This summer, Ontarians were warned to stay inside as humidex values climbed to 48 C in parts of the province and wildfire smoke made for some of the worst air quality in the world. But many migrant farm workers were told to keep working.

“I have had more than one heat stroke because there is no shade,” Alicia Anntamara, a migrant worker who is currently off due to an injury, told The Narwhal at a rally in front of Ontario’s Ministry of Labour. “You can’t take water in the field. You have no bathroom in the field.”

And the heat did not necessarily end when the workday was over, she says, with no indoor spaces available to cool down. Anntamara is her middle name, as she asked to keep her surname private. 

Several speakers at the demonstration on July 24 says migrant workers continued labouring in fields, greenhouses, wineries and packing facilities while other residents were advised to limit their exposure to outdoor conditions. And they demanded the province fix the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which they say brings migrant workers to Canada but fails to protect them.

“There’s nothing natural about dying on the job,” Elizabeth Ha, an executive board member with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and a member of Justice for Migrant Workers, said. 

“There’s nothing natural about collapsing in the fields. There’s nothing natural about working past exhaustion in extreme heat.”

About 50 people gathered for the demonstration, holding signs, lining the sidewalk and chanting, “No more deaths” as they called for stronger workplace protections and access to healthcare, especially during extreme heat.

Justice for Migrant Workers, an all-volunteer collective made up of current and former migrant workers, labour organizers, community activists and scholars, organized the rally.​

The organization says it learned through workers’ friends, co-workers and community allies that at least eight migrant agricultural workers have died across Ontario this summer.

The circumstances surrounding all eight reported deaths have not been independently confirmed, and they have not all been officially classified as workplace fatalities by the provincial Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

The board told The Narwhal that from Jan. 1, 2026, to July 28, it had received less than five fatality claims involving foreign agricultural workers. The board did not provide a precise number, saying that figures below five cannot be released due to privacy considerations.

Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer with Justice for Migrant Workers and an assistant professor at New College at the University of Toronto, says the group had heard three deaths were connected to transportation incidents. The group also received reports of heart-related deaths and heard concerns about whether one worker received adequate access to healthcare, he says.

During the rally, Ramsaroop says deaths involving heart attacks, strokes and other illnesses should not be examined without considering long hours, extreme heat, chemical exposure, physically demanding labour and the stress associated with precarious immigration status.

Justice for Migrant Workers calling on the province to explain whether working conditions are considered when investigating migrant worker deaths and how heat-related injuries and deaths are tracked.

Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development did not respond to The Narwhal’s requests for comment by publication time.

For the rally organizers, the lack of complete information is part of the problem. They say deaths involving migrant workers can disappear from public view, particularly when workers are sent back to their home countries after becoming sick or injured.

“It’s a government system that promotes production and profit over the lives of migrant workers,” Ramsaroop said.

Working without water or shade

Anntamara says she is learning to walk again and regain the use of her hand after suffering an injury while working in Canada.

She stood in front of the crowd in downtown Toronto to speak for herself and for other workers who she says have been injured, silenced or sent home.

“We are not animals. We are not garbage. We have a name, and we come here with a name. Because you take our name and call us a number, that doesn’t make us less than human,” Anntamara told the crowd.

Anntamara has been coming to Canada from Jamaica as a migrant worker since 2014. She says she was injured in July 2020 after falling more than nine feet while completing a task she had not been hired or trained to perform. She hasn’t been able to work since.

As the primary breadwinner for her family, she says, her inability to work has affected her children and family who live outside Canada and depend on the money she earns here.

Before her injury, she says, a typical working day could involve long hours without reliable access to drinking water, washrooms or shade.

Anntamara says, after the workday, she would return to crowded bunkhouses without air conditioning or fans. Some of the accommodations are similar to shipping containers and became extremely hot in the summer and cold in the winter, she says.

“When it’s hot, it’s very hot to where you see warts on your skin, like water bubbles on the skin. And when it’s cold, you’re freezing, like you’re getting frostbite,” she said.

Some rooms contained up to eight beds, with so little space that workers had to turn sideways to move between them, she says.

She also described working long shifts without overtime pay or regular time off.

“You have to work every day. You have no day off. You have no time off,” she said.

Justice for Migrant Workers says such conditions make extreme heat more dangerous because workers may be unable to cool down or recover after a physically demanding shift.

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety says working in hot environments can reduce concentration and a person’s ability to perform skilled or physical tasks. Heat also places additional demands on the heart as the body works to cool itself.

Physically demanding labour generates additional body heat, further increasing the risk for people working in hot conditions.

Temporary foreign worker program empowers employers

According to Statistics Canada, more than 30,000 migrant agricultural workers were employed under Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program in Ontario last year. Workers are hired from dozens of countries, but the majority come from Mexico, Guatemala and Jamaica, thanks to agreements with those governments.

Many migrant agricultural workers enter Canada with employer-specific work permits, meaning they are only authorized to work for one named employer.

The United Nations General Assembly reports that this creates an imbalance of power because leaving an unsafe job can also mean losing employment, housing and, ultimately, the right to stay in Canada. As well, a 2025 research paper in the Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy found their immigration status and dependence on individual employers can make it difficult to exercise rights such as refusing unsafe work, even though agricultural workers are covered by Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act.​

“You’ve got an employer-driven program. Workers are tied to an employer and provincial and federal laws that work in the service of industry [are] at the expense of workers’ lives,” Ramsaroop said.

For years, Justice for Migrant Workers has been calling on the federal government to grant permanent immigration status to workers when they arrive in Canada.

In an email to The Narwhal, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says the Government of Canada takes the safety of foreign workers seriously and they have the same employment standards, rights and protections under federal law as Canadian citizens and permanent residents. That includes requiring all employers to provide private health insurance except when workers are covered by their provincial or territorial health insurance system. The department also has a tip line and online reporting tool that allows individuals to anonymously report allegations of wrongdoing. As of publication, they had not provided data on the number of complaints received this year.

Employment and Social Development Canada told The Narwhal the mistreatment of temporary foreign workers is unacceptable and it inspects workplaces to ensure temporary foreign workers are protected. The department also funds the Migrant Worker Support Program, which helps workers understand and exercise their rights, access government and community services, and receive support such as healthcare navigation, language assistance, legal aid and emergency services when needed.

The spokesperson says the program is regulated by the federal government but provinces and territories are responsible for the administration and enforcement of these laws.

At the provincial level, Ramsaroop says agricultural workers need greater organizing rights, improved access to healthcare and stronger enforcement of occupational health and safety and employment standards.

Ramsaroop also criticized the absence of specific protections addressing heat stress and other risks in agricultural workplaces.

“There is little, very little, no protection for agricultural workers from pesticides and chemicals,” he said. 

Wendell, a former migrant worker from Trinidad who asked to only share his first name, first came to Canada in 1998. He says extreme heat made physical farm labour more exhausting, but did not necessarily lead employers to slow production.

Wendell worked on different farms, including vegetable operations where he harvested cauliflower and walked long distances through fields.

He says workers could face pressure from their managers to increase their pace when crops or other products needed to be moved quickly.

“When he’s pushing us like that, he doesn’t care if we get injured. We had to take safety for ourselves,” Wendell said.

He says workers understood that failing to satisfy an employer could mean losing future employment and the income their families depended on.

Wendell is no longer part of the farm worker program and has become a migrant worker advocate instead.

“This is how I feel a little more safe, knowing that these people are trying to protect us and have a way out for these officials to understand what we’re going through,” he said.

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Every time workers dig into the ground in Attawapiskat First Nation, Chief Sylvia Koostachin-Metatawabin says there is a chance they will uncover a problem the community has lived with for decades.

During repairs near her home, she said a worker stopped to tell her what he had found beneath the surface, close to a water line.

“Hey, chief, I saw the fuel on your property. A pool of fuel,” she recalled him saying.

But there was no equipment to clean it up, she said, so the excavation was covered again.

For community leaders, these discoveries are reminders of what they describe as a decades-long problem of diesel contamination beneath Attawapiskat, a Cree community in Ontario’s Far North on the western side of James Bay. It’s an issue both the federal and Ontario governments have known about for years but have failed to fully address.

Federal records show the issue was brought to the attention of Minister of Indigenous Services Mandy Gull-Masty last year, in a briefing note received on July 2, 2025.

A copy obtained through an informal access-to-information request revealed almost none of its contents. Most of the material was redacted under provisions of the Access to Information Act protecting personal information, government advice and recommendations and information subject to legal privilege.

A copy of the heavily redacted briefing note received by Minister of Indigenous Services Mandy Gull-Masty last July, regarding the contamination of the core of Attawapiskat.

These heavy redactions make it impossible to determine what officials advised the minister or what action, if any, was recommended.

But, a recent lawsuit filed by the First Nation claims that, a week after the briefing note was received, Canada refused to contribute to the costs of a remediation plan.

After years of negotiations and this alleged recent, unsuccessful, attempt to secure funding for a comprehensive clean-up, the First Nation is asking the courts to intervene.

Attawapiskat is seeking $200 million in compensation, including aggravated and punitive damages, from Canada and Ontario over diesel contamination in an area known as the Core of Community, provincial land that sits in the middle of Attawapiskat but is not legally part of the reserve.

“[The core] is not fenced off. It’s not separated physically from the community,” Chris Evans, a lawyer with Woodward & Co. Lawyers LLP, which represents Attawapiskat, told The Narwhal. 

The land isn’t empty. It is where children go to daycare and patients seek medical care. It contains a grocery store, a gas station, a place to access mental health and wellness services and the diesel generating station that provides backup electricity during outages.

“Many members of the community are unaware that it’s not part of the reserve because it’s fully integrated into it,” he said.

The lawsuit alleges Ontario has also failed to commit to funding, for the portion associated with the provincially-funded Weeneebayko Area Health Authority which owns facilities in the core.

The First Nation also says the contamination is preventing the core from being added to its reserve, wasting land it urgently needs for housing.

“There comes a time when we just say, enough is enough,” Koostachin-Metatawabin said.

Attawapiskat is also asking the court to declare that Canada and Ontario failed in their legal and moral responsibilities by breaching their fiduciary duties, the honour of the Crown and their duties of care.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

In a written statement, Indigenous Services Canada told The Narwhal it is reviewing the claim, adding, “As this matter is currently before the court, we cannot comment further at this time.”

The Ontario premier’s office, Ministry of the Attorney General and Ministry of Indigenous Affairs and First Nations Economic Reconciliation did not respond to requests for comment.

A problem generations have lived with

Attawapiskat relied primarily on diesel-generated electricity for generations, from the 1960s until it was connected to Ontario’s power grid in 2003. Diesel continues to be used for backup power.

The nation alleges the pollution resulted from spills and leaks from the diesel infrastructure, including pipelines, trucks, storage tanks and the generating station.

“There have been many diesel spills,” Evans said. “They’ve happened for various reasons. Most likely, it’s because this system was not installed properly and maintained properly over the years.”

According to the statement of claim, there was no room for the generating system on the reserve. The federal government measures the reserve to be about 15 square kilometres, an area 1.5 times the size of Toronto’s High Park for a population of 2,000 people. The infrastructure was instead built on neighbouring provincial land. In 1973, after some reserve land was surrendered to build an airport north of the community and an equivalent area was added to the west, the core became the centre of Attawapiskat.

The lawsuit says the diesel infrastructure was owned or operated at different times by organizations including the local Roman Catholic mission, Ontario Hydro and its successors. Ownership of some infrastructure has since been transferred to Attawapiskat in connection with the community’s move to grid electricity, and is now used as a backup power system.

According to the claim, some individual spills have been partly cleaned up over the years, but the contamination across the core has never been fully remediated.

“There have been piecemeal efforts made at various times to identify and clean up the contamination,” Evans said. “But generally, it hasn’t been done.”

For many residents, the contamination of the core is part of an endless cycle.

J.R. Nakogee school closed in 2000 because of diesel contamination beneath the building and school grounds. Students spent more than a decade attending classes in portables before Kattawapiskak Elementary School opened in 2014.

The former school site is separate from the land involved in the current lawsuit. But Koostachin-Metatawabin said the earlier contamination continues to shape how residents understand the potential risks.

She said some former employees and families believe the contamination has caused them to become ill. 

“They attribute their health, their families’ health that pass on or are sick to being constantly exposed to fuel contamination,” she said.

Reminders of the contamination return whenever ground is disturbed, Koostachin-Metatawabin said.

“When you start excavating, you get the smell of diesel. It’s persistent,” she said.

The statement of claim alleges diesel has migrated from the core onto reserve land in several places. It also alleges the contamination could eventually reach Attawapiskat’s drinking water supply and the Attawapiskat River if it is not remediated.

“The diesel moves and migrates over time and the longer it stays in the soil the more likely it is to get into our water supply — and that would be catastrophic,” Deputy Chief Kara Fireman said in a press release about the court case. “It could even force us to entirely relocate.”

Diesel and fuel oils are complex mixtures that can contain substances such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes. Benzene has been considered toxic by Health Canada since 1993, and labelled it a “known human carcinogen” as recently as 2024. The health implications of a specific contaminated site depend on factors including which chemicals are present, their concentrations and whether people are being exposed through soil, water, air or direct contact.

The site-specific assessment prepared for the remediation project, which analyzes the concentration of chemicals in the core, has not been released publicly.

A clean-up plan was ready. Then it stopped

In 2023, Attawapiskat approached organizations with legal interests in the diesel infrastructure to develop a comprehensive remediation plan.

Attawapiskat, Hydro One Remote Communities Inc., the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority and the local electric transmission company hired Stantec Consulting Inc. to investigate the contamination and prepare a remediation action plan and budget.

According to the statement of claim, Stantec completed a draft plan in January 2025. The participating organizations agreed to a preferred option involving off-site disposal and bioremediation and agreed on how the costs would be apportioned among them.

The environmental report and total projected cost have not been released publicly.

“The parties agreed on an option and an apportionment of costs for implementing those options,” Evans said.

According to the lawsuit, the plan stalled at a meeting on June 9, 2025.

Canada advised the parties it would not contribute to the cost of implementing the remediation plan, the claim alleges. Attawapiskat had expected Canada to cover the share associated with assets assigned to the community, but the federal government advised the parties it would not contribute to the cost of implementing the remediation plan, the claim alleges.

“Attawapiskat doesn’t have the means to pay the apportionment that was assigned to it, and relied on Canada to cover that cost, and Canada refused,” Evans said.

Similarly, the claim says the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority expected Ontario to fund its portion, but the provincial government didn’t commit. 

The claim says Hydro One Remote Communities Inc. and the local electric transmission company remain supportive of the remediation effort and willing to cooperate, and that work could have begun in August 2025 and been completed within two years if funding had been secured. Instead, no comprehensive remediation has started.

Attawapiskat says housing crisis another reason diesel contamination must be cleaned up

Evans said testing has found considerable contamination beneath the daycare and health facility. Those findings are described in general terms in the statement of claim, but the underlying environmental report is confidential.

“Knowing that there is a toxic pollutant sitting there in the ground in the centre of your community, and that it’s been sitting there for decades in a place where people go and where little kids go to the daycare, where sick people go to the health facility, it’s extremely concerning to them,” Evans said.

Koostachin-Metatawabin said concerns also surfaced during construction of a youth centre, when workers discovered what she described as pooled fuel during excavation.

The discovery required remediation and delayed construction, she said. Further disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic left parts of the building exposed, contributing to mold and additional repair work.

“It’s been on the ground for a long time,” she said. “We know it’s there.”

The contamination is also an obstacle to one of the community’s most pressing priorities: finding more room for housing.

The statement of claim alleges the community received far less reserve land than it was promised under Treaty 9, which provided for 2.5 square kilometres for every five members. At the time of signing, the community had a population of about 550 people, equivalent to an area of about 300 square kilometres — 20 times larger than its current reserve.

Attawapiskat filed a separate specific claim with Canada in 2023 regarding its Treaty 9 reserve-land entitlement.

The current lawsuit states some members live in overcrowded, dilapidated or condemned homes, while others lack housing altogether.

The community has sought for years to have the core added to the reserve. But, according to the statement of claim, Canada’s rules about adding land to reserves require contaminated land to be environmentally assessed and, where necessary, remediated before it can be added to a reserve.

Because of the contamination, Evans said, “They can’t use [that land] to do things like add housing to remedy what is a just shocking humanitarian crisis that we’re seeing in the community, resulting from a lack of housing and overcrowding.”

Attawapiskat also provides services in the core, including water, garbage collection and snow removal, even though the land is not part of the reserve and the community says it does not receive federal funding to provide those services.

“I just want them to clean that site to turn it into reserve status,” Koostachin-Metatawabin said. “Because we need and can build some things there.”

The case may take years. The contamination remains

For Evans, the lack of a comprehensive clean-up raises questions about environmental injustice for Indigenous people.

“It’s hard to imagine there being a similar level of complacency toward the contamination here compared with other communities,” he said. “It’s been allowed to sit there for decades.”

He said the implications could extend beyond Attawapiskat.

“Attawapiskat is not alone in having these kinds of contamination problems in its community,” he said. “There are many communities in Ontario and Canada, especially remote communities, that are powered by diesel.”

The lawsuit is in its early stages.

Canada and Ontario had not filed statements of defence at the time of publication. Evans said the governments would ordinarily be required to respond within 30 days, although he expects they will seek more time because of the case’s complexity.

“It will be a few years at a minimum before we get a decision from the court,” he said.

For Koostachin-Metatawabin, the court case is one part of a much longer effort to make the community safe and create room for it to grow.

She said pursuing litigation was never her preferred option.

“I personally don’t like going through the legal court system. I don’t really want to do it,” she said. “But what other means do we have when we’re trying to get them to do the right thing?”

Rajpreet Sahota is a community and policy reporting fellow. Her position is generously funded by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input.

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.

Table of Contents

• Fast-tracking development: how Ontario is changing the rules for development through Bill 5
• Climate action is no longer at the centre of Ontario’s environmental agenda
• Drivers continue to see cost reductions in Ford’s Ontario
• Water protections and wetlands face new pressures in Ontario
• Why Ontario municipalities are losing environmental powers
• The next chapter in Ontario’s battle over conservation and protected lands
• Ontario is betting big on critical minerals and energy growth
• Carbon capture and storage is also on Ontario’s agenda
• Transparency and public oversight are disappearing

In the summer of 2025, wildfires burned nearly 600,000 hectares across Ontario — an area more than twice the size of Ottawa. Thousands of people were displaced. This summer’s wildfire evacuations have already begun in the northern part of the province, while intense heat waves blanket southern Ontario, with temperatures reaching above 40 C at times. 

These extreme weather events are made more likely because of human influence on the climate, according to federal scientists. Yet as Ontario faces the growing effects of climate change, the Doug Ford government appears to be largely moving away from mitigation and adaptation in its most recent term, focusing on economic growth over environmental safeguards.

The Ford government expanded parks, invested in electricity generation, funded Indigenous participation in mining reviews and created Ontario’s first standalone Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response. 

But many critics, and lawsuits, still make the case that the environment is being sidelined in a bid to build.

Most notable was a proposal buried within the province’s 2025 fall economic statement to eliminate legal requirements for Ontario to maintain a climate plan and publicly report on its progress. Across Queen’s Park, ministers were advancing changes affecting everything from environmental assessments to municipal green building standards to conservation authorities. 

These changes followed Premier Ford’s third consecutive majority victory on Feb. 27, 2025, after a snap winter election dominated by concerns about affordability, economic uncertainty and the threat of U.S. tariffs. 

Since returning to office, Ford’s government has increasingly argued Ontario must move faster, building more homes, approving more mines, generating more electricity and cutting what it sees as unnecessary barriers to economic growth.

More than a year after Ford’s re-election and Bill 5’s march through the legislature, the question is no longer whether the province’s environmental agenda is changing. It is what the changes will mean for the land, water and communities.

Fast-tracking development: how Ontario is changing the rules for development through Bill 5

When the Ford government introduced Bill 5 in April 2025, it pitched the legislation as a way to speed up development, cut red tape and strengthen Ontario’s economy. Called the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, Bill 5 received royal assent in June 2025.

Changes under the bill affect everything from who signs off on major developments to how a habitat is defined for endangered species and when the public gets a chance to weigh in.

At the centre of that shift is a belief repeatedly expressed by the government: Ontario’s approval system takes too long.

The legislation created a new system, called One Project, One Process, designed to move projects through approvals faster. It gave cabinet new powers to designate special economic zones, where certain provincial and municipal rules won’t apply to projects deemed strategically important to Ontario’s economy.

Under the One Project, One Process framework, the Ministry of Energy and Mines became the central coordinator for designated mining projects. The province says the approach will cut review timelines in half by creating a single approval pathway and reducing duplication between ministries.

Several mining projects have already been designated under the system, including the Crawford Nickel project near Timmins and Frontier Lithium’s project near Red Lake.

For some First Nations leaders, however, the question is whether consultation can keep pace with faster approvals.

The Chiefs of Ontario has warned that speeding up development should not come at the expense of Treaty Rights and consent processes. Similar concerns have surfaced around the government’s special economic zone framework.

The Ford government’s 2025 budget included a commitment of $70 million over four years for an Indigenous Participation Fund, intended to help communities and organizations in areas of significant mineral development engage in regulatory processes related to mineral exploration and mine development.

But the debate has already moved into the courts.

Environmental groups have launched a constitutional challenge against Ontario’s Special Economic Zones Act, arguing the legislation is undemocratic, putting unchecked power in the hands of the cabinet. Several First Nations have also joined legal efforts challenging the law, arguing it threatens Indigenous Rights and weakens environmental protections.

There is no hearing scheduled yet but the law firm representing the case, Woodward & Company LLP, told The Narwhal it hopes for one to be scheduled in early 2027. 

One of the most consequential changes under Bill 5 involved Ontario’s approach to protecting species at risk.

For nearly two decades, the Endangered Species Act governed how threatened and endangered plants and animals were protected in the province. That changed with Bill 5, which proposed repealing and replacing the Endangered Species Act with the Species Conservation Act, a shift that happened on March 30, 2026, marking the most significant overhaul of Ontario’s species-at-risk framework in nearly two decades.

The new legislation narrows how a habitat is defined. Previously, habitat included the broader areas species relied on for feeding, migration and mating, among other things. The new definition focuses primarily on occupied dens, nests and similar dwelling places for animals, and immediately surroundings trees and plants. 

The government says the changes will create a more efficient and predictable system for project proponents, while continuing to protect species. But the narrower definition could leave important parts of ecosystems without protection, particularly for wide-ranging species-at-risk such as woodland caribou that depend on large connected landscapes to survive.

Climate action is no longer at the centre of Ontario’s environmental agenda

Climate policy has not disappeared altogether, but several decisions made since the Ford government’s re-election suggest it is not a driving force behind many of the province’s major policy choices.

One of the clearest examples arrived with the province’s 2025 fall economic statement.

Buried within the omnibus budget bill was a proposal to repeal portions of Ontario’s Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, legislation introduced by the Ford government in 2018 to eliminate the provincial carbon pricing system. The act had required the government to prepare a climate plan and publicly report on its progress — a law that, by the beginning of Ford’s third term, was one of the province’s few remaining climate accountability mechanisms.

The repeal came as Ontario and the rest of Canada continue to experience increasingly severe weather linked to climate change, including longer wildfire seasons, extreme heat and flooding. It also arrived at a time when national emissions reductions have largely stalled.

In its independent assessment released last year, the Canadian Climate Institute warned that Canada’s 2030 emissions-reduction target is now out of reach. While emissions have fallen since 2005, progress has slowed significantly in recent years. 

Ontario’s decision to repeal climate accountability legislation was part of a weakening of climate policies across the country, the institute noted, which is one factor making national targets more difficult to meet.

Ontario did elevate climate risk to cabinet level following the 2025 election, by creating a standalone Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response. It comes as Ontario experiences increasingly severe wildfire seasons linked to hotter and drier conditions. Last year, 643 fires burned nearly 600,000 hectares across the province, prompting evacuations in several northern and First Nations communities. 

It’s a necessary step, but questions remain about whether funding is keeping pace with growing climate risks. In March 2026, the government projected 2025 costs for the ministry to be $292 million, including emergency evacuations of Indigenous communities on behalf of Indigenous Services Canada. But the ministry’s operating budget was projected to rise to just $66.8 million in 2026, up $3.7 million from the previous year.

The Narwhal reached out to the Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response, but did not receive a response before publication.

Drivers continue to see cost reductions in Ford’s Ontario

Throughout his time in government, Ford’s Conservatives have regularly worked to reduce costs for motorists, including for fossil fuels like gasoline that emit heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere. Transportation is the largest contributor to the province’s overall emissions.

The 2025 provincial budget permanently cut Ontario’s gasoline and diesel taxes to nine cents per litre, a move the government said would save households an average of $115 annually. The move made permanent gas tax cuts first introduced in 2022, which were extended four times. The province also permanently removed tolls on the publicly owned portion of Highway 407 East and introduced legislation preventing municipalities from implementing programs that disincentivize driving, such as road tolls or congestion pricing.

Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have consistently framed the measures as affordability initiatives, arguing they put money back into drivers’ pockets at a time of economic uncertainty. 

All of this came after a previous term punctuated with battles over bike lanes.

Water protections and wetlands face new pressures in Ontario

Twenty-five years after a fatal tragedy in Walkerton, Ont., transformed how the province protects drinking water, the Ford government is once again rewriting some of the rules governing water oversight.

One of the most significant changes came through Bill 56, the Building a More Competitive Economy Act, which received royal assent in November 2025.

Among its many provisions are amendments to Ontario’s Clean Water Act, legislation introduced in response to the 2000 Walkerton tragedy, when E. coli contamination in a municipal water supply killed seven people and sickened more than 2,300 others. The public inquiry that followed led to a layered approach to drinking water protection, including locally developed source protection plans designed to identify and manage risks before they could affect municipal water supplies.

In amending the act, the Ford government said lengthy approval processes and overlapping consultations on development projects had become cumbersome.

Under the new framework, the province standardized some drinking water protection policies and introduced changes intended to speed up plan amendments to allow for development. Government documents say the reforms could shorten approval timelines by as much as six months while providing greater certainty for municipalities, regulators and project proponents. The province has also argued the changes would maintain key protections while making the system more efficient.

But some observers see the reforms differently.

Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner has argued the changes transfer authority away from independent experts and local source protection committees. Currently, there are 19 committees — made up of conservation authorities, municipal representatives, agricultural interests and community members — that oversee 38 drinking water protection plans across the province. Schreiner told The Narwhal the local knowledge embedded in those plans was one of the central lessons of Walkerton and worried greater ministerial control could weaken that approach.

The debate over water governance extends beyond drinking water protection.

Another source of controversy has been the Water and Wastewater Public Corporations Act, first introduced in late 2025.

The legislation would allow the province to restructure municipal water and wastewater services through newly created public corporations. The government has said the changes are intended to modernize service delivery and improve efficiency.

But the proposal has sparked concerns among environmental organizations, labour groups and some academics, who argue it could open the door to greater private-sector involvement in public water systems. 

Some critics, like advocacy group Environmental Defence, have pointed to provisions that would allow water and wastewater services to be moved out of direct municipal control and governed through corporate structures, raising questions about accountability, transparency and public oversight.

The Ford government has rejected suggestions it intends to privatize water systems. After pushback, it introduced amendments to the act limiting ownership of the corporations to governments and government agencies. It says there are no plans to privatize water systems and emphasized that ownership of the proposed corporations would remain in public hands.

For many critics, the debate is informed by Ontario’s own history.

In 1994, the City of Hamilton transferred operation of its water and wastewater system to a private company as part of an effort to create what city leaders hoped would become a model for private water management. 

Just over a year after the deal was signed, roughly 180 million litres of untreated sewage spilled into Hamilton Harbour and Lake Ontario. More than 100 homes and businesses were flooded. In the years that followed, experts pointed to staffing cuts, cost overruns and repeated changes in ownership as evidence that private management, with its focus on profit over service, had failed to deliver on its promises.

Why Ontario municipalities are losing environmental powers

For years, Ontario municipalities have tested environmental policies that go beyond provincial requirements. Cities encouraged electric vehicle infrastructure, required tree planting and experimented with ways to reduce emissions from new development, including through green building standards. 

In Toronto, green roofs became mandatory on many new buildings. Other municipalities began developing their own climate-focused standards as they prepared for rapid population growth.

Over the past year, however, the Ford government has increasingly moved to limit how far municipalities can go.

One of the first major changes came through Bill 17, the Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, which received royal assent in June 2025, days after the Ford government was re-elected.

The legislation targeted municipal green building standards that exceed the Ontario Building Code. In Toronto, that raised questions about the future of the Toronto Green Standard, a framework that has shaped development in Canada’s largest city for more than 15 years.

The standard required developers to incorporate features to reduce emissions and improve resilience to climate change. It included requirements for bicycle parking and electric vehicle charging stations in new buildings over four storeys. Developers also had to take steps to mitigate flooding and extreme heat, for instance, by building rooftop gardens and planting trees. 

There are also financial incentives to take on even more ambitious climate-friendly features. 

The province concluded Toronto’s mandatory requirements could exceed what municipalities are permitted to require under its new law. It also argued that creating a consistent set of provincial rules will help accelerate housing development and increase housing supply. 

The Toronto Environmental Alliance, a not-for-profit advocacy organization, countered that municipalities are often better positioned to understand local environmental challenges and should retain the flexibility to address them.

That debate intensified in 2026 with Bill 98, the Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act.

The legislation prevented municipalities from requiring a range of environmental features in new developments, including electric vehicle parking infrastructure, bird-friendly design standards and tree planting on residential properties. Provincial analysis of the legislation acknowledged the possibility of “unintended environmental impacts” and noted that the changes could shift sustainability-related costs from developers to municipalities.

The implications extend well beyond Toronto.

Municipalities including Hamilton, Ottawa, Waterloo Region, Oshawa, Clarington and Guelph have either implemented or begun developing their own green building standards. In Durham Region, local governments have been working toward a goal of net-zero emissions for new housing by 2030. Ottawa officials have warned the legislation could prevent them from requiring electric vehicle infrastructure in developments, even where local planning work has already been completed.

Some municipal officials worry the changes could create new costs in the future.

Buildings account for roughly one-quarter of Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions, largely because of fossil fuels used for heating. If new developments are built to lower environmental standards today, municipalities may ultimately face higher costs retrofitting those buildings in the decades ahead.

The next chapter in Ontario’s battle over conservation and protected lands

Over the past year, the Ford government has expanded park access, announced new protected lands and invested millions in outdoor recreation. In May 2026, Ontario announced plans to expand Uxbridge Urban Provincial Park by 23 acres, adding ecologically significant lands within the Oak Ridges Moraine. The government has also committed nearly $60 million toward what it describes as the largest expansion of Ontario Parks campgrounds in more than 50 years, including dozens of new campsites at MacGregor Point, Killarney and Driftwood provincial parks.

But the Ford government has also moved ahead with major development projects that cut through environmentally sensitive areas and launched the most significant restructuring of Ontario’s conservation authorities in their 80-year history.

Perhaps no project better illustrates that tension than Highway 413.

A cornerstone of Doug Ford’s re-election campaigns, the proposed highway would connect York, Peel and Halton regions and, according to the province, reduce travel times — by 30 minutes for those driving the entire stretch.

Critics have long argued the slight time savings come at a significant environmental cost.

Environmental assessments have identified impacts on Greenbelt lands, prime farmland, waterways and habitat used by species at risk, while environmental groups argue mitigation measures remain insufficient for several threatened species.

In August 2025, Ontario awarded its first construction contracts for the project, marking the beginning of a development the government says would contribute more than $1 billion annually to the provincial economy.

In Wasaga Beach, the province has removed roughly 60 hectares of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park, handing the land over to the municipality, which is making an effort to redevelop the waterfront and boost tourism. The government says the project would improve public access and support economic activity while maintaining public use of the beach.

Conservation groups and local residents have questioned whether lifting these protections sets a precedent for future development on provincially protected lands. Some have also raised concerns about piping plovers, as Wasaga Beach is one of the most important nesting sites for the endangered bird.

Similar concerns surfaced in Port Hope.

In 2025, the Ministry of Natural Resources altered the boundary of the Garden Hill Area of Natural and Scientific Interest, a designation that recognizes the unique qualities of an area, removing land that had previously been protected. The boundary change meant a planned subdivision could move ahead.

The biggest change, however, may be taking place behind the scenes.

In 2026, the Ford government formally launched plans to consolidate Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities into nine larger organizations overseen by a new provincial agency. Conservation authorities were created over 50 years ago in response to flooding disasters and the environmental impacts of a growing population.

Officials say consolidation would improve efficiency and ensure resources are distributed more evenly across the province. 

Jonathan Scott, a councillor for the town of Bradford West Gwillimbury and chair of the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority board, previously told The Narwhal the local environmental expertise in each individual authority is essential. “Merger of that scale could create a larger, more distant bureaucracy that is less responsive to local municipalities, developers and farmers,” he said about the move to consolidate. 

The province has already directed conservation authorities to pause major staffing, land acquisition and governance decisions while the transition unfolds. The restrictions are expected to remain in place until at least early 2027.

Ontario is betting big on critical minerals and energy growth

If the Ford government’s environmental agenda has one clear area of investment, it is energy and resource development.

In December 2025, the province officially launched its $500-million Critical Minerals Processing Fund. The fund is designed to help expand mineral processing capacity in Ontario, so that what’s mined here is also refined and processed within the province, rather than shipped elsewhere.

The government has described critical minerals as essential to Ontario’s economic future, pointing to growing demand from electric vehicle manufacturing, battery production, aerospace and defence.

At the same time, Ontario is preparing for a dramatic increase in electricity demand.

The province estimates electricity consumption could rise by as much as 90 per cent by 2050 as new homes, manufacturing facilities, electric vehicles and data centres place greater pressure on the grid. In response, the government has launched some of the largest electricity procurements in Ontario’s history.

Over the past year, the Independent Electricity System Operator, the Crown agency charged with balancing supply on the grid, has approved more than a dozen new energy projects, securing massive amounts of additional supply and storage capacity. The province says the projects would provide enough electricity to power hundreds of thousands of homes while helping maintain reliability as demand grows. Many of the projects also include First Nations partners that hold more than 50 per cent ownership stakes.

The government continues to pursue new nuclear generation, including small modular reactors and potential large-scale nuclear generation facilities. In April, the operator awarded contracts to a dozen wind and solar power generating projects, a major departure from the Ford government’s 2018 move to cancel a slew of renewables projects.

At the same time, officials have repeatedly emphasized the role natural gas will continue to play in maintaining reliability and cost efficiency as electricity demand increases.

Carbon capture and storage is also on Ontario’s agenda

The government has opened the door to commercial-scale carbon storage through Bill 27, legislation that allows companies to pursue projects that capture carbon dioxide emissions from industrial facilities and store them underground. The Ford government argues the technology could help reduce emissions from sectors such as cement manufacturing, steel production and power generation. 

But critics argue carbon storage allows for the continued burning of fossil fuels, rather than transitioning away from them. 

There are other pressing concerns — carbon storage is proposed for southwestern Ontario, where there are an unknown number of old gas wells that Ontario can’t afford to properly plug. As The Narwhal reporter in September, some worry carbon storage could heighten the risk of leaks from these wells of poisonous hydrogen sulfide and planet-warming methane.

In June 2026, the province announced additional funding to help municipalities address abandoned oil and gas wells scattered across southwestern Ontario. 

Transparency and public oversight are disappearing

Alongside environmental changes at Queen’s Park, another debate has emerged — one focused not on what decisions are being made, but how they are being made, who gets to know about it and who gets a say.

In 2025, the Ford government exempted aspects of the redevelopment of Ontario Place from consultation requirements under Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights, a move that reduced opportunities for public input on one of the province’s most controversial redevelopment projects. Similarly, the Species Conservation Act eliminated the requirement that property owners, developers or industry whose actions could harm threatened species make a posting on the public environmental registry, as was previously required under the Environmental Bill of Rights.

The most recent flashpoint came in April 2026, when the province passed Bill 97.

Among its many provisions were significant changes to Ontario’s freedom of information laws. Now, records held by cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants and the premier’s office are exempt from public access requests. The changes were made retroactively, applying to records dating back decades.

The Canadian Association of Journalists and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression warned the amendments could significantly reduce the public’s ability to understand how government decisions are made. They argued the changes would shield records such as emails, phone logs and other communications that have historically been used to uncover information about government decision-making and public spending.

For environmental reporting, freedom of information requests have often provided a rare window into internal government discussions.

The Narwhal’s investigations into the Greenbelt scandal and Ontario’s relationship with Enbridge Gas relied, at least in part, on records obtained through freedom of information laws. 

As opportunities for public participation and access to government decisions degrade, it limits who gets a hand in shaping the future of Ontario’s environment and the people who depend on it.

Rajpreet Sahota is a community and policy reporting fellow. Her position is generously funded by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input.

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

• Grade 7 students Veda Nair and Latavia Douglas discovered their school and community no longer had access to recycling services after Ontario shifted responsibility for blue box collection to a producer-run system.
• Although the First Nation is eligible to join Ontario’s Blue Box Program, it has not registered due to logistical concerns.
• Nair and Douglas continue to advocate for recycling in their community, arguing they should have the same opportunity to protect the environment as anyone else.

In September 2025, Veda Nair and Latavia Douglas set out to start a recycling program at their school.

The Grade 7 students attend Mamawmatawa Holistic Education Centre, locally known as MHEC, in Constance Lake First Nation, about 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont. They planned to encourage their classmates to sort paper, plastic and other recyclables through a student-led initiative called Project Z.E.R.O.

Project Z.E.R.O. stands for “zero mistakes, engage everyone, recycle and one school, one goal,” Nair said. 

But the project quickly became complicated. 

“When we first started, we just hoped that this would be a little project where we would just buy some recycling bins and everyone would recycle, but it evolved into a lot more,” Nair said.

For one thing, they learned there were no longer recycling services available in Constance Lake — not for their school, or the roughly 200 homes in the community. Any recycling they collected and sorted had nowhere to go.

Up until 2023, Ontario municipalities were responsible for their own recycling programs. Then, the Ontario government decided to make a major change, shifting that responsibility over to Circular Materials, a not-for-profit organization run and funded by the major producers of recyclables, like plastic and cardboard.

Municipalities and First Nations have gradually transitioned over to the new program — but not all of them, at least not yet. Constance Lake’s recycling had been handled through an agreement with the nearby Town of Hearst, Ont., but now, like more than 100 other First Nations, it is lacking that service.

“We were unable to continue it because the Town of Hearst isn’t responsible for the recycling anymore,” Nair said. 

Constance Lake is located about 32 kilometres by road northwest of Hearst. After the First Nation’s landfill site was closed in 2018, a solid waste and waste diversion service agreement was signed and the town provided recycling services for the First Nation, which has about 900 members living on reserve. According to the agreement dated March 28, 2020, Hearst would accept the First Nation’s waste and recycling material at the municipal landfill site in exchange for a service fee.

But that changed a few years later, according to Éric Picard, the chief administrative officer for the Town of Hearst, to prepare for Ontario’s new recycling regime, the Blue Box Program. Lillian Sutherland, infrastructure and public works manager for Constance Lake First Nation, said the community has not received any recycling services since around 2022, when the provincial program was ramping up.

The First Nation’s waste is still handled by the town, but the recyclable materials are no longer accepted under the renewed agreement because blue box services are now administered by the province and producer-led organization.

That has left Nair and Douglas trying to figure out where their school’s recyclables could go.

Why doesn’t Constance Lake First Nation have a recycling program?  

Ontario’s Blue Box Program recycles printed paper and packaging, including plastics, paper, glass, aluminum and steel. It is regulated by the provincial government and managed by Circular Materials. Its recycling services are largely contracted out to GFL Environmental Inc.

The Doug Ford government finalized its Blue Box Regulation in June 2021 and began transitioning responsibility for residential recycling from municipalities and First Nations to Circular Materials. The new system officially launched in July 2023. Under the regulation, all participating communities were to be included in the new system by Dec. 31, 2025.

Ontario’s Blue Box Regulation defines an eligible community as a local municipality, local services board area or First Nations reserve south of the Far North region of Ontario — but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re participating.

Constance Lake, for example, is eligible for the program, according to a spokesperson for the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority, the regulator mandated by the Ontario government to enforce the province’s recycling law. But it hasn’t signed up — and it’s not alone.

As of Jan. 1, 2026, only 12 First Nations out of 102 residing south of the Far North border had transitioned over to the new program. 

Eligible First Nations must first register and submit information about their community and existing waste collection services. That information is then shared with Circular Materials. Once a First Nation is registered, Circular Materials is required to provide an offer of collection services or funding on behalf of the producers that finance the system.

Constance Lake First Nation Chief Richard Allen told The Narwhal the community did not apply to be a part of Ontario’s Blue Box Program due to logistical concerns — the cost of transportation to and from the community and concerns GFL would not service it because the reserve is on federal Crown land.

Part of the challenge facing Project Z.E.R.O. is that students and school staff have received conflicting information about why recycling services through GFL Environmental are unavailable in the community, and if it’s related to being on federal lands.

“We were a little panicked because, what would we do if the only company that was responsible for our recycling cannot help us with recycling?” Douglas said.

The Narwhal reached out to GFL Environmental Inc., but the company declined to comment, explaining that it is a contracted service provider, and referred questions to Circular Materials.

In an emailed statement to The Narwhal, Circular Materials wrote it is not currently engaged in any discussions about providing recycling service to Constance Lake First Nation and not in the position to comment on operations or any possible third-party private contract negotiations. It further wrote eligibility is determined by Ontario’s Blue Box Regulation.

“Circular Materials is committed to supporting First Nations communities with their needs and requirements around the blue box transition, in alignment with Ontario’s Blue Box Regulation,” Jennifer Kerr, a spokesperson for Circular Materials, wrote.

“Communities’ eligibility for participation in the Blue Box Program is determined by the Blue Box Regulation.”

‘It just seems a bit absurd’

Nair and Douglas began working on the project through their school’s enrichment program, a project-based learning class led by Cameron Straughan, who teaches science, technology, engineering and mathematics — or STEM.

Since learning about the lack of recycling service, the students have written letters to Kapuskasing-Timmins-Mushkegowuk MP Gaétan Malette, federal Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin and Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty, asking for advice and help.

“We recently did surveys at our school, and the results show that we have a lot of students and staff who are dedicated to recycling,” they wrote in the letter.

The students wrote that it “feels wrong” for paper and plastic to go into the garbage just because of where the community is located and that they have the support of their school to put a program in place, but need help to “find the right path.”

Nair said only Dabrusin’s office responded.

“And the funny thing is that they told us that they would transfer this to another person who is the Minister of Indigenous Services of Canada and we already sent them a letter,” she said.

Straughan said he was surprised by the limited response.

“I thought being students, a student-led project at a First Nation school, I thought that there’d be more response by far,” he said.

Indigenous Services Canada told The Narwhal the community has received $222,000 annually for their solid waste management needs since 2020-2021, which can cover recycling, garbage and compost.

The Narwhal reached out to Malette and Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, which oversees the blue box legislation, but did not receive a response before publication.

Mushkegowuk-James Bay MPP Guy Bourgouin declined to comment, but a spokesperson at his office said additional information is still being gathered and the situation continues to be reviewed.

Straughan said the situation is frustrating because Hearst is only about a 30-minute drive from Constance Lake First Nation. He knows because he lives there and drives to the school every weekday.

“It seems a bit absurd to me that [GFL] cannot send a recycling truck to pick up recycling for this community,” he said.

“And yet they do pick up garbage. They do have a garbage truck in Constance Lake. Garbage is delivered to the dump in Hearst, but not recycling.”

Straughan understands the issue is complicated, but believes the students have exposed a real problem.

“It just seems absurd that we’re tied by red tape, our hands are tied by red tape that we can’t get that recycling truck to deliver,” he said.

Straughan said he has been impressed by how Nair and Douglas handled the complexity of the recycling issue. And the school may still have a path forward. They’re currently looking into the First Nations Waste Management Initiative, a federal program that supports First Nations in developing sustainable waste management systems. Straughan expects to write a proposal over the summer. 

“We have some more work to do ahead of us before we can actually get the recycling program up and running,” he said.

Students want decision-makers to understand that recycling should be available to their school — and community, Nair said. “As an Indigenous school or as any school, students use a lot of paper every day, we should have the rights to recycle and save our environment.”

Rajpreet Sahota is a community and policy reporting fellow. Her position is generously funded by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input.

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.