels of government.”

Here, “we’re not getting that co-operation,” Blaise said. “So it means you’re inherently getting a narrower process, a process that doesn’t actually have all the requisite knowledge and expertise and government officials at the table.” 

Blaise also said Ontario’s lack of participation could translate to a lack of provincial support for whatever the working group ends up recommending.

First Nations need more funding to participate in the regional assessment from ‘other parties.’ Ontario did not respond to the call

The interim report highlights how many First Nations in the Ring of Fire area lack basic necessities, like clean water, health care, housing, education and electricity. First Nations can’t be “true partners in equitable decision-making processes” like the regional assessment, the group wrote, without these “necessities of life.” 

The report recommended that the existing conditions of First Nations in northern Ontario be “thoroughly examined” and that “immediate interventions” be made.

Community members also have to “constantly balance their roles,” the report stated, with responding to emergencies, dealing with other federal and provincial negotiations, staying involved in legal actions, responding to regulatory processes like permit applications and answering outside requests from industry.

All of this points to a need for more funding to help “address the participation gaps within the regional assessment process,” the group wrote.

While First Nations have worked with the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada on a funding strategy, and receive “base funding” to support their participation, the group said the amounts involved are “often largely insufficient.”

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada’s departmental plan for 2026-27 shows it’s planning for $34,206,000 in cumulative spending cuts through 2029, but it’s unclear whether or how those cuts will impact its work on the Ring of Fire regional assessment.

The working group noted the effort involved in trying to apply to other federal funding programs, or nailing down private funds, is “prohibitive.” The group recommended that the federal government “and other parties” help the First Nations get enough funding so that they’re not burdened with trying to find the money themselves. 

“The provincial government cannot claim to move the Ring of Fire forward ethically or equitably while withholding information or funding for this process,” Mamakwa 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.

Summary

• The Ontario government has released its final plan to amalgamate 36 conservation authorities into nine
• The new plan removes an earlier proposal to merge authorities on Lake Superior and Lake Huron
• A new agency created to oversee the consolidation will have a $20-million budget to put the plan in place, and $3 million annually once it’s up and running

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The Ford government is moving ahead with its plan to merge 36 conservation authorities into nine, two more than originally proposed. And it has created an agency with a $20-million budget to see it through.

Ontario Environment Minister Todd McCarthy said he consulted with more than 500 people in making this change. The proposed plan also received more than 14,000 comments on the Environmental Registry of Ontario, where the government is legally mandated to post changes to environmental and energy policy for public feedback (though the Ford government has previously created loopholes for that requirement). 

“Ontario currently has a fragmented system of conservation authorities, each of which have different policies, different standards, different fees and different levels of staffing and technical capabilities,” McCarthy told reporters on March 10. 

“These inconsistencies have hampered the ability of conservation authorities to perform their duties. This has led to unpredictable and inconsistent turnaround times for approvals, creating uncertainty and delays for farmers, homeowners, landowners, builders and anyone seeking permits.”

The government’s proposed fix to consolidate authorities has been received with a lot of trepidation and concern from conservation authorities, the municipalities that fund them and use their services and other groups that rely on their expertise. 

For nearly 80 years, the provincial agencies have been tasked with protecting public health and safety related to the province’s watersheds. That means safeguarding local drinking water sources and working to reduce the risks from natural hazards like flooding, erosion and drought. As Ontario’s population has grown, they have also been responsible for regulating development to minimize those risks, issuing permits only to those who pay attention to sustainable construction and growth.

“Conservation authorities don’t just ‘approve’ things; they provide the technical rules of the game that make projects workable and protect people and water,” Paola Cetares, director of public affairs for the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, told The Narwhal when the consolidation plan was first announced. That includes creating criteria for stormwater management and collating flood maps, erosion data and hydrologic studies to guide development. 

McCarthy insists the core mandates of the unique Ontario agencies will not change. Consolidation, he said, will mean “stronger flood resilience, clear processes for municipalities and permanent applicants and better support for housing and infrastructure projects, all while maintaining the science-based decisions that people and businesses expect.”

“Regional conservation authorities would continue to be independent, municipally governed organizations,” McCarthy said, emphasizing that there will be no layoffs, no changes in the funding and governance structure and that the agencies would continue to have control over their land. 

The government will table legislation to make these changes when Queen’s Park is back in session later this month, with the consolidation set to take effect in 2027. 

Here are the key takeaways from the final consolidation proposal. 

What does the final conservation authority consolidation look like? 

When the Ford government first discussed consolidation, they considered as few as six regional conservation authorities, McCarthy said. After the consultation period — in which at least one member of caucus voiced her concern — the government has landed on nine. 

The final boundaries of the regional authorities’ structure include a handful of significant changes from the original proposal. 

Notably, the Lake Erie Regional Conservation Authority and a Huron-Superior Regional Conservation Authority have each been split into two. The latter was initially controversially proposed to merge the authority in Thunder Bay, Ont., on Lake Superior, with that of one on Lake Huron, but the government has walked back on that — a decision that has been welcomed by the northern agency.

Members of the impacted authorities in this region previously told The Narwhal the original boundaries were too large and connected too many differing landscapes. “We listened, we acted,” McCarthy said.

Additionally, the Central Lake Ontario Regional Conservation Authority has been enlarged to include both the current Toronto Region Conservation Authority and the smaller neighbouring Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority. 

And the conservation authority managing the lands around the city of Kingston, Ont., has been moved from the St. Lawrence River Conservation Area to the Eastern Lake Ontario Regional Conservation Authority. 

Who will manage the conservation authority consolidation and how much will it cost?

In 2025, the Ford government created the Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency to help lead this transformation. The agency has been given $20 million to usher through the consolidation. At the March 10 press conference, McCarthy pledged an additional $3 million annually to the agency, which would continue after the consolidation was complete. 

The government intends to create transitional committees for the nine new regional organizations with representatives from each of the existing conservation authorities under them. The chair of each of these committees would become the chief administrative officer of the regional authority for up to two years. 

The government is also instructing regional authorities to create “watershed councils” made up of members of municipalities and Indigenous communities to identify local priorities and “ensure that watershed management continues to be informed by the people who know their watersheds best,” McCarthy said. 

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