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.

Summary

• The Department of National Defence and City of North Bay have been working to clean up decades-old per- and polyfluoroalkyl, or PFAS, contamination, first announced to the public in 2017. 
• Residents have proposed a class-action lawsuit over the contamination and consequent loss of property value — though environmental and health hazards of the contamination aren’t a part of the case.
• An international company called Industrial Plastics Canada is among the 10 major importers of a Teflon-like subgroup of PFAS to Canada, and they opened a factory in North Bay in 2023.

Gathered in an arena in North Bay, Ont., in summer 2024, federal officials told hundreds of concerned citizens how they planned to remediate longstanding contamination of the city’s waterways left behind by the Department of National Defence. A few months later, officials gave a similar presentation to a packed hotel conference room.

For nearly a decade now, residents have known about the contamination. Some have been told not to drink the water from their own wells, and everyone in the city has been warned not to drink water or eat fish from a creek outside town.

The creek is part of a system of waterways where carcinogenic “forever chemicals” run downstream from a military base, emptying into Trout Lake, the source of the city’s drinking water. It sits at nearly double Health Canada’s guideline for PFAS in drinking water, measured in nanograms per litre. 

Health Canada published an “objective” level of 30 nanograms per litre in August 2024 for 25 chemicals in the PFAS family. That’s less than half of what Ontario currently recommends: 70 nanograms per litre, pertaining to just 11 PFAS chemicals. And that’s just a suggestion, not a binding regulation. 

The city did not reply to The Narwhal’s detailed questions regarding the current state of the drinking water supply, but CBC reported in February 2026 that Trout Lake contained around 58 nanograms of PFAS per litre of water.  

Thousands of substances classified as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, are used to make everything from medical equipment to waterproof clothing. They can generate hazardous waste which, if not disposed of carefully, contaminates air, water and soil — where it can remain for 1,000 years, hence their other nickname, “forever chemicals.”

Statistics Canada reports almost all Canadians already have PFAS in their bodies, including in remote regions such as the Arctic and subarctic. 

In North Bay, the issue is top of mind, with a class-action lawsuit, a lengthy and expensive remediation plan and a new factory importing chemicals from the Teflon-like subgroup of PFAS, called PTFE. And the company behind that factory, Industrial Plastics Canada, is one of the 10 major importers of PTFE in Canada.

While PFAS have been making global headlines for years as an emerging threat to the environment and our bodies, North Bay knows the issue intimately; citizens fear for their water as politicians try to clean up the mess.

Here’s everything you need to know about PFAS in North Bay.

1. North Bay’s PFAS contamination comes from firefighting foam 

From the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, the Department of National Defence used a fire suppression foam containing PFAS to train firefighters across Canada, including near the North Bay Jack Garland Airport. In 2016, after the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit learned PFAS had been identified by the Department of National Defence in waterways around the city, it commissioned consulting firm Stantec to assess the impacts on soil and groundwater.

It’s the invisible nature of these chemicals that are part of what makes them so insidious; you can’t see them or smell them, so you don’t know they’re there without testing. 

“When you look at a mine, for example, you can see it and say, ‘That’s obviously disruptive to our ecosystem.’” North Bay-based environmental anthropologist Carly Dokis previously told The Narwhal. “But these things are invisible pollutants, which then tend to attract less public awareness.”

Stantec found PFAS from the foam had contaminated soil, bedrock, groundwater, private wells and several waterways in the region including Trout Lake, Lake Nipissing and Lees, Dorlan, Chippewa and La Vase creeks and surrounding areas.

In 2025, reporting by the Investigative Journalism Bureau surfaced a report by the Royal Military College showing the Department of National Defence found elevated PFAS levels around the base as far back as 2012. That means the department knew about the contamination for five years before revealing it to the City of North Bay in 2016, and the public in 2017.

2.  PFAS impacts health, environment and property values. Residents are seeking recompense

In late 2025, North Bay citizens filed a proposed class-action lawsuit asking for remediation, safe drinking water and $105 million in damages for residents living within a three-kilometre radius of the 22 Wing Canadian Forces Base and Jack Garland Airport. Some of the people who live closest to the contamination have been receiving bottled water from the government for years, but have had no other opportunity for recourse.

The proposed lawsuit, if certified by the court, would be against the City of North Bay and the Attorney General of Canada, on behalf of the Department of National Defence, focusing on the loss of property value and remediation costs. The case is also seeking punitive damages, contending that National Defence was aware of the contamination long before warning residents.

Not mentioned in the suit is the long list of health concerns associated with “forever chemicals.”

The United States Environmental Protection Agency lists potential health risks of exposure to PFAS, including reproductive problems like infertility, developmental effects in children, increased risk of certain cancers and weakening of the body’s immune system, including reduced vaccine response. The Canadian government says PFAS can be transferred through the placenta during pregnancy, and infants can be exposed through human milk. 

Ecosystems are affected, too. Studies have shown exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances can stunt plant growth and cause reduced seed germination and ability to photosynthesize. The chemicals can build up in the organs of living creatures throughout the food chain. In the district of Nipissing, that poses a risk to people who hunt, fish and harvest from the land.

“These industrial areas are often surrounded by lower-income buildings and peoples and communities,” Curtis Avery, environment department manager with Nipissing First Nation, told The Narwhal in summer 2023. “We’re the most vulnerable group of people that utilize our lands — the lands are our grocery stores. … If these are being impacted, we need to know.”

3. Cost of North Bay clean-up grew five-fold, to more than $100 million

In 2021, the City of North Bay announced plans to begin remediation under a “shared responsibility” agreement between the Department of National Defence and the city. The federal department would cover 97 per cent of the costs, or $19.4 million, and the city would cover the remaining three per cent, at $600,000. But costs have ballooned since then; in December 2025, National Defence announced it would contribute another nearly $100 million to the remediation, with the city’s share rising to more than $3.6 million. The total for the cleanup project has risen to more than $122 million.

The remediation, which began on the ground in 2024, includes excavating and disposing of about 26,000 tonnes of PFAS-impacted soil; injecting activated carbon material into particularly dense patches of PFAS to stop the underground plume from spreading; and installing a filtration system to treat water leaving the site.

“We remain committed to addressing and managing the operational legacy of the Canadian Armed Forces responsibly,” Minister of National Defence David J. McGuinty said in a news release.

As part of the process, a notice went up on the federal Impact Assessment Agency registry on April 28, inviting the public to comment up until June 5 on a proposal to install a 250-metre permeable barrier in the ground to help filter impacted groundwater. A spokesperson for the agency said its role in the project is to offer advice on determining its environmental effects, as well as providing the opportunity to post the project on the registry.

Local organizations, including the environmental group Northwatch, said in a press release that they were concerned about “very limited public engagement over the last ten years since the public disclosure of the contamination,” counting only the two forums in 2024 and 2025, where there was “limited opportunities for the public to ask questions.” 

Northwatch’s project coordinator Brennain Lloyd told The Narwhal about the public notice period, which she said her organization only learned of in a daily bulletin from the Impact Assessment Agency listing multiple assessment notices from across the country.

“To the best of our knowledge there were no local announcements or invitations to comment issued to the many residents and organizations who have identified their interest in this program,” a release from Northwatch reads.

The Department of National Defence did not respond to questions from The Narwhal. 

4. North Bay’s not alone: contaminated military bases affect communities across Canada

Contamination on federal sites is an issue across Canada. There are thousands of contaminated sites listed on the federal contaminated sites inventory, and PFAS are found on more than 100 of them. These include at least 26 National Defence sites including bases in Trenton, Ont., Gagetown, N.B., and Moose Jaw, Sask.

And contaminants don’t stop at the fenceline. Health Canada says some contaminants can travel long distances through soil, water and air: “PFAS can be found in fresh water and drinking water in areas that are far away from where they entered the environment,” according to the department’s website.

5. Industry is still importing PFAS-class chemicals into North Bay

While the Canadian government no longer uses firefighting foam that contains PFAS, industry continues to bring these substances into the country. In 2023, The Narwhal reported on an international plastics conglomerate that opened its first Canadian location, Industrial Plastics Canada, in North Bay. The company has a presence across Europe as well as in India and China, billing itself as one of the “largest worldwide manufacturers of PTFE products.” 

PTFE, or polytetrafluoroethylene, is a Teflon-like product in a subgroup of PFAS known as fluoropolymers, or fluoroplastics. A company spokesperson previously told The Narwhal the use of PTFE at the factory will not produce waste and poses “no risk.” The company also says fluoropolymers aren’t as dangerous as other PFAS and are “considered safe, non-bioaccumulative and non-toxic.” 

But fluoropolymers have been found to be dangerous to human health, according to research published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology and others.

In 2023, Health Canada released a draft assessment of the state of PFAS in Canada to help decide how to regulate the class of chemicals. In it, the agency cited an industry-funded study that said fluoropolymers should be considered separately from other PFAS as “polymers of low concern.” A Health Canada spokesperson said the agency, along with Environment and Climate Change Canada, “examined information from a wide range of sources,” including scientific journals and reports while preparing the state of PFAS report.

The substances were ultimately excluded from the final report, released in March 2025, in which Health Canada proposed classifying the remaining PFAS chemicals as toxic substances under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

The Health Canada spokesperson said in an email that fluoropolymers “have specific properties that differentiates them from other PFAS,” which led to their exclusion from the final report. They added that the exclusion “should not be interpreted as meaning they are or are not of concern,” and that a separate fluoropolymer assessment is currently underway.

The exclusion of PTFE from that classification was a major priority for industry, Rémy Alexandre, toxics project lead at environmental law non-profit EcoJustice, told The Narwhal.

According to data collected by Alexandre, who studied Industrial Plastics Canada’s imports to North Bay, the company brought in almost 207,000 kilograms of PTFE from India and China from July 2025 to May 2026.

This puts the facility on the list of the 10 major importers of PTFE in Canada, alongside U.S.-based chemicals company Chemours, a spinoff of Dupont that has been arguing that the European Union should exempt fluoropolymers from their regulations, too. 

“The decision to site this plant in a community that is an existing hotspot for PFAS raises concerns,” Alexandre told The Narwhal. “And so does the selection of a jurisdiction that isn’t regulating fluoropolymers.”

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

• Tick populations are spreading in Ontario, increasing the risk of Lyme disease.
• Of the 44 varieties of ticks found in the province, only one — blacklegged ticks — carry Lyme, but they make up more than half of all ticks here.
• Experts say people need to recognize the risk of ticks and Lyme in the outdoors, and check themselves and others.

With the kids in bed and the movie credits rolling, I turned to my partner and asked the question no man can resist: would you check me for ticks? We’d been out in the backyard most of the day, among a not-so-recently mowed lawn, shrubs and tall native grasses. They all could be harbouring any number of pests — including the one adding an extra element of terror to southern Ontario summers. Wildfire smoke? Check. Extreme heat? Check. Ticks? Check — no, really: check yourself for ticks.

The insects have been spreading across Canada as the climate changes, and southern Ontario has seen a dramatic increase among several species of ticks. Unfun fact: our province has 44 species in total, according to Public Health Ontario. But only one, the blacklegged tick, carries Lyme disease (we’ll get to that in a minute).

Ticks have been on the rise in Canada for the better part of the last decade, Manisha Kulkarni, a professor in University of Ottawa’s School of Epidemiology and Public Health, says.

“What we’re really seeing is the result of this multi-year trend of tick population expansion in North America,” she says. “And now we’re really seeing those populations establishing in more regions in southern parts of Canada, including in Ontario.”

With warmer weather, ticks in Ontario are spreading

There are a few factors encouraging the tick’s northward march, Kulkarni says, but “one of the main drivers is climate change.”

“We’re not seeing as cold winters that would normally prevent them from surviving and reproducing, so they’re able to survive in more regions,” she adds. 

That longer warm season allows more time for ticks to find hosts — like us — to feed on, and to reproduce. As a result, every year we’re seeing populations establish in new areas that now have desirable conditions for ticks.

So while my family in the Niagara region has been dealing with ticks every spring and summer for years, this summer they’ve become a shared foe within the family chat. The latest map from Ontario Public Health shows populations of blacklegged ticks as far north as Thunder Bay and Kenora, throughout the Ottawa Valley and in Owen Sound, on Lake Huron.

I’ve heard a few people seek a silver lining on the coldest days of winter, saying that at least long stretches of deep freeze will decrease the risks of ticks. They were — officially — wrong.

While we did have some bitingly cold temperatures in Ontario this winter, Kulkarni says, “We also had lots of snow, which is a great insulator.” Ticks burrow down in the leaf litter, blanketed by snow, and stay cozy even when we’re complaining about a stretch of -30 C days.

So depending on where you live, it might be time to draw the blinds, strip down … and turn on the lights.

How to check for ticks (or stop them before they get to you)

How exactly should you check yourself and loved ones for ticks? Cover as much surface area as possible, according to Health Canada. Check your chest and back, and in your hair — and don’t forget the crevices: armpits (and kneepits!), belly button and between your toes. Ticks also have a habit of going for the groin so … yeah.

To prevent ticks from reaching your skin in the first place, Health Canada suggests closed-toed shoes, long sleeves and pants — with your shirt tucked into your pants and your pants tucked into your socks. Ten minutes in a hot dryer will take care of any that hitched a ride on your clothes. 

Sticking to cleared paths and trails helps, too. 

And there may be ways to keep ticks away, more broadly, from outdoor spaces humans like to frequent. Kulkarni’s team at University of Ottawa recently released a study that found spreading wood chips at the edges of gardens and trails where ticks are prevalent effectively reduced the number that came looking for blood. 

How did they test that? Dragging a piece of flannel material across the ground before and after wood chips were laid to see how many latched on. It really tells you something about how easily ticks attach, doesn’t it?

Why do so many Canadian musicians have Lyme disease? Blame the deer

As ticks take on new territory, their presence isn’t just creepy and unwelcome, it’s actually a public health risk: ask Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne or Shania Twain.

They’ve all publicly announced their diagnoses of the disease that, if left untreated, can cause neurological and cardiac issues, as well as arthritis.

Some areas of the country and our province, particularly around Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, have a higher concentration of ticks carrying bacteria that cause Lyme disease. Though it’s the most common disease people get from ticks, Lyme isn’t the only one they carry. And while not all types of ticks can pass on Lyme disease, more than half of the ticks found in Ontario are of the blacklegged variety that can, according to Public Health Ontario’s recent report. 

How does it happen, you ask? After mating on the backs of deer, the female blacklegged tick drops to the ground and, in the spring, lays eggs among the leaf litter, Kulkarni explains. Those eggs hatch into larvae, which quickly go looking for their first drink of blood. Down among the leaves, that’s usually from a small animal like a mouse or bird. If that animal is infected with the bacteria that causes Lyme, the tick takes on the infection. When it’s larger and more active, in the nymphal stage, the tick will find a bigger animal or human to feed on, and pass that infection on to them. As they mature into adults, white-tailed deer, dogs and humans are all on the menu.

“There’s several points in the cycle where humans are susceptible, but that tends to be during the nymphal peak of activity, in kind of the late spring and summer months, and then the adults, which are in the early spring and in the fall,” Kulkarni says.

For a general rule of where there might be a risk of ticks, consider if it’s a place populated by white-tailed deer, Kulkarni says.

Lyme disease diagnosis is up, so pull your pants down. But what do you do if you find one?

Across Canada, diagnoses of Lyme disease have skyrocketed from 104 cases in 2009 to a preliminary count of 7,105 cases in 2025, though the increase is likely due to awareness and increased testing, as well as a rise in cases. So far this year in Ontario, 236 cases have been identified by Public Health Ontario.

If you can remove the tick within a day, you can spare yourself a lot of trouble — it typically takes more than 24 hours after it attaches for the tick to pass on the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. Properly removing it means pulling the tick out straight, rather than twisting or bending, which risks leaving some of its mouthparts (unfortunately, that is the proper anatomical term) embedded. 

Next up? Keep the tick. Put that little sucker into a sealed container and take it to your doctor for testing (they’ll be thrilled). And if you can’t wait to know whether you’re holding a little blacklegged tick hostage — the kind that carries Lyme — you can also submit photos of the little offender online, where it will be quickly identified by kind-hearted insect enthusiasts.

If you have been bit, or even suspect you may have been, look out for Lyme symptoms like a rash or fever, headache or joint pain, Kulkarni says. These can occur even without the most famous Lyme symptom: a bullseye rash around the bite. “Not everybody actually gets the rash, so it’s important to look out for those other symptoms,” she says. If you have a summer fever, she adds, “that’s a good indication you should get checked out for Lyme, especially if you’ve been in an area where ticks are present.”

It’s not about being afraid to go outside, she adds, but equipping yourself with knowledge: both of the level of risk for ticks and Lyme wherever you’re going (there’s a map for that!) and how to properly remove one of it digs in (there are kits for that — and tweezers work, too!).

Kulkarni likens the threat of ticks to another unpleasant natural hazard. “There are settings where we know there’s poison ivy. People don’t go off the trail because they might brush along it, and if they do get a rash, they know what to do, right?,” she says. “Tick bites can be a bit more serious than that, but it’s the same concept: that being out in nature isn’t without risks, but by knowing what the risks are and how to manage them, you can really reduce any potential impacts.”

So check yourself, your kids, your pets — and your friends, if they need it. And if you’ve got a special someone at home, why not make 2026 the summer of sexy tick checks?

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 proposal by developer Cliff Bay Muskoka Corp. includes new condominium and hotel units, restaurants, a spa, an event centre and a marina in the small town of Gravenhurst, Ont., along with particularly controversial water villas over Lake Muskoka.
• The proposal relies on obtaining a Minister’s Zoning Order, or MZO, to bypass local municipal planning rules. 
• The MZO was a condition of the purchase when the developers bought it from the province, which one legal expert told The Narwhal could pose a conflict of interest.

Ontario cottage country — famous for its hundreds of clear lakes nestled in the Canadian Shield — is experiencing a first. 

The Cliff Bay resort project, proposed for the south end of Lake Muskoka, is planning for a Minister’s Zoning Order, a provincial decree that limits local government oversight in order to move development ahead. It’s known across the province as an MZO although, until now, Muskoka doesn’t appear to have experienced one. 

Now that it is, locals and cottagers have a lot to say. Throughout the town of Gravenhurst, Ont., lawn signs urge passersby to “Protect Muskoka Bay.” An attempt at an online public meeting initiated by the developers failed in May 2025, after its capacity of 100 attendees was quickly reached, with many more stuck in the waiting room eager to voice their concerns. 

The proposal by developer Cliff Bay Muskoka Corp., part of the KS Group of Companies, shows new condominium and hotel units, two restaurants, a spa, an event centre for weddings and a marina with space for 80 boats. While the developers originally proposed 1,400 units split between hotel and residential space, they told The Narwhal in an email that number has been “significantly reduced,” but didn’t say by how much.

All of this will spread across 33 hectares, or about the size of just under 50 soccer pitches.

A particularly controversial aspect of the Cliff Bay resort plan are additional water villas proposed to be built directly over the lake. Their construction would impact Crown lake-bed, which supports invertebrates and insects that are the backbone of the lake ecosystem.

“The building over water is what gets me the most,” Bruce Parlette, who spends half his time at his cottage on Lake Muskoka, told The Narwhal. Parlette began an online petition opposing the project that has accumulated more than 5,300 signatures over the last year.

By current municipal rules, buildings on the bay typically have to be at least 20 metres, in some cases 30, from the shoreline. “But they’re looking to build all these villas on the water … so the whole shoreline protection, that buffer zone, would be gone,” Parlette said.

So far, Gravenhurst’s leadership has been quiet on the project within its borders. A spokesperson told The Narwhal in an email that the town has not taken a position or issued any news releases or statements as “there hasn’t really been anything to share,” adding that they are awaiting the final proposal for “some form of statement or release.” 

When asked about public concerns over the impact of the project, the spokesperson said “the town does not own the property, process or decision here,” adding that council “certainly heard the concerns” at the developer’s public information session and might be able to take an eventual position when the process is further along.

The spokesperson did express council’s desire to see the property, a mix of undeveloped Crown land and a former sanatorium, put to productive use for the community. 

Meanwhile, Parlette and advocates at the Muskoka Lakes Association are selling the lawn signs, emailing officials and participating in public meetings about what the association calls the “deeply troubling details of a massive development proposal.”

“Nobody wants to see it done with an MZO, because then it’s going to override any local planning, zoning and decision-making,” Parlette said.

The developer website reads that, “in partnership with the Province of Ontario, we’re redeveloping this iconic site into a vibrant, mixed-use tourist complex,” in a project that reflects their “commitment to thoughtful growth, economic development and preserving the natural beauty of Muskoka for generations to come.”

The Narwhal also sent questions to Infrastructure Ontario, which sold the land to Cliff Bay, and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Neither of the provincial agencies involved responded to detailed questions about the sale of the land, the Minister’s Zoning Order and public concerns about the impact of the project.

Muskoka’s first MZO and the Doug Ford government’s track record using them

A Minister’s Zoning Order is a powerful control tool. It lets the provincial Housing Minister unilaterally decide how land is used and developed by bypassing local municipal planning and public consultation processes that would otherwise be required under the Planning Act. 

After searching publicly available government records, The Narwhal was unable to find evidence of any other MZOs being issued in the Muskoka area, including in the three major towns of Gravenhurst, Bracebridge, Huntsville and smaller hubs like Bala and Port Carling. 

Phil Pothen, legal counsel and program manager of land use and Ontario environment at advocacy organization Environmental Defence, told The Narwhal the Muskoka proposal raises concerns because the developers stated publicly that obtaining a Minister’s Zoning Order was a condition of the purchase and sale agreement between Infrastructure Ontario and the developers.

“It would actually place the province in something of a conflict of interest,” Pothen said, “in the sense that [the province] is both the landowner who stands to gain more if the land is more highly valued and the regulator who’s actually making the decision.”

Discussion of the MZO came at a public information meeting held over Zoom in July 2025, a redo after the over-capacity attempt that May. There, Kirill Soloviev, head of strategic planning for Cliff Bay, told hundreds of attendees that, as part of the deal for the developer to buy the property from the province, a “Ministerial Zoning Order was included, and now it’s a formal part of the transaction.” Bob List, a land use and environmental planner acting as a consultant for the project, echoed the statement.

The Cliff Bay project’s developer wrote in an email to The Narwhal that a Minister’s Zoning Order was a “necessity” because mixed land use — mostly recreational and commercial — is currently not recognized in existing zoning for the property. Ensuring a Minister’s Zoning Order would come through was essential to the decision to purchase the land, as without it, the decision to rezone the property for the purposes of the resort would have been left with the township, and not guaranteed.

In 2024, the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario conducted an audit of Minister’s Zoning Orders in the province and found that between 2017 and 2023, 114 were issued. With the Doug Ford government first elected in 2018, that average of 23 per year represents a 17-fold increase from the prior two decades. The audit concluded that these orders “have been used to override municipal planning.”

The audit also found that most information packages prepared for the office of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing as it evaluated each order “did not contain the kind of detailed risk information normally factored into municipal zoning decisions.” That included key information about the capacity of local roads, sewers and other infrastructure; the risks posed by natural hazards and the environment; and likely financial burdens to regions, municipalities and taxpayers.

These orders cannot be appealed at the Ontario Land Tribunal. Of the 25 Minister’s Zoning Orders the auditor general scrutinized for the report, they found that half showed “no evidence the ministry engaged with any affected Indigenous communities” prior to issuing the order. 

“This is a threat, frankly, to the rule of law in Ontario,” Pothen said. “It’s a process that is much more susceptible to impropriety than a conventional planning process where multiple individuals all need to be lined up in support of a proposal.”

What’s next for Cliff Bay resort in Ontario cottage country?

Right now, the area surrounding the site boasts a tree-lined shore spotted with cottages, ranging from quaint to luxurious. Docks surround the large, clear blue bay, with Muskoka chairs set up with views across the lake. Not far from the water on the site, the eerie, now-closed hospital building sits abandoned and overgrown.

Maintaining shorelines is critical to ecosystems and the wildlife they support; it’s where fish spawn, turtles lay eggs and birds nest. Healthy shoreline vegetation also filters rainwater and can even limit flooding, a risk that is increasing in the face of climate change.

In a response to questions from The Narwhal, the Cliff Bay developers said that upcoming changes to their plans will add more features for public use, like the beaches and public trails Soloviev mentioned during the public meetings, and address public comments they’ve received from people reaching out to them. 

In an email, they said no “significant or unusual environmental impacts are anticipated,” as sewage will be processed at an existing local treatment facility and because “there are no significant natural heritage features on the site.” The developers said they anticipate an updated draft of the Minister’s Zoning Order will be “available for further public review, Indigenous consultation and government processing in several months.”

Despite these efforts, Minister’s Zoning Orders do not come with any legally binding requirement to consult the public — a point project planner List repeated several times at the July 2025 Zoom meeting.

Pothen said the zoning orders provide a direct route for the minister to “leapfrog and circumvent the established planning laws of a municipality” and to approve a development even if it doesn’t conform with the official plan or with the government’s own provincial planning statement.

The Minister’s Zoning Order process does involve collecting comment from municipal governments. But, according to the auditor general’s report, there is no legislated requirement for the ministry to satisfy any municipal requests for specific conditions prior to the orders being issued. 

The Cliff Bay development will have to go through several environmental checks before being built — including a posting on the environmental registry of Ontario for public comment if the proposal goes through. 

There are cases where Minister’s Zoning Orders have been useful, Pothen told The Narwhal, such as during COVID-19 lockdowns, when they allowed for quick creation of emergency shelters.

“They are meant to be used, in our view, for very extreme and emergency circumstances,” Pothen said. “What’s being posed here, it’s really just a way to circumvent the rule, which raises the problem.”

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 North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit officially stopped testing water at public beaches.
• In place of testing, the health unit is updating public signage to warn swimmers of risks of heavy rainfall, murky water and large numbers of birds congregating — things that deteriorate water quality.
• Researchers and advocates argue beach water monitoring is important, especially as climate change makes cooling off in the water more necessary — and more hazardous, thanks to algal blooms and pathogens.

Kevin Marois wasn’t aware that the health unit spanning North Bay and Parry Sound, Ont., had stopped testing the water at local swimming spots.“I don’t think it’s a good decision,” Marois told The Narwhal after learning about it on a hot June day at Shabogesic Beach in North Bay. “Not having the information on water quality is the main [concern],” he said as he came out of the water, “And we know that there are problems with water quality during the summer.”

There were six harmful algal bloom events in the health unit’s area in 2025, and more than a dozen in 2024.

After announcing its plans earlier this year, the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit has officially stopped testing water at public beaches as of this summer. 

In its place, they’re offering public signage, which the health unit says will warn beachgoers to assess risks from recent heavy rainfall, visibly murky water or large numbers of birds in the water — all things that alter water quality and can make swimming unsafe due to high levels of E. coli or harmful algae.

Despite the updated signage, those who study beach water safety in Canada say ceasing testing could impact people’s ability to make informed decisions about safe swimming this summer. 

Meanwhile, researchers have argued a warming climate in Canada, including more severe summer heat waves, means swimmable water for people to cool off in is more important than ever. 

“We see changing climate patterns, we see urban heat island effects, we see heat domes, we see that there’s a tremendous need for community cooling spaces,” said Gregary Ford, vice-president and Lake Ontario Waterkeeper at Swim Drink Fish, an environmental non-profit that advocates for safe, usable water bodies. Its name comes from signs often posted on shorelines in Canada: no swimming, no fishing and no drinking. 

Ford explained that warmer temperatures and extreme weather events — a part of climate change, which is primarily driven by the burning of fossil fuels — also contribute to more harmful algal blooms and other pathogens that affect the health of the water and people who use it.

Health unit says water testing is resource-intensive and too slow

In March 2026, the North Bay health unit, which also covers Kearney, Nipissing and South River, sent a letter to member municipalities saying sampling the area’s 60 public beaches was too resource-intensive, and lab results took three or four days, limiting their usefulness when water conditions change quickly. The health unit also argued that the risk of illness from water recreation in the region is low. The water was only tested about three times each summer, it said.

Last year, Public Health Sudbury and Districts, a region which includes Manitoulin Island and French River, ended routine water sampling as well — one of many cuts made after the medical officer of health said their funding has not kept pace with inflation.

“Obviously, there are growing pressures on municipalities and public health units … and so we understand that compromises have to be made, but not in something that affects public health,” Ford said. “This is a trend that we see during periods of economic stress and strain … Unfortunately, as these scalebacks start happening, the public is left with less information about their water and, honestly, that becomes the most important part.”

Swim Drink Fish aggregates data from across swimming spots in North America into an app called Swim Guide. But these helpful third-party tools rely on local data collected by public health departments.

“It’s really important that municipalities also provide historical data, even if they’re not sampling today. They should at least publicly make available the data and information that has been collected over the last five years, the last 10 years, so people can still make a somewhat informed decision about where they spend their time,” Ford said. That’s not something made available by the North Bay Parry Sound Health Unit, either.

There are options for protecting beachgoers, but they can’t replace testing: experts

A recent study from Toronto Metropolitan University, which surveyed 4,085 beachgoers at seven beaches in Canada between 2023 and 2025, found that about 2.6 per cent of swimmers reported becoming sick, with children and elderly people facing higher risk of “recreational water illness,” such as stomach issues, ear and eye infections or rashes.

Ian Young, principal investigator on the Canadian Beach Cohort Study, tracking recreational water illness across Canada, said despite that low risk, “having a solid monitoring plan is important to give people confidence in the beach.”

He pointed to other methods being used across the country to help combat the slow, unreliable nature of current testing. For example, at Bluffer’s Park Beach in Scarborough, Ont., the City of Toronto implemented a bird management program, involving removing sources of food and training dogs to spur geese into flight, once they realized a substantial amount of the E. coli in the water at the beach was caused by birds.

Ford, from Swim Drink Fish, has seen other solutions; municipalities like Kingston and Hamilton are trying out new technology that alerts citizens in real-time when sewers and sewer bypasses are overflowing and contaminating beach water. But, he said, this does not replace the need for monitoring.

“It is a far second in terms of a solution. The best solution is to be continuing and continuously monitoring these beaches,” Ford said. “Resources can be stretched thin at times. This is a public health interest, it is a tourism interest and it is an individual health and wellness interest as well. So, this should be a priority for public health units, and it’s disappointing to see some of these decisions that are being made.”

To help mitigate risk, North Bay’s health unit recommends swimmers wash or sanitize hands before eating after swimming, towel off well to help prevent swimmer’s itch, check for hazards before entering the water and avoid getting water in their mouths.

But North Bay resident Ashley Brooker, standing at the shore of Lake Nipissing, said she still doesn’t feel good about the testing changes. “I am a risk-taker, but that doesn’t mean that I want to risk getting sick or catching something,” she said. “Safety is a big thing, and if we’re putting our tax money into something then we should be getting the resources back.”

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

• Canada’s updated national building code puts limits on new buildings’ greenhouse gas emissions, though provinces can choose whether or not to implement them.
• The new rules could reduce the use of natural gas, a fossil fuel, to heat Canadian buildings.
• Documents obtained by The Narwhal reveal an effort by the Canadian Gas Association to lobby against the changes.

Natural gas companies lobbied against federal building guidelines that could help weaken the fossil fuel industry’s iron grip on Canadian communities, according to documents obtained by The Narwhal. 

In December 2025, a federal-provincial body published a new national building code that, for the first time, limits the volume of greenhouse gases that can be emitted by a building, whether from a gas-burning stove, heating system or hot-water tank. As they developed the code, officials held years of consultations with groups including the gas industry, to hear thoughts on changes that could set a precedent that limits natural gas use in new builds.

These limits are called “operational greenhouse gas emissions provisions.” In practice, they mean builders have to consider whether the heating, cooling and cooking systems they outfit a home with will produce emissions that push it beyond that threshold.

Natural gas, a fossil fuel mostly made up of the greenhouse gas methane, represents almost half the energy used in residential buildings in Canada — and almost two-thirds of their carbon pollution. Burning natural gas to heat Canadian homes and water is a big reason why buildings here are the third-largest climate polluter by economic sector, after other fossil fuel-dependent industries like transportation and oil and gas production.

Natural gas also poses threats to public health. While the industry takes steps to limit human exposure, research shows oil and gas fracking can impact birth and respiratory outcomes. When gas is used in the house, it exposes the occupants to air pollutants. When it’s liquefied for export, that’s often done at a facility that flares off excess gas, which also releases pollutants that affect human health. Methane itself, which traps heat in the atmosphere and drives climate change, is on Canada’s toxic substances list.

Coupled with the government’s push to fast-track large-scale housing projects nationwide, the new code could represent a big change in how many Canadians rely on fossil fuels in their homes. That is, if provincial governments play along. The new guidelines aren’t likely to be enforced nationwide anytime soon. It’s up to the provinces to pick and choose what parts to implement, if any; Ontario’s building code, for example, hasn’t been updated in years. 

What’s more, the new limits may not even impact new gas hookups for buildings at all: the code offers a range of standards, and the least restrictive still accommodate “current construction practices using natural gas for space and water heating,” according to the documents, which were obtained through access to information law.

None of that, however, stopped the lobby group Canadian Gas Association from complaining about the new rules.

The industry group has a board of directors made up of executives at companies in the business of distributing gas. During the consultations, it “raised concerns about newly introduced operational greenhouse gas emissions provisions and their potential impacts on housing affordability and energy costs,” according to a January 2026 briefing note for Canada’s deputy minister of housing, infrastructure and communities.

According to the industry group, the rules “could effectively ban natural gas, increase housing and energy costs and favour electrification without considering affordability or infrastructure feasibility,” the briefing note continued. 

The building code development process is governed by a federal-provincial body called the Canadian Board for Harmonized Construction Codes, while the National Research Council provides support once the codes are developed. Both of those organizations were “aware” of the gas lobby group’s concerns and were “working to address them,” the briefing note said.

The Narwhal asked the office of federal Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson how the government planned on addressing the industry’s lobbying. A spokesperson for the ministry responded that it “is one of several government institutions that have been lobbied on the issue of building codes, as per private groups’ and individuals’ right to communicate with elected or appointed government officials,” adding that records of that lobbying are publicly available. The department “will continue to work with its partners at all levels of government and all industries to help ensure that Canadian infrastructure and housing reflect the diverse needs of communities across the country, while continuing to support Canada’s commitments on climate mitigation and resilience.”

The Canadian Gas Association did not respond to a request for comment.

Cities and provinces say natural gas limits will hinder homebuilding

If provinces enforce the highest performance levels in the building code, it’s possible natural gas hookups wouldn’t pass muster, according to Kevin Lockhart, the director of the Pembina Institute’s buildings program.

But it was a “mischaracterization to call it a ban,” he said, since builders have different options in the code to help them meet different aspects and building requirements.

The difficulty of reducing emissions in older buildings is a key reason limiting natural gas in new buildings is important, Betsy Agar, director of buildings policy at Efficiency Canada at Carleton University, said. 

New builds are a tiny portion of Canada’s overall building stock, she said, “less than two per cent of square floor area every year, and 80 per cent of our buildings that exist today will still exist in 2050. Those are the ones that are hard to electrify.”

The enormous task of retrofitting older buildings is one reason it’s difficult to justify rules that would let brand-new construction continue to install natural gas, when other options are available, Agar said. Especially since infrastructure and agreements that allow gas companies to access land and customers are proving hard to dislodge.

B.C. has previously strived for ambitious building code standards. But in Vancouver, where an estimated three-fifths of carbon pollution comes from burning gas for heat, city council voted in May to pause rules that tracked emissions and limited natural gas heating in new homes. 

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim argued that allowing gas heating in new homes would catalyze new home construction, but critics say the city is rolling back climate action.

In Ontario, the Doug Ford government has also been a strong defender of natural gas as an energy source delivered to both buildings for heating, and to power plants to generate electricity. Early in its tenure, the Progressive Conservatives cancelled hundreds of renewable energy contracts and then awarded new contracts to natural gas plants in 2022.

In late 2023, the province’s energy regulator found gas hookups in new builds may not be the most economical option for the ratepayers that foot the bill for those connections. The regulator ruled developers should pick up that cost, urging them towards cleaner and more cost-effective systems. 

Within days, and after much communication with Enbridge Gas, the Ford government vowed to overturn the ruling, and made good on that promise in August 2024.

Agar said in most cases, industry is “really resistant to strict regulations.” Building codes that drive toward electrification, she said, have particularly been in industry’s crosshairs.

“There’s just been this visceral response to it,” Agar said. But, she added, “the sooner that you adopt these codes, it means that people are living in better, more efficient, more comfortable homes, then all those new builds that we’re building don’t need to be retrofitted years down the line.”

Build Canada Homes will ‘encourage’ energy efficiency — but feds still support natural gas

The January briefing note was prepared for a meeting scheduled between the deputy minister of housing, infrastructure and communities and two members of the Canadian Gas Association, documents show. At that meeting, the deputy minister was expected to ask gas companies about their alternative proposals to the building code rules.

None of the lobby group’s proposals listed in the briefing note were focused on eliminating gas access in new builds. They included “reducing emissions from the gas supply stream,” meaning reducing methane escaping from pipelines that deliver the gas to markets. Another was “hybrid heating,” or pairing an electric heat pump with a natural gas furnace. 

There was also a proposal to blend more “renewable natural gas” — methane captured from food waste and compost, for example — into the system, which may reduce underground extraction of natural gas, but won’t necessarily make a big dent in emissions. And there was mention of blending in hydrogen, which is commonly produced with fossil fuels. There was no comment in the briefing notes about how the government received these proposals.

Build Canada Homes, the federal agency meant to respond to the housing crisis, has said it will “favour projects that demonstrate energy efficiency and climate performance.” The briefing note said Build Canada Homes “will encourage proponents to meet higher energy efficiency tiers” of the building code, but only “where practical and cost-effective.”

Lockhart, at the Pembina Institute, said the federal government could try harder to “drive higher performance in buildings.” That could include making emissions standards in the building code a formal prerequisite for any new homes that receive Build Canada funding.

It’s difficult to predict how Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government will respond to industry’s displeasure with the code. His election platform promised to phase out fossil fuel use in government-owned buildings by 2030, as well as ensure “new federal buildings” would adopt the top performance tiers for energy efficiency and emissions reductions. 

His platform also committed to “reforming and simplifying national building codes,” a promise reiterated in his spring economic update as a way to speed up construction. 

The spring also saw the release of the Carney government’s electricity strategy, which predicts at least a doubling of electricity demand, in part to address the electrification of buildings.

At the same time, the electricity strategy has an entire page devoted to “Natural gas’ strategic role,” where it describes the fossil fuel’s use for electricity generation in glowing terms like “reliable,” “affordable,” “secure,” “flexible” and “abundant.”

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

• Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment has approved two permits for Kinross Gold’s Great Bear mining project, which Grassy Narrows First Nation is concerned will cause environmental harm and worsen the mercury crisis the nation already endures.
• The ministry previously approved a similar permit, but the company withdrew it after Grassy Narrows brought its concerns to the Ontario Land Tribunal.
• The nation is now looking to appeal the new permits, arguing they present the same problems as the first one.

Ontario’s Environment Ministry has, for a second time, approved permits for a gold mining exploration project that a nearby First Nation says could worsen the region’s decades-old mercury crisis.

And that nation is, also for a second time, looking to appeal the permits.

The nation, Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows First Nation), successfully took the first step towards appealing a similar permit for Kinross Gold’s Great Bear mining project in 2025, with the Ontario Land Tribunal agreeing with the First Nation’s evidence for environmental concerns. Kinross withdrew that permit before the appeal could be heard.

Kinross applied again for similar permits in 2025, one for taking water and the other for discharging it, which the Ministry of the Environment issued on April 17. The nation is arguing the ministry was unreasonable to issue the permits due to the potential impacts of discharging sulphates from the wastewater into the environment, which leads to methylmercury production, a potent neurotoxin.

Richard Lindgren from the Canadian Environmental Law Association, and one of the lawyers representing Grassy Narrows, told The Narwhal in an interview the nation submitted its application for leave on May 7.

It was submitted to the Ontario Land Tribunal under the Environmental Bill of Rights appeals framework. In it, Grassy Narrows and a team of experts argue the approvals would worsen the mercury crisis the community suffers from as a result of a pulp and paper mill discharging approximately 10 tonnes of mercury into the Wabigoon-English River system in the 1960s and ’70s.

Grassy Narrows holds an annual “River Run” for mercury justice each fall, and has been demonstrating at events with both provincial and federal politicians, seeking resolution and recognition for the mercury contamination that has resulted in things like tremors, cognitive effects and neuromuscular disorders. 

In a separate case, Grassy Narrows took the province to court this month over similar sulphate discharge concerns from the Madsen gold mine, owned by West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd., also upstream of the nation. A decision has not yet been released.

Meanwhile, in February, the Ontario government under Premier Doug Ford designated the Kinross Gold project under its One Project, One Process framework for fast-tracking development.

The Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Mines did not respond to a request for comment from The Narwhal. Samantha Sheffield, director of corporate communications for Kinross Gold, said in an email to The Narwhal the permit approval process took “nearly three years to complete,” and “resulted in strict conditions for environmental protection.”

She said the company provided Grassy Narrows with more than $750,000 in funding to assist in reviewing the permits, and conducted extensive consultation with the First Nation.

The Narwhal reached out to representatives from Grassy Narrows First Nation but did not receive a response by publication time.

Grassy Narrows is concerned mine approvals will increase mercury levels in fish

In April, Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks issued two approvals to Kinross Gold, the first being a five-year water-taking permit which allows Kinross to draw 2.9 million litres — more than an Olympic swimming pool’s volume — of surface and groundwater combined per day. 

The second is known as an environmental compliance approval, and is for the treatment and discharge of that water back into the environment.

Lindgren said the nation and its experts reviewed the new permits and “still found them wanting,” adding they “still raised concerns about excessive discharge of sulphate that will facilitate or stimulate methylmercury production, which will lead to bioaccumulation in fish and consumers of fish, including the people of Grassy Narrows.” 

Sulphates released in mining wastewater are gobbled up by bacteria in river bottoms and other areas, which then react, turning mercury already present in the environment into methylmercury. This methylmercury accumulates in fish and other aquatic species within the river system, and can extend up in the food chain to top predators, such as humans, through a process known as biomagnification. 

Fish are an important food source for the Grassy Narrows community. “It’s not as if members of Grassy Narrows can just go to the local grocery store and substitute other food for fisheries,” Lindgren said.

“They have a treaty that guarantees them the right to continue to hunt and trap and fish, etc. So that’s a concern — that allowing the discharge of these deleterious materials into the watercourses will adversely affect their constitutionally protected rights.”

Mining approvals based on existing levels of mercury, which experts say are too high

An update to the environmental compliance approval, posted on Ontario’s environmental registry, indicated that, in response to concerns about mercury and impacts on fish, the Ministry of the Environment “adopted a conservative approach to address sulphate discharge.” That approach is requiring that “any discharge must meet the background concentration of the receiving environment” — in other words, the same level that’s already in the watercourse.

The nation and its team of experts say the history of mercury contamination in the area sets that benchmark level higher than it would otherwise be.

“So there’s a lot of concern that, you know, the so-called background limits are artificially high and will allow for the additional input of sulphate and the additional creation of methymercury,” Lindgren added. 

Sheffield, with Kinross, said the permit imposes limits designed to “maintain naturally occurring background levels in the environment, in accordance with provincial policy.” She said the company accepted the limits in response to the concerns raised by Grassy Narrows First Nation, “to demonstrate a precautionary approach, despite the absence of scientific evidence supporting the asserted risks.”

The scientific concerns Grassy Narrows brought forward previously — and is again raising alongside newer and more extensive evidence — were accepted by the Ontario Land Tribunal when it granted the nation its first leave to appeal.

As the project proceeds, Sheffield said, “Kinross will continue to engage with all interested Indigenous communities, including Wabauskang, Lac Seul and Grassy Narrows, in the same spirit of open dialogue and respect. In everything we do, we prioritize the health and well-being of the people, land and environment.”

To proceed to the appeal stage, Grassy Narrows must pass a two-part test under the Environmental Bill of Rights: showing that, according to law, it was unreasonable for the ministry to issue the permits and that issuing them could result in significant harm to the environment.

“It’s the same test and the same argument this time around,” Lindgren explained, and they’ll be relying on the same experts — including Brian Branfireun, a Western University professor and leading expert in mercury and methylmercury for more than 20 years — to argue their case.

The tribunal still has to grant that leave to appeal, which would give the nation the chance to broaden their argument around the potential impacts of the permits granted to Kinross.

Lindgren said that if the two-part test is passed, the nation will file an appeal to have both permit approvals revoked.

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

• In March 2026, the Doug Ford government formally replaced Ontario’s Endangered Species Act with weaker legislation that removes protections for some species and narrows protections for others.
• Documents obtained by The Narwhal reveal the dissent and concern raised by provincial staff, municipalities and Indigenous groups during consultations on the change.
• A major concern raised about the legislation is that many project proposals will no longer be posted for public comment, limiting public participation.

As the Doug Ford government prepared to replace the Endangered Species Act with new legislation, the province’s natural resources staff warned of weakened habitat protections, reduced oversight and new gaps in enforcement, according to documents obtained by The Narwhal.  

In March 2026, the Endangered Species Act was officially replaced with the Species Conservation Act, which removes or limits provincial protection from many threatened plants and animals.

Now, 275 pages of records, some publicly available and others only accessed through freedom of information legislation, show provincial bureaucrats worrying about the implications of the changes, as well as municipalities and Indigenous groups voicing dissent — before the government passed the law anyway.

The new act allows most projects, whether related to housing, mining or other industries, to begin as soon as proponents register online, in place of an expert review of permit applications. This approach “may weaken oversight and accountability, as self-regulation can be variable and potentially unreliable,” reads November 2025 feedback from the fish and wildlife policy branch of Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources to the provincial Ministry of the Environment, which is primarily responsible for species at risk. “Proponents may also misinterpret or manipulate rules and regulations.”

The natural resources ministry also raised concerns that the Species Conservation Act exempted a number of development actions from the second section of the Environmental Bill of Rights, which requires applications to do work that could potentially harm wildlife to be publicly posted on the provincial environmental registry. Without this, the chance for public review and comment is eliminated.

“The [Environmental Bill of Rights] was created to ensure that the people of Ontario have the ability to participate in decision-making processes,” reads the same feedback sent via email from the Ministry of Natural Resources. “Suggest being cautious if exempting [Species Conservation Act] permits and orders … as this may be seen as a way to avoid transparency, accountability and undermine public trust.”

Neither the Ministry of Natural Resources nor the Ministry of the Environment responded to The Narwhal’s detailed questions about this feedback by publication time.

In April, in response to questions from The Narwhal at a press conference, Premier Doug Ford said such changes are needed to clear the way for industry and development in the province. 

“As I’ve said, we aren’t going to hold up Highway 413, the Bradford Bypass, over a grasshopper — not happening,” Ford said of two highway projects set to cut through the protected Greenbelt and farmland. “We have a mandate to build. We’re going to build, and we’re going to respect the environment at all costs.”

Thousands of public comments about endangered species protections were also ignored: lawyer

Kerrie Blaise, a lawyer with the northern Ontario environmental non-profit Legal Advocates for Nature’s Defence, said these issues remained as the final legislation was passed, despite concerns being raised ahead of time.

That includes dropping the requirement for some permits for projects that could harm species being publicly posted.

“It’s a very sweeping exemption,” Blaise said. “It means we won’t know the name of the companies. We won’t know where it’s happening … the basic details: when, where, how much, what’s the harm? All of those details will be lacking.”

Blaise also registered her dissent before the new act passed. She told The Narwhal that Legal Advocates for Nature’s Defence sent more than 6,500 signed form letters asking the province to reconsider — even repeal — Bill 5, which proposed killing the old act and passing the new one. The organization is now representing two Indigenous interveners challenging the constitutionality of the bill in court. 

Blaise said it was “really great to hear” that natural resources staff spoke up. “I truly believe you have very dedicated individuals with expertise in this field … but their expertise and their knowledge is not being respected,” she said. 

“There are those with knowledge who can actually guide the government in a good way, and it’s really chilling when those individuals and departments within [the government] are themselves not being listened to.”

Blaise added she sees nothing in the final legislation showing that the province addressed the concerns raised by staff or those contained in thousands of public comments.

“If the province was actually looking to respect … what the public was actually saying, we would have a very differently worded Species Conservation Act,” Blaise said.

In the documents, Ministry of Natural Resources staff also warned that excluding federally protected species from provincial protections “could create regulatory gaps and inconsistencies.” This, too, echoes concerns from environmental groups. 

The province has argued a number of species —  including the redside dace, a minnow that became central to concerns over Ontario’s Highway 413 development — are already protected under federal laws. 

The federal government can extend emergency protections to provincial lands, but rarely does so. And in many cases, federal protection only extends to individual species under the federal Species At Risk Act and their dwelling places on federal lands, such as national parks or First Nations reserves. These spaces make up less than five per cent of the range of most terrestrial at-risk species, whose wider habitat in Ontario is now vulnerable. 

The documents show this concern was voiced by Steve Ganesh, commissioner of planning, building and growth management for the City of Brampton. He wrote to the province that, “By limiting ‘habitat’ to a species’ dwelling place and its immediate surrounding area, important areas may no longer be protected that are crucial for foraging, dispersal, migration and climate resilience.”

“This change could leave locally significant and rare populations unprotected and reduce the scientific basis for municipal planning, restoration and mitigation efforts.”

One species of particular concern is caribou, according to Allie Mayberry, a wildlife co-ordinator working with the sustainable development department of Biigtigong Nishnaabeg, a First Nation on the north shore of Lake Superior. Whittling protected species habitat down so severely provides little protection for an already threatened species that relies on large swaths of interconnected habitat to survive, she told The Narwhal.

“There’s a lack of clarity around how caribou habitat is going to be protected moving forward,” Mayberry said. “We’re already working with a baseline of a very disturbed habitat, and now through the new [Species Conservation Act] there’s much less of an imperative to protect what habitat there is left.”

Docs show Treaty Rights and loss of protection for threatened species were a concern

Other municipalities and First Nations had concerns about the legislation change, the documents show. 

A letter from the City of London, sent before the new act’s passage, argued the now-official Protected Species in Ontario List would remove protections for 106 species. “These changes undermine the municipality’s capacity to protect species that are rare, threatened or endangered within the city,” the letter reads, naming 20 species in London’s boundaries that have been removed from protection, along with their habitats. They include the chimney swift, eastern musk turtle and wood thrush. 

The documents show Indigenous groups also argued the new legislation disrespects not just the environment, but their Treaty Rights.

The Species Conservation Act was set to “fundamentally alter how the Haudenosaunee exercise rights guaranteed under the 1701 Nanfan Treaty,” reads a comment from Aaron Detlor, a delegate from the Haudenosaunee Development Institute, which represents the interests of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council in the development of lands within Haudenosaunee jurisdiction. “These regulations restrict the free and undisturbed use of our territories that are foundational to Haudenosaunee sovereignty and self-determination.”

“Our review of these proposed regulations reveals no credible or equivalent process that could substitute for meaningful engagement on measures that directly affect our Treaty Rights. We see no mechanism by which the Haudenosaunee will have a meaningful opportunity to participate in decisions affecting species protection and our inherent right to exercise hunting and harvesting rights on our territory,” Detlor wrote.

At the April press conference, The Narwhal asked Ford how he would respond to government experts saying the changes could create serious gaps in protection for species at risk. “That’s a priority to make sure we protect all species at risk,” Ford replied. “There’ll always be consultation.”

Chief Duncan Michano of Biigtigong Nishnaabeg noted in a comment about Bill 5 on the Environmental Registry of Ontario that the new act failed to respect First Nations’ constitutional rights, arguing the legislation “fundamentally weakens environmental and cultural protections and reduces consultation requirements,” calling it a “direct violation of the Government of Ontario’s obligations to uphold the honour of the Crown.”

“The consultation process [on Bill 5 and the Species Conservation Act] has been extremely flawed all along,” Mayberry, Biigtigong Nishnaabeg’s wildlife co-ordinator, said. “We’ve participated in a number of different ways and what we’ve been met with is not a two way dialogue in an attempt to hear and meaningfully address any concerns.” 

Mayberry said consultation has “all just been a box-ticking exercise wherein Ontario continues to double down on their preferred approach, and they get the benefit of saying, ‘Well, we spoke to First Nations about this.’ ”

“We’ve taken a piece of legislation that was once considered the gold standard for species at risk protection and recovery in Canada, and now we have just whittled it down to a point that it’s barely even a species protection act anymore,” Mayberry said. “I’m not at all surprised to hear that there’s even concerns internally about this.”

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 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.”

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.

This story is part of a series called Shockwave: Rising energy demand and the future of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes region is in the midst of a seismic energy shakeup, from skyrocketing data centre demand and a nuclear energy boom, to expanding renewables and electrification. In 2026, the Great Lakes News Collaborative will explore how shifting supply and demand affect the region and its waters.

Summary

• Wind blowing across the Great Lakes could generate clean electricity for the energy-hungry cities in the region, but there are currently no offshore wind projects harnessing that potential.
• Barriers to offshore wind on the Great Lakes include ecological concerns, regulatory hurdles and economic costs.
• Advocates say easing political restrictions and providing subsidies could kick-start an offshore wind industry in the region, and that ecological risks can be mitigated.

Covering an area the size of the United Kingdom and surrounded by half a dozen large, energy-hungry metropolitan regions, the Great Lakes region, surprisingly, boasts not a single offshore wind energy project.

We know that the resource and the demand are there. But no offshore wind effort has ever taken off.

Past efforts at a demonstration project called Icebreaker Wind, slated for Lake Erie off the coast of Cleveland, Ohio, fizzled out in 2023. In Ontario, which boasts 8,000 kilometres of Great Lakes coastline, a moratorium on offshore wind has been in place since 2011, with the provincial government having to fork over millions of dollars in damages to one wind energy company as a result.

But today, with electricity prices surging around the region, is it finally time for offshore wind to take its place? Do communities even want them?

Here, we speak to advocates for and opponents to offshore wind and investigate the myriad challenges such projects in the Great Lakes face.

What’s changing now?

A perfect storm of events has combined to push electricity prices to record levels for thousands of communities around the region.

Utility companies such as Consumers Energy in Michigan, We Energies, which operates in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and a host of others have embarked on system upgrades that are set to add up to 14 per cent to the cost of monthly electricity bills for consumers, with further rate hikes likely in the years ahead.

On top of that, the U.S. government has mandated that coal-fired electricity plants in Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and elsewhere that were scheduled to be retired now remain open. That means that federal subsidies that are essential for keeping these loss-making plants running are likely to cost ratepayers billions more dollars.

Then there’s the contentious wave of data centres opening across the region, creating a huge new demand for utility-scale electricity.

All the while, recent years have seen a drive to reach net-zero carbon emissions. Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota plan to reach that goal by 2050.

Ontario aims to get to 80 per cent below its 1990 level of carbon emissions in the same time. New York state has declared an even more ambitious plan, to reach net zero by 2040.

On top of that, with the U.S. government banning offshore wind projects in oceans surrounding the country, there’s been a renewed push to see the Great Lakes — controlled by eight U.S. states and Ontario, rather than authorities in Washington, D.C., and Ottawa — become a new front in the development of the technology.

What is the energy potential for offshore wind on the Great Lakes?

Experts say offshore wind generated from the lakes could provide three times the amount of the electricity used by the eight U.S. Great Lakes states in 2023. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data from 2021 crunched by the Woodwell Climate Research Center found that Great Lakes water generates more wind than anywhere else east of the Mississippi River.

“According to reports done for Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources, Great Lakes offshore wind can be implemented with minimal aquatic impacts. If the turbines are 10 to 15 kilometres offshore, they will be almost invisible,” said Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

“Offshore wind in the Canadian section of the Great Lakes has the potential to supply more than 100 per cent of Ontario’s electricity needs.”

Icebreaker Wind, the Cleveland project, got as far as securing a 50-year lake-bed lease from the State of Ohio in 2014. Predicted to provide 20 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 7,000 homes, its main goal was to function as a trial project.

But Icebreaker Wind is not completely dead, yet. Last year, a Maryland-based company called Mighty Waves Energy acquired the project, raising hopes among Cleveland leaders and many residents around the region that the first steps towards a lake-based wind energy future remain in place.

Mark Hessels, CEO of Mighty Waves Energy, spoke with Great Lakes Now over the phone, but declined to go on the record to discuss the company’s proposed new offshore wind project, and failed to provide a statement when asked.

What are the big challenges?

And yet, the barriers appear immense.

John Lipaj has been sailing and boating on Lake Erie ever since he was a child.

“I spent every summer out there on a boat. In July and August, when the temperatures rise, the wind would die,” he said, illustrating one of several reasons he and others think offshore wind isn’t suitable for Lake Erie.

“If there’s no wind at exactly the time of year when electricity is needed most, for air conditioning, then what’s the point of building offshore wind?”

As a board member of the Lake Erie Foundation, a non-profit, that’s not the main reason he and the organization he represents opposes offshore wind on Lake Erie.

“One of the things we were most concerned about is that bald eagles were almost extinct, and they’ve really come back along the Lake Erie shore. Now, they’re thriving,” he said.

“In the winter, they’ll fly out a couple of miles [offshore] looking for fish, especially if there’s ice [on the shoreline]. We’ve got real concerns about the bald eagle population being hurt by the wind turbine out on the lake, because that’s their feeding ground.”

In 2022, a wind energy company was fined US$8 million and sentenced to probation after its wind turbines were found to have killed more than 150 eagles over the course of a decade across ten U.S. states, including Michigan and Illinois.

Some conservation organizations opposing offshore wind have even come under fire. A report by Grist in 2021 alleged that the American Bird Conservancy, a US$30-million non-profit, has been one of the most powerful environment-focused opponents to wind turbine projects across the country, having received around US$1 million from fossil fuel interests.

A request by Great Lakes Now for comment from the American Bird Conservancy was not received by the time of publication.

All the while, others believe the potential threat to wildlife can be mitigated.

“Some people are unaware that the National Audubon Society supports Great Lakes offshore wind power. The good news is that offshore wind can be done in a bird-friendly way,” said Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

“We are recommending that the turbines should be turned off from dusk to dawn during the migratory bat seasons (late April and May and mid-July to the end of September) when wind speeds are less than seven metres per second, since bats fly more when wind speeds are low.”

Threats to wildlife aside, for Melissa Scanlan, director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Center for Water Policy, five leading factors have combined to stall progress in offshore wind:

• Jurisdictional fragmentation that prevents states and provinces from combining their efforts; 
• Inadequate planning;
• Policy instability at the federal government level; 
• Protracted litigation in the case of Ohio; and,
• A lack of sustained political will. 

There are other challenges.

“There’s definitely misinformation that circulates about offshore wind,” she said.

“From the research we’ve done, we think you can address that through transparent, science-based planning processes,” said Scanlan. “Without doing a more rigorous science-based planning process, if there’s a vacuum of reliable information, that can allow misinformation to be circulated more freely.”

On top of that, there are reservations around the economic return of such projects. Estimates suggest the cost of offshore wind on the Great Lakes could range from 7.5 to 12.9 cents per kilowatt hour. That’s more than double the cost of onshore wind or utility-scale solar.

But while the costs of delivering offshore wind are not inconsiderable, experts such as Scanlan say there’s also both a dollar and environmental cost of continuing to deploy fossil fuels for electricity generation.

Moreover, interest groups have allegedly been at work to make such efforts difficult to bring to fruition.

The former proprietor of the Icebreaker Wind project, the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp., has claimed that corruption within Ohio’s energy regulatory body and state leaders’ close ties to energy giant FirstEnergy made the project unworkable, and has sued FirstEnergy for up to US$10 million. Restrictions that the project faced, including calling for turbines to be shut down at night for eight months of the year, essentially torpedoed the project.

What would facilitate off-shore wind?

Industry innovators say that an easing of regulations at the state level would make a huge difference to the emergence of offshore wind in the Great Lakes. Investment in the form of tax breaks from state governments, which handle the leases and permits for any offshore wind projects in the Great Lakes, are another way. 

And while the cost of producing offshore wind is higher than its onshore equivalent, higher winds offshore combined with technological advances mean that energy production capacity from offshore could be up to 60 per cent more than onshore.

Scanlan of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Center for Water Policy is among the researchers who say offshore wind projects could play a significant role in meeting our rapidly growing energy needs.

“As a society, we need to develop energy resources that are not in conflict with protecting the environment,” she said.

“Offshore wind is no different from that.”

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.

It’s a windy night and unusually warm for October, as visitors gather at the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory in Milford, Ont., for the “Starry Nights with Saw-whets” event. One barred owl was caught early in the evening, before any of the participants arrived, and is being kept in an owl carrier for closer observation later in the night. But now, word is getting around: it’s probably too warm to see any saw-whet owls, a disappointment to the attendees who have come to see them up-close and learn about nighttime migration monitoring. “South wind,” station manager Ashley Jensen mutters as she checks her phone for radar weather updates. It’s not the right kind of wind current for the migrating owls that are making their way from the north. 

At the observatory, volunteers gather for bird banding, a scientific technique in which a small, uniquely numbered metal ring is attached to a bird’s leg to track movement, migration routes and lifespan. Jensen is the bander-in-chief, while another bander, Ketha Gillespie, has donned a felt owl suit for the public event. Other visitors are humming with excitement despite the unpromising weather.

Prepared with thermoses and blankets, they gather in front of the banding station as Mira Furgoch, the observatory’s vice-president, gives a presentation about the owls and the station’s conservation efforts using a television that will also show live footage of the birds being handled. That is, if any are found. 

Bird-banding stations like Prince Edward Point collect data and conserve natural spaces that are invaluable habitats. They respond to factors affecting avian populations like disease, climate change, birth rates and more, while engaging the public in the natural world and promoting conservation. As of July 2025, the North American Bird Banding Program database includes 85 million banding records and 5.5 million encounters with banded birds. That includes both encounters reported by the public and recaptures reported by bird banders. 

Unlike people, birds cross borders freely, and the program relies on migration data collected and shared by both Canada and the United States. But the stability of American bird-banding efforts is at risk. The 2026 U.S. federal budget proposes eliminating the Ecosystems Mission Area, the parent agency overseeing scientific bird-banding efforts.

The possibility of disruption to scientific efforts in Canada as a result of what’s happening in the United States is real, and it is causing anxiety among some Canadian banding stations. If there were to be a shutdown on the U.S. side, Matthew Fuirst from Birds Canada explains that it would affect the collection of data that promotes conservation efforts. “If there was no U.S. bird-banding program, Canada would lose a crucial part of North America’s migratory bird science. It would really hinder our data availability, past and future, for population estimates, habitat protection and hunting regulations,” Fuirst says.

Despite these looming threats, the mood among the group waiting for owls at the Prince Edward Point observatory is peaceful. 

Engaging the public

Under the stars in Prince Edward Point, an audio lure designed to draw in saw-whet owls plays on repeat into the night. To everyone’s delight, one owl is caught before the event ends. A member of the public symbolically adopts the owl, makes a donation to the observatory and spends a few extra moments with it before it is released into the night.

Owl bander Gillespie, who also runs a youth ornithology program that introduces bird observation and banding to school-age children and teens, began her volunteer journey with a casual interest in birds. “I didn’t know a huge amount when I started here. I just came as a volunteer one day and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s so cool,’ and I saw birds I didn’t know.” From there, she started volunteering and “put my mind to learning.”

She also sees banding as a way to promote conservation, and to enrich the lives of people who live near the bird observatory but might not know about it. This reflects a public engagement challenge for many observatories: their remote locations. In the Prince Edward observatory area of Ontario’s Prince Edward County, tourism and wineries play a big part in the local economy. Gillespie sees an opportunity to expose the migrant workers who labour in these industries to bird banding, giving labourers the chance to see new birds as well as birds they may already be familiar with from their home countries. 

There have been changes to improve accessibility at the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory, including the addition of walking canes and foldable seats to accommodate mobility needs, and a taxidermied owl display offering a tactile way to interact with bird bodies for visitors who might have limited vision. 

Some banders can recall a negative experience with the public, owing to an unfavourable perception of bird banding that is usually cleared up with education and an explanation of the process. Birds waiting in nets can look alarming to someone unfamiliar with banding, which is why net lanes at bird-banding stations are closed to the public. “They may try to remove or cut the birds from the net if they don’t understand what’s going on,” Jensen says, which adds an extra layer of stress for the bird. 

“Once people know what you’re doing and get to see birds up close, or even get a chance to hold a bird and let it go, then they’re really usually pretty good with it.”

A day of banding

On a fall day at the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory in Lion’s Head, Ont., as a beaver swims across the bay, three bird banders take note of bird migration patterns from their temporary home in Wingfield Cottage.

It’s not easy to get here. The location is remote and currently not open to the public, only accessible by a closed unpaved road. But the cabin, perched on the water and surrounded by trees peppered with colourful autumn leaves, is the perfect pit stop for migrating birds, and the banders who stay on-site can expect to interact with a variety of species each season. This is just one of the stations that bring people together to monitor migrating birds in the fall and spring, deepening their knowledge of the natural world. 

The banders at Bruce Peninsula wake up before sunrise, put up the mist nets and wait for birds to fly into them. Weaving through well-trodden but narrow forest trails, they check to see if any birds have been caught before carefully extracting them, placing them in a small cloth bag and carrying the birds back to a small shed for processing. 

During processing, the bird is identified and its data recorded: species, weight, wing-span, age and sex (where possible) and the date and location of capture. To determine the amount of fat the bird is carrying, banders blow lightly on its chest to separate the feathers for observation. Lastly, a metal band is attached to the bird’s leg before it’s released to continue its migration. 

In between net checks, banders cast a trained eye for birds. A small shuffle in a faraway bush might catch everyone’s attention: in moments, they’ve identified a bird that an untrained eye may not even see. “Junco.” “Hermit thrush.” They peer through binoculars.

The banders also take census on observation days: a walkthrough at the start and end of the day, slowly and attentively, identifying as many birds as they can. 

Bruce Peninsula’s bander-in-charge and station scientist, Stéphane Menu, has been doing this for nearly 20 years. His colleagues Michaela Parks and Catherine Lee-Zuck bring their own set of skills: Parks is also a photographer who donates her work to the organization, and Lee-Zuck is an ornithologist who has been banding for three years. They share the work of observing, documenting and banding birds during the fall migration season.  

Menu describes the importance of the information being gathered: “We provide a lot of data that we think is very useful for not just general knowledge, but also for the government to make management decisions on the cheap.” 

Much of the bird-banding labour is done by volunteers, who may receive a small daily food stipend like they do at the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory. In more remote areas, some locations offer accommodations, but banding stations in more urban areas allow for volunteers to come and go for their shifts. During my visit to Bruce Peninsula, locals come by the banding station to offer their help on a stonemasonry repair that needs to be done. It’s all in the spirit of collaboration.

The banders’ cabin is full of bird reference books and sunlight. There’s a large stone fireplace in the living room, a big open kitchen where Menu makes pancakes between net checks, and a couple cozy rooms — including one with bunk beds — that give the place an atmosphere of bird summer camp. Parks shows me some of the nature photography she has made during her stay at the observatory. Later, Menu describes the wildlife: “We have black bears, we have rattlesnakes, we have beavers here on a daily basis. You can see otters. I feel very privileged to be here.” 

Even though she’s sharing a space with her fellow banders, Lee-Zuck describes the period at the end of the banding day as her “me time.” Looking out over the bright blue bay in the sunshine, it makes sense.

“Birds don’t see borders”

Some Ontario station managers and banders are concerned about the political instability in the United States and its potential impact on cross-border collaborations. “It would be super unfortunate not to have that level of connection, getting band returns and sharing information back and forth with our American colleagues would be really unfortunate,” Jensen, the station manager at the Prince Edward Point observatory, says. 

Matt Fuirst of Birds Canada explains what such a loss would mean. “If there was no U.S. bird-banding program,” he says, “Canada would lose a crucial part of North America’s migratory bird science.” It would hinder data availability, population estimates, habitat protection and hunting regulations. “It would kind of force Canada to determine a new system for regulating and tracking migratory bird data.”

“The Canadian Wildlife Service is committed to the bird-banding program in Canada,” Fuirst says, adding they plan to “continue operations as normal, continue bird banding, be maybe more conscious of reporting encounter data, or maintaining accurate band inventories.” The aim is to collectively stay on top of potential shortages of physical bands, which are manufactured in the U.S., while continuing data collection. He says the service has been “taking precautionary measures to ensure a mitigation plan.”

At Bruce Peninsula, Menu says he tries not to think about losing the collaborative relationship between nations. “It’s not just bird banding, it’s a service that’s been done since the late ’60s. Sixty years of breeding-bird surveys gone, and it’s done by volunteers. The organization and the collection of the data and the analysis of data is done by a federal agency, but the running of it is by volunteers.” 

Different places; same mission

Rick Ludkin, the co-founder of Haldimand Bird Observatory in southern Ontario, says birds are “telling us very clearly that our environment is declining in quality.”

Birds also show the impacts of good conservation practices, according to Ludkin. After soybean fields were replanted with prairie grass at Haldimand Bird Observatory, the number of birds banded increased from 90 to 450 birds in one year. 

Ludkin says the observatory has been getting rid of buckthorn, “a terrible invasive plant,” and also thinning out the walnuts. “Both of those species inhibit the growth of native shrubs and trees, and the impact of that has been pretty astounding.”

Jason Smyrlis, who has one year of banding experience, camps at the observatory when weather permits as a way to cut down on travel time. With the early mornings associated with banding, that creative solution to no on-site accommodations makes plenty of sense, even when it requires a double sleeping bag and multiple layers. “The light levels at night are tremendously reduced. It truly is a fabulous place to spend time,” he says. 

Different bird-banding stations have their own look and feel to them, but there are some common threads. For one, there’s the bander’s tools: the bands themselves sit on strings of wire before they’re attached to birds. Special rulers to measure the wing-spans sit on wooden desks; in some places these desks are doodled with highly accurate bird cartoons. 

There are also scales to weigh the birds, and small cylinders that house the birds while they are weighed. Different stations get creative with these containers in their own ways. At one place, empty Pringles cans suggest a love for snacks that conveniently supports science. At others, there are empty tennis ball canisters. At another, an empty tube that once carried a whiskey bottle.

What makes a volunteer?

To someone who isn’t familiar with the process, bird banding may seem almost like a secret club. “People that have been here will talk to other people about it,” Ludkin explains. “I kind of like the way we’re doing it, because you get people that really are interested and want to be here.”

To become a bander, the first important thing is the ability to identify birds by sight and sound. Volunteers can receive training to become banders but, says Jensen, “If they ever want to get to the point of being an independent bander, you have to be able to ID every single bird before you put the band on it. You cannot band a bird until you know what the species is.” 

With some popular banding sites like Long Point receiving more volunteer applications for banders than there are positions, finding a place to volunteer can be competitive. According to Menu, “It’s competitive because there are not a ton of positions but there are also not a ton of people with the skills. And then not just the skills but the desire to do this kind of work.” 

At Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Bird Research Station, located on Lake Ontario, volunteer positions are given by priority to those with a genuine passion for birds and those who intend to pursue a career in ornithology. Bander-in-charge Shane Abernethy says it’s important for volunteers to know how to handle animals, drawing comparisons to those with experience as vet techs or pet groomers. Even something seemingly random like playing a wind instrument, he says, can be a valuable asset at a banding station, as it can help with blowing on a bird’s chest to evaluate fat.

There is also a lifestyle factor: you must be willing to work according to migration season hours, often in isolation and with no days off save for the occasional weather day. “If you’re gone for two months in the spring and almost the same or more in the fall, it’s not necessarily a life that works well with what you can call a normal lifestyle,” Menu says.

All volunteers follow bander’s ethics: guidelines set out by regulatory bodies such as the North American Banding Council that are meant to guide people through the best ways to handle and interact with birds while conducting research. The code prioritizes the well-being of birds and the standardization of data collection and accountability. 

For stations that publish photos or share content on social media, photographic standards ensure the public image of bird banding promotes bird safety. “It’s admittedly very easy for the public to see a photo of a bird and think what we’re doing is bad. It happens more than you would realize,” explains Bird Canada’s Fuirst.

Birds and people are a double act

Thilini Samarakoon, a volunteer bander who just completed her third season, started out as a birder in Sri Lanka at the age of 13. Through a youth exploration society at school, she became very interested in birds and butterflies. 

Now she lives in London, Ont., and with her husband who is also a bander, she travelled to the Long Point Bird Observatory in Port Rowan, Ont., Canada’s oldest birding station. There, they met another bander visiting from Peru, and used an online translator tool to communicate.

There can be a special camaraderie among banders – after all, they spend time together hunkered down in some beautiful strips of nature, united by a common interest. Some return every year to these locations. Fuirst describes Long Point Bird Observatory as “a migration of people in addition to birds.”

“People from all across the country are spending their winter at home, and then spring comes, and the birds return. And the people also make this migration to a very specific spot. You know, this one trail that I love to walk every year. And it’s the same thing as what the birds are doing,” Fuirst says.

The interconnectedness of the birds and their environments is hard to ignore. Banders, whether they be volunteers or trained scientists, share stories about a love of nature and passion for wildlife that spans many years, often starting in childhood. It’s a deep passion for many, and one that quite literally moves people across borders. 

Faced with uncertainty about what the future of scientific collaboration may look like with the United States, the day-to-day reality of bird banding in Ontario bird observatories is quite normal. The NatureCounts database, which is an open data platform by Birds Canada that collects, interprets and shares biodiversity data, is running as usual. Volunteers, who have always been willing to give their time and expertise in exchange for some closeness with birds and time in beautiful natural settings, are still motivated to contribute their skills. 

Birds migrate. People migrate, too. Scientists and bird enthusiasts travel, sometimes internationally, to visit banding stations during migration seasons in order to earn banding experience, deepen their knowledge, receive training, get credentials, complete university studies, conduct research, make friends. 

“For me, I like birds but I also like migration. Birds connect the world,” Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory’s Menu says. “They don’t really see borders.”

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.