A few days before I visited Devil’s Glen, a resident who lives near the Ontario provincial park got into a yelling match with a rock climber. It allegedly ended with the climber’s hands around the neighbour’s neck, and a call to the police. Over the years, there have also been allegations of litter stuffed into caverns used by at-risk bats, of centenary cedar trees sawed off, of cars egged and climbing routes sabotaged along this stretch of Niagara Escarpment in Clearview, Ont.

For that neighbour, Adam Pearce, concerns started shortly after he moved into his home nearly two decades ago. He began noticing rock-climbing routes on the escarpment abutting his property — hundreds of bolts on bald stretches of cliff face are a giveaway. After a climber fell eight metres and had to be rescued by fire crews and paramedics, Pearce redoubled his efforts to understand how the sport was being monitored and regulated by Ontario Parks. 

He learned it largely wasn’t. For years, rock climbing was just an illicit pastime he and parks ecologists worried about. Then, the Government of Ontario officially sanctioned it. 

I met Adam and his wife, Holly, at their house in late August. Flower beds and bird houses decorated the property, along with dozens of animal skulls the couple has found. We entered a trail out the back of their yard, where they’ve erected “No Trespassing” signs. Within minutes, we were in the park, beginning our descent along a thin slice of trail overlooking a steep drop into the forest below. I couldn’t help but think about these contested grounds, and what would happen if the Pearces came across a climber.

I knew the possibility for tension was high. For months before visiting, I’d been speaking with sources — including climbers themselves, residents and scientists — while reading more than 1,200 pages of documents detailing conflicts between rock climbers, neighbours, environmental organizations and government agencies about this slice of escarpment. 

Several document packages made accessible through freedom of information legislation and either obtained by or shared with The Narwhal show a paper trail of a conflict that goes far beyond squabbles between neighbours and climbers. It shows how the actions — or inactions — of Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks have allowed the situation to deteriorate so dramatically.

The most recent chapter of this story dates back to May 2023, when Ontario Parks, which falls under the provincial Environment Ministry, put up signs closing several climbing routes in particularly ecologically sensitive areas in Devil’s Glen. That summer, climbers spoke with news outlets, posted on social media, wrote blogs to criticize the “unprecedented” decision and, according to one of the document packages, emailed Ontario Parks staff to say the move was taken in “bad faith.”

By August that year, the documents show, the office of then-environment minister David Piccini had ordered all the remaining signs be removed — even though at least one government biologist argued removing the signs had “no scientific rationale.” Climbing has continued indiscriminately in the park since. Ontario Parks did not respond to a request for comment or specific questions for this story.

Creating a rock-climbing route is a fairly invasive procedure. Climbers use folding saws, garden shears and crowbars to pry off loose and wiggly rocks. In a detailed guide to “Route Building 101,” the Association of West Kootenay Rock Climbers in B.C. reminds climbers: “Bushes and small trees that stick out of cracks need to have the roots removed to avoid future growth. Hacking away at small stumps with a hatchet might be necessary.” Other advice is to use an “old ice axe” to remove roots from the cracks. Climbers use battery-powered hammer drills to affix bolts to the cliff face to clip on to — permanent anchors to catch them if they fall. 

The Narwhal spoke with Mike Penney, volunteer president of the Ontario Alliance of Climbers, about these concerns. He’s been targeted for disputing Ontario Parks’ efforts to close some areas off to climbing, and shared photos of posters in which his likeness is shown arguing about the scientific evidence behind those closures. The posters were shared on social media and, he said, left on the vehicles of climbers. “I’m not denying that there is an impact to our natural environment through climbing,” he says. “But I would argue that climbing has the least amount of impact out of any recreational sport that you could think of.”

The Pearces don’t agree with that assessment. They say they’ve seen sensitive plants ripped from the cliff face, tree limbs sawed off and a path built with gravel chipped off the side of the cliffs to allow for easier access. With more than 140 rock-climbing routes across the approximately 700 metres of escarpment within the park, they became increasingly worried about the ecosystem — the hundreds of bats that pour from caves and cracks in the fall and cedars that sprout from cliff faces in ways that seem to defy nature.

It made them de facto vigilantes. “We watched them start vandalizing the cliff and we reported it numerous times to Ontario Parks,” Pearce said, as we looked up at a route. Climbers are fond of quirky monikers, giving routes names such as Mystery of a Lost History, Hyperion and Sympathy for the Devil.

“Holly and I would come across them and say, ‘What are you doing? What’s going on? You’re not allowed to do that.’ And they tell us to mind our own business,” Pearce said. 

In turn, the Pearces have been accused by climbers of destroying routes, stealing equipment and egging cars — all of which they deny.

“We never thought that it would affect us on a level that it has,” Pearce said, saying the couple has received calls in the middle of the night with people threatening to burn their house down. “[The Ontario Provincial Police] told me I should always have a body cam walking in the park.”

The Ontario Provincial Police said it was unable to comment on detailed questions from The Narwhal about the number of calls for service, investigative actions or whether charges have been laid.

Over the years, the Pearces have sent more than 100 emails and made dozens of phone calls to Ontario Parks. In response, in 2026, the provincial agency issued them a cease and desist letter for excessive emails, phone calls and social media posts, which the ministry said are “inappropriate and serve no constructive purpose.” The consequences of breaking the cease and desist order were not specified, but the Pearces have continued emailing park staff.

To the Pearces, the letter is another roadblock in understanding how recreation and conservation are being balanced in the park — if they are at all.

“We’re not trying to say there shouldn’t be rock climbing,” Pearce said. “All we are asking for is that Ontario Parks does their job.”

A month after the Pearces were told to cease and desist, the Parks department issued a new management plan explicitly permitting climbing in Devil’s Glen. The plan, issued under current Environment Minister Todd McCarthy, states climbing “will be secondary to the protection of the cliff’s important geological, biological and cultural heritage,” and that a “leave no trace ethic” will act as the guiding principle. 

The plan sets out broad protections for the park, but doesn’t include details on how they’ll be enforced. As a “non-operating” park, there is no permanent office or on-site superintendent at Devil’s Glen. The plan does say park authorities can put up fencing and signs to keep climbers off particularly sensitive areas — again.

Derek Morningstar said he first visited Devil’s Glen in 2024, after being invited by an Ontario Parks specialist to research bats in the area. “We could tell right away that that was a pretty important place for bats,” the ecologist and founder of the bat research company Myotistar said in an interview. “There’s a huge amount of bats flying along there during the swarming season, and there are crevices and caves we think that haven’t been explored. Certainly they’re swarming there and probably hibernating there as well — several endangered species.”

Six of the province’s eight bat species have been found in the area, many of which are currently listed as endangered thanks to widespread fungal disease and habitat loss. This includes the eastern small-footed myotis and little brown bats, whose numbers have declined significantly in recent years.

In an April 2025 email contained in one of the document packages, Morningstar wrote to Ron Gould, an ecologist and protected areas specialist at Ontario Parks also studying the Devil Glen’s ecosystem. He shared his observations with the Parks staffer saying the location was one of the most significant swarming sites he had ever worked at: “It seems like during the swarming season, bats are just about everywhere in that area.”

His findings supported what Ontario Parks scientists had found, and sought to protect back in 2023 when the agency erected signs prohibiting climbing at 23 of the park’s existing routes. The signs went up in three sensitive areas that housed rare ferns, roosting bats and cliff-nesting birds across a 100-metre length of the escarpment in the park, a fraction of the climbable cliff face.

Gould said he was unable to give comment for this story due to fear of reprisal, but the documents contain an email he sent to his boss, Greg Wilson, the southwest zone manager for Ontario Parks, in May 2023. “These protection areas still leave a significant climbing opportunity,” wrote Gould, who has worked with species at risk and habitat protection at provincial agencies for more than two decades. 

For the Pearces, the signs were a win. But, the move was unpopular with climbers. In May 2023, Penney, with the Ontario Alliance of Climbers, wrote an email to Ontario Parks staff saying, “We are extremely disturbed by this development.” 

“If this is official signage, this is a statement by Ontario Parks that there is no longer any interest in ongoing communication, or a consultative relationship with the climbing community.”

Parks manager Wilson also declined to be interviewed for this story. But emails show his reply to Penney: “The signage was installed by Ontario Parks to protect the most sensitive ecological values in Devil’s Glen Provincial Park. … The intention of the signage is to notify park visitors that these areas should not be disturbed. We are still very much interested in an open and collaborative relationship with the [alliance].”

Things didn’t quite play out that way. 

“We realized that we actually needed to mobilize the climbing community,” Penney told The Narwhal. In an attempt to get the environment minister’s attention, the group solicited nearly 4,000 letters, he said, to reopen climbing in all areas of the park.

In his interview with The Narwhal, Penney said Ontario Parks had closed “the entirety of Devil’s Glen to rock climbing” in 2023. When The Narwhal asked about the discrepancy between that statement and Ontario Parks records showing only 23 routes of 140 routes had been closed, he replied: “I don’t really see why that matters,” adding the route count was incorrect, and that substantially more than 23 routes were closed. 

Penney said he used to spend 30 to 50 days each year climbing at Devil’s Glen. He loves the blue-ish grey limestone and the challenging routes. “One of the privileges in walking through these places is also learning about the environment and learning about some of the species that you’re now walking in amongst,” Penney said over the phone while driving home from his day job as a business development manager for a soup company.

He said he visits the area less now, given escalated tensions. He told The Narwhal that climbers have described being threatened, called racial slurs, filmed while relieving themselves in the woods and having the bolts they use to fasten themselves to the cliffs cut off.

He told The Narwhal about an email he received in his role at the alliance, sent from Adam Pearce to the climbers and other stakeholders in September 2025: “Let me be crystal clear: there will be hell to pay in Devil’s Glen if climbing access is granted.” But Pearce told The Narwhal this was taken out of context and was only part of the picture. The Narwhal reviewed the email, which read in full: “Let me be crystal clear: there will be hell to pay in Devil’s Glen if climbing access is granted without full transparency and accountability. The community will not tolerate policy built on silence and spin.” 

After the “No Climbing” signs went up in spring 2023, some of them were vandalized, according to an email from Wilson contained in a freedom of information package. Meanwhile, climbers’ protest letters flooded in and, in May 2023, Ministry of Environment staff had a meeting with representatives from the Ontario Alliance of Climbers. There, according to the minutes, Penney raised concerns about the “continued involvement” of unnamed Ontario Parks staff members and proposed bringing in third-party biologists to validate the agency’s science.

When asked about this by The Narwhal, Penney criticized the research done by Ontario Parks’ ecologists. He said he could not be more specific about the methodology or scope, as the alliance hadn’t actually seen the ministry’s research informing the closure decision, but said the route count Ontario Parks used when planning the closures was incorrect.

Within a few months, internal emails show, then-environment minister Piccini’s office specifically directed Ontario Parks to remove the signs. Soon after that, Gould raised concerns.

Weeks after the signs came down, Gould wrote to Wilson and other colleagues that he had received reports of climbers developing new routes in Devil’s Glen and “installing new bolts directly within our previously posted protection areas.”

In October, Gould wrote: “There has been no scientific rationale involved in the removal of the signed protection areas so hopefully we can get those back in place soon. These ongoing climbing activities within the sensitive areas are likely to cause further user conflicts and impacts to park values, both of which should be avoided in our protected areas.”

About a year later, records show Gould was told by his manager, Wilson, to postpone work at the park. “As a reminder, it is my expectation you will consult with me and receive approval from me prior to performing any work related to Devil’s Glen,” Wilson wrote in a September 2024 response to an email from Gould with subject line, “Trip safety plan for Devil’s Glen and [redacted].” Wilson continued that he “would like to hold on this work for the time being,” and added he was working to get an update on the proposed amendment to the park management plan.

Wilson did not respond to questions about why signs were removed, or whether Parks biologists were asked to hold off on work at Devil’s Glen.

Ontario Parks did not confirm whether Gould still worked on the Devil’s Glen file at the time of writing, and The Narwhal has since learned he was dismissed from his work at the agency altogether. An email sent to him on Oct. 6, bounced back, saying his account was not found on the Ontario government’s email service. He was the only protected areas specialist listed for Devil’s Glen and the larger southwest parks zone on Ontario Parks’ website.

Around the time Gould was directed to hold off of work at the park, in fall 2024, a member of the alliance’s Facebook page posted that they’d heard of a climber being “approached aggressively close and made to feel uncomfortable by a man and a woman” saying climbing was not allowed on a route in Devil’s Glen. 

Penney responded, encouraging climbers to use all portions of the park and adjacent Crown land, saying: “Climbing is permitted at Devil’s Glen Provincial Park, on the entirety of the cliff.” He wrote that climbing was allowed and encouraged by Ontario Parks and the Ontario Alliance of Climbers. “Please please please continue to climb at [Devil’s Glen], enjoy yourself.”

Penney wrote to The Narwhal in an Oct. 7, email saying, “We recognize that there are legitimate conservation concerns and strongly support responsible environmental stewardship. The concern is that the conflict has, in our view, escalated beyond a normal policy disagreement.”

The Niagara Escarpment curves up from western New York, through southern Ontario and runs along Georgian Bay and the Bruce Peninsula before heading back south to parts of Michigan and Wisconsin. Devil’s Glen sits along its eastern portion in Ontario, a part of the important, delicate ecosystem that researchers and Ontario Parks officials have understood the importance of protecting for decades.

Among those experts is Doug Larson, a retired researcher and University of Guelph professor, who began studying North America’s escarpments in the 1980s.

“We found trees that were almost 10 times older than anything found elsewhere in Ontario,” Larson said of the Niagara Escarpment, over the phone from his home in Guelph. “It really is the last undisturbed stand of forests in eastern North America because of the fact people can’t get to it.”

That is, unless they climb.

In his 2004 book about the ancient cliff face forests in the Niagara Escarpment, The Last Stand, Larson wrote about European immigrants who introduced rock climbing to the Niagara Escarpment after the Second World War. “Trees hundreds of years old came in direct contact with humans for the first time,” he wrote. 

Then, at the turn of the millenium, the advent of indoor climbing gyms and advances in climbing equipment made rock climbing more accessible and popular than ever. It spread across the escarpment. “Sawn stumps and branches are visual reminders that the climbers have not simply chosen rock with fewer trees,” Larson wrote.

The twisted trees, mostly cedars, cling to the face of the escarpment. Standing only one to three metres tall, with trunks as wide as a person’s leg, they may look stunted compared to the towering stereotype of old-growth forests, particularly in B.C. But, Larson said, they represent the oldest undisturbed forest ecosystem this side of the Rocky Mountains. And they’re a biodiversity hot spot, important for nesting birds and endangered mammals. A 2008 study by an Ontario Parks ecologist found Devil’s Glen has an “outstanding total of nine provincially rare” plants including male fern, smooth cliff-brake and green spleenwort.

Through the ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s, Larson’s research found climbed areas supported substantially fewer plants due to trampling, purposeful removal and soil compaction. He and his teams recommended new climbing routes be banned in protected areas. 

Not everyone was a fan. Ontario Rock Climbing, a website that sells climbing gear, published a post on the history of climbing in the province that references a 1991 study by Larson and colleagues. 

“This study had a very negative impact on the climbing community,” it read, calling this period the “Dark Ages” for outdoor climbing. “Although the results from the study were inconsistent, it led to … a number of other cliffs being closed to climbing. Public opinion became that climbing was not compatible with the Niagara Escarpment.”

Larson argued “there was nothing inconsistent” about his results: “We published that 30 years ago, and we got immediately despised by the climbing community because they didn’t like our story.”

“Climbers need to realize that some restrictions may be required to preserve the cliff face forest in perpetuity,” he wrote in 2004. “One of the main problems is that climbers have had free rein of the escarpment cliffs for over 50 years … it is extremely difficult to modify behaviour that has been entrenched for such a long period of time.”

Alerted by the Pearces, the conservation organization Ontario Nature has also taken an interest in Devil’s Glen. Conservation director Tony Morris said his organization isn’t debating whether climbing and nature can coexist, but whether efforts are actually being made to strike that balance.

“It’s about managing that activity in a way that doesn’t harm those sensitive ecological features,” Morris said. “It means not having just climbing routes appear all over the place, and ensuring climbers aren’t going into areas that bats are hibernating in and aren’t tying ropes off of cedars, 100-year-old cedar trees.”

Having also viewed one of the document packages before sharing it with The Narwhal, Morris said seeing expert staff seemingly being held back from monitoring ecosystems “raises some serious questions about the mandate of Ontario Parks” and about the management of other parks and beyond.

“If park ecologists, whose job it is to monitor ecological health of parks, aren’t allowed to visit the parks, that seems strange,” Morris said. He said he has struggled to get information from the Environment Ministry about internal scientific studies done at Devil’s Glen.

“This is just such a strange situation that it’s gone this far,” Morris said. “When you combine it with what else we’re seeing across the province in terms of attacks on natural heritage. It’s part of a bigger picture, in the sense that, even the areas that are supposed to be managed primarily for ecological integrity, it raises serious questions if that’s the case anymore.”

In 2025, two years after the ‘no climbing’ signs were put up and quickly removed, the Ministry of Environment posted a notice to amend the Devil’s Glen Provincial Park management plan on the provincial environmental registry, and opened it up for public comment. The amendment included listing rock climbing as a permitted use in the park. 

More than 600 comments were submitted. Over 90 per cent supported the proposal, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and managing rock climbing within the park. A minority expressed concerns about environmental impacts on cliff habitats and species such as ancient cedar trees and bats.

In April 2026, climbing became a permitted use in the park.

“Ecological integrity remains the top priority, and Ontario Parks will manage ecologically sustainable recreational uses and rock climbing at Devil’s Glen Provincial Park with ecological integrity in mind,” the decision reads.

The Ontario Alliance of Climbers credits this to their campaigning. One of its websites describes this regulation change as “the first such plan for an Ontario Provincial Park,” adding, “We are optimistic that this will be the first of many such plans. We need you, the climbing community, to write submissions supporting this plan … we are so close to clipping the chains.”

“I have a great relationship with Greg Wilson,” Penney told The Narwhal in mid-September about the alliance’s “productive conversations” with the Environment Ministry. “And they agreed that this was something that was long overdue, and put their support behind some resources to help Ontario Parks and help our partners there do what was necessary internally.” 

Penney told The Narwhal that “climbers are great stewards and advocates of our lands and of our climbing areas.”

When The Narwhal visited Devil’s Glen in August, shiny metal bolts were visible across the cliff face. There were no signs telling climbers which sensitive areas to avoid, even though Ontario Parks’ plan sanctioning climbing references a study that “recommended restricting climbing and access routes to the most disturbed areas where continued use is not likely to worsen existing impacts.”

The plan gives Ontario Parks the right to close routes deemed sensitive to climbing activity, and to prevent new routes from being established given that cliff area is “highly saturated … and the need or capacity to create new route opportunities is generally low.”

As we walked, the Pearces picked up garbage from the trail, stashing it in their backpack to throw out later. “You better wash your hands after,” Holly told her husband as he bent toward a personal hygiene product.

After about half hour of hiking, we came across two climbers, readying their gear and resting between routes. They were the only other people using the trail on the quiet Monday morning, and my stomach dropped, anticipating conflict. Holly, too, had readied her phone camera to capture the interaction. The climbers and Pearces exchanged polite, short greetings — remarking on the beautiful, mild weather.

Holly put her phone away. The climbers, now with full permission from Ontario Parks, surveyed their next climb.

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Five days before Ontario’s new, weaker species-at-risk law took effect in March, members of the Environment Ministry team tasked with enforcing it were thinking about bats. In particular, a delayed permit that was keeping a developer from clearing trees before at-risk bats returned to them for the season. 

The permit had been delayed because staff were waiting to learn what the government’s new rules for endangered species protections were going to look like. By the time they did, officials feared it was too late. 

“I know those bats are in those trees,” one government biologist said during a March 25 meeting of the species at risk branch. “I just know those bats won’t survive.”

“We’ve lost our impact on the process,” a senior official replied.

The meeting was one of the last chances for staff in Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, to express concerns about the Species Conservation Act, which replaced the province’s Endangered Species Act — once considered a gold standard for at-risk species laws. 

The change, introduced under Bill 5 in June 2025, stripped provincial protection from several species and narrowed habitat protection for others — 106 species lost protections, a July 2026 report by Ontario Nature found. It also introduced a new model for environmental assessments that is “proponent-led,” leaving developers largely responsible for assessing their own environmental impact and cutting government biologists out of the process almost entirely.

A recording of the meeting, which involved about 25 staff members in the species at risk branch of the Ministry of Environment, was shared with The Narwhal by one participant and independently verified by two others. The Narwhal is not naming the officials who led the meeting or participated in it, to protect their privacy as public sector workers with limited authority.

At the meeting, staff voiced concerns about fielding calls from “angry clients” — developers who had spent weeks working through permits and mitigation measures, only to have that process nullified overnight, with no new guidelines in place. Senior officials leading the meeting told staff Environment Minister Todd McCarthy’s office had provided “questions and answers” they could use to address developers’ concerns. 

“Our jobs were changing quickly from being biologists and scientific experts to being administrative staff,” one former staffer told The Narwhal, speaking under the condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions. “We were no longer allowed to give our recommendations.”

The Narwhal spoke with and verified five current or former ministry employees, who agreed to speak confidentially as they feared repercussions. Three spoke on background, while two agreed to be quoted without their names being used, as did one outside expert who has worked closely with government biologists on permit applications. The Narwhal also tracked staffing changes through LinkedIn and the government’s public directory, INFO-GO, as well as WayBack Machine, a digital archive that allowed us to access past versions of government websites. 

A note on trust, integrity and unnamed sources+

This story uses information from sources The Narwhal has agreed not to name. The Narwhal only agrees to keep names confidential when we believe two things. First, that the person we’re speaking with is putting themselves at genuine risk, either personal or professional, by sharing this information with us. Second, that the information they’re sharing is in the public interest. Our decision to do so is never made lightly. 

There are two types of unnamed sources. A confidential source is someone whose name we know, but aren’t sharing. We make multiple attempts to verify their identity and information with other sources. If we aren’t able to get a second source, we say so. 

An anonymous source is someone whose name we don’t know. It is incredibly rare for The Narwhal to publish a story with a completely anonymous source. In these instances, we don’t publish until we have verified the information shared with us with at least one other source. 

And again, these stories must be in the public interest. 

As Canadian governments become increasingly secretive, the courage of whistleblowers is to be admired. We value them greatly. At the same time, our promise to readers is The Narwhal will always make sure the facts are airtight. 

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Together, these sources reveal the new act has had a significant impact on the people tasked with protecting Ontario’s most vulnerable species — reducing them from experts to rubber stamps, if anything at all, for the industries they once held to account.

They also show that, more than a year after the Species Conservation Act was proposed, a wave of departures has hit the ministry’s species at risk branch, as biologists leave for the private sector or other government roles. The Narwhal counted more than a dozen people who have moved on since February 2025, though some may have retired or wrapped up short-term contracts. The Narwhal could not confirm the exact number of positions that have been vacated since the Species Conservation Act passed, but sources suggest it has been a notable amount, and that the loss of people and expertise is palpable within the ministry.

“There were lots of opportunities to improve the Endangered Species Act,” a former official said, “but this rollback is way too far, and it just diminishes protection that is promised to Ontarians.”

Sources say the policy changes and departures weakened the scientific expertise Ontario’s Ministry of Environment once valued, reducing the ministry’s ability to protect the environment in an evidence-backed way.

“Yes, it hurts the species,” the first former ministry staffer said. “But it hurt all of us too.” 

“We were essentially silenced,” they said. “And it’s not fair.” 

The Narwhal sent an extensive list of questions to Environment Minister McCarthy’s office, the ministry’s communications department and the species at risk branch, which redirected our questions to the communications department. None responded by publication time.

‘Our jobs stopped feeling meaningful’: government biologists were kept out of the creation of the Species Conservation Act

Under the previous Endangered Species Act, ministry experts helped project proponents, such as developers, homeowners and industry, figure out a plan to avoid impacts to at-risk species and their habitat. If harm couldn’t be avoided, biologists and ministry staff helped to minimize that impact or offset it — for example, by requiring proponents to establish new habitat elsewhere. This process required a lot of government review and back and forth. 

The Species Conservation Act changed all of this. The new act only asks the proponent to submit a conservation plan that “should” include how it will minimize or offset harm to at-risk species. That plan is to be written by an expert — hired by the proponent, and very loosely defined — but the regulations don’t specify what exactly it needs to include. Once submitted, these plans are automatically accepted and greenlit. 

In the recording of the meeting before the act was finalized, staff are told clearly that they “can’t review” proponent-led plans. They can’t ask questions or ask for more information. 

“Once they’re in the system, we don’t check them unless there’s a complaint,” the former official told The Narwhal in an interview. “We had to accept what clients were proposing.” 

Former and current ministry officials told The Narwhal they were shut out of the process to create the Species Conservation Act. They say it was announced in a hybrid meeting, with staff both in the ministry’s various offices and online. “It was so quiet,” a second former official said. “Morale dropped right away.” 

According to the ministry sources, all of the new regulations were decided in the environment minister’s office with a few senior officials. Three people told The Narwhal that staff were not given a timeline for when the new act would come into force, what to tell proponents or how to update online guidelines.

One internal communication, reviewed by The Narwhal, outlines how branch staff were not shown the final draft regulations before they were finalized. When staff tried to push back and make recommendations, they were told “there’s no appetite for that,” the first source said. 

“It was a very heavy-hearted time,” the second former official said. “On one hand, there could have been so many improvements but, as we learned in hindsight, there were very few ways to do any good.”“Our jobs stopped feeling meaningful.” 

Laura Bowman, an environmental and Indigenous Rights lawyer with Macpherson Law, told The Narwhal that, for ministry experts, “there’s nothing to be done under an automatic registration scheme.”

“Once the proponent has filed the paperwork, however flawed, the registration is approved,” Bowman said. “I can definitely understand why people with deep technical expertise would want to use it somewhere else.”

“If technical staff are leaving the ministry, that’s extremely concerning,” Bowman said. “What you’re left with is a hollow shell when that happens.”

With “nobody watching,” she said, the quality of the work being done to protect and mitigate harm to at-risk species is likely to decline.

‘They didn’t want to do anything wrong’: project proponents valued ministry expertise

As questions started trickling in about how to get a permit under the new law, ministry sources who spoke to The Narwhal said they were given language to copy and paste. 

“A lot of the language was very ambiguous, non-committal and unhelpful to our clients,” the first official said. “To be fair, clients wanted our recommendations. They didn’t want to do anything wrong and many were frustrated that we couldn’t tell them anything.”

The Narwhal spoke with one biologist who has long worked with private industry to make sure projects are compliant with species at risk law, creating plans for species management and harm mitigation. She also raised concerns about the lack of input from ministry staff. “I’ve had no correspondence with [the ministry] on any of my files,” she said about the months since the new act passed. “I’m just kind of doing it on my own now, and hoping that I’m doing it right.” 

She said when replies do come, they are weeks later and often “stock text” that does not answer site-specific, nuanced questions.

As the ministry continues to shed technical expertise, there appear to be fewer people left to answer those questions — if they were even allowed.

“I think that staff are very bound in what they can and cannot share,” the source told The Narwhal.

And, given the lack of feedback from the ministry and guardrails of enforcement, she said some of her own clients have been increasingly aggressive about removing species at risk protections.

“We always will have clients that want to push that envelope as far as they can, and we used to have [the Ministry of Environment] come in and say, ‘Nope, this is the way it’s got to be,’ and then that was the end of the story.”

“But now that that doesn’t happen, we get a lot more pushback. Like, ‘What is stopping us from doing it this way?’ ”  

This source expressed concern that the current lack of oversight creates an incentive to do the bare minimum to remain competitive. 

The effects of these changes will reverberate for generations, former government staffers told The Narwhal. 

“Across the government around the environment, the first approach is to avoid harm, and then mitigate and find ways to work around. The very last resort is to fix harms,” the second former official said. “Now, due diligence has changed. They’re going to have a lot of long-term consequences to deal with.”

One of those will be the loss of decades of expertise. “You will just not have the quality of staff you need at the ministry to deliver oversight and protection,” the first official said. “The sense we get is they don’t want us anyways.”

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More than 10,000 Starlink satellites currently orbit the Earth. We see them crawling across dark skies, no matter how remote our location, and streaking through images from research telescopes.

SpaceX recently announced that it wants to launch one million more of these satellites as orbital data centres for artificial intelligence computing power.

A few years ago, we wrote a paper predicting what the night sky would look like with 65,000 satellites from four planned megaconstellations: SpaceX’s Starlink, Amazon’s Kuiper (now Leo), the U.K.’s OneWeb and China’s Guowang. We calibrated our models to observations of real Starlink satellites and came up with a startling prediction: One in 15 visible points in the night sky would be a satellite, not a star.

A million satellites would be so much worse.

The human eye can see fewer than 4,500 stars in an unpolluted night sky. If we permit SpaceX to launch these satellites, we will see more satellites than stars — for large portions of the night and the year, throughout the world. This will severely damage the night sky for everyone on Earth.

SpaceX’s proposal also completely fails to account for atmospheric pollution, collision risk or how to develop the technology needed to disperse waste heat from orbital data centres.

Predicting the night sky

SpaceX has filed its million-satellite proposal to the United States Federal Communications Commission and has only provided bare-bones information about these new satellites so far.

We do know that the proposed constellation will have satellites in much higher orbits, making them visible for longer periods of the night.

We decided to build an updated simulation, using the website of astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell. This includes a set of orbits consistent with the limited information in SpaceX’s filing.

We used the observed brightness of Starlink satellites as a reference, scaling the brightness model by considering size jumps between Starlink V1, V2 and predictions for V3, and assuming even higher complexity and power requirements.

There are many factors we don’t know anything about, so there is some uncertainty in the brightness we predict.

In the figure above, each grey circle shows a simulation of the full night sky, as seen from latitude 50 degrees north at midnight on the summer solstice.

The left circle shows the night sky with SpaceX’s orbital data centres, and the right shows the night sky with 42,000 Starlink satellites for comparison.

The coloured points show the positions and brightness of satellites in the sky, with blue the faintest and yellow the brightest. Below each all-sky simulation we list the number of sunlit satellites in the sky and the number of naked-eye visible satellites, with tens of thousands predicted for SpaceX’s orbital data centres.

Each of our simulations shows there will be more visible satellites than stars for large portions of the night and the year.

It is hard to overstate this. Should a million new satellites be launched, in the orbits and with the sizes proposed, the stars we are able to see at night would be completely overwhelmed by artificial satellites — throughout the world.

This does not even account for additional large satellite system proposals filed to the International Telecommunication Union in recent years by numerous national governments.

A satellite crematorium

SpaceX’s proposal is that these new satellites will operate as orbital data centres.

Data centres on the ground are drawing increasing criticism for the huge amounts of water and electricity they use. In an impressive feat of greenwashing, SpaceX suggests that launching data centres into orbit is better for the environment. This is only true if you ignore all the consequences of satellite launch, orbital operations and re-entry.

We can already measure atmospheric pollution from “re-entries” when satellites fall back to Earth. We know that multiple satellites are falling every day and that if they do not fully burn up on re-entry, debris falls on the ground with risk for injury and death.

Increasing densities of satellites also drive up collision risks in orbit. And using the atmosphere as a satellite crematorium is changing the atmosphere in ways we don’t yet understand.

Practically, it is not at all clear whether the proposed orbital data centres are feasible any time soon. To operate data centres in orbit, they would need to disperse huge amounts of waste heat. Despite the greenwashing, this is actually very hard to do in space as they would have to manage the intense radiation from the sun, while cooling the satellite by radiation.

SpaceX should know this well: one of the first brightness mitigations they tested for Starlink was “darksat,” a Starlink satellite they effectively just painted black. The satellite overheated and the electronics fried.

A slap in the face for astronomers

SpaceX has done a lot of engineering work to make its Starlink satellites fainter. They are still too bright for research astronomy, but thanks to new coatings, their brightness has not increased dramatically even as SpaceX has launched larger and larger satellites.

SpaceX’s proposal for one million artificial intelligence data centre satellites with enormous power requirements does not include any discussion of the co-ordination agreement for dark and quiet skies required by the United States Federal Communications Commission.

It feels like a slap in the face after many astronomers have spent years working with SpaceX on ways to mitigate their Starlink megaconstellation and save the night sky.

Orbital space is a finite resource

The SpaceX filing does not include exact orbits, the size or shape of satellites or the casualty risk from de-orbiting (other than a vague promise that it won’t exceed 0.01 per cent per satellite). It doesn’t even include any information on how the company plans to develop the technology that does not currently exist but is needed to make this plan work.

Despite how shockingly little information SpaceX provided, the commission accepted SpaceX’s filing and opened the comment period within four days. Astronomers and dark sky advocates worldwide scrambled to write and submit comments in the short four weeks that the comment period was open.

The scientific process is slow and careful and it often takes months or years to publish a peer-reviewed result. Companies like SpaceX have stated repeatedly that their method is to “move fast and break things.” They are now close to breaking the atmosphere, the night sky and anything on the ground or in space that their satellites and rockets fall on or crash into.

Earth’s orbital space is a finite resource. There is an evolving set of international guidelines for operating in outer space, grounded in a set of high-level international rules. Yet, those rules and guidelines are inadequate.

One corporation based in one country should not be allowed to ruin orbit, the night sky and the atmosphere for everyone else in the world.

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The Arctic has been in the news a lot lately. Between the increased geopolitical interest in Greenland, claims over sovereignty, resource exploitation and the devastating impacts of climate change, the region has become a sentinel for global change.

But away from these headlines, a quieter crisis is unfolding that threatens Canada’s role in global environmental science, law and policy: the dismantling of research teams at the department responsible for Canada’s environmental policies and programs. The federal government’s plan to reduce the public service by 15 per cent over three years means that more than 800 positions at Environment and Climate Change Canada will be cut.

As an environmental scientist who has been involved in the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program since 2016 and an interdisciplinary legal scholar focused on water governance in Canada, we have seen how science can shape policy. For decades, Environment and Climate Change Canada research scientists have been integral to the work of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, a working group that provides advice and assessments to the Arctic Council.

This intergovernmental group comprised of Indigenous Peoples, Arctic states and non-Arctic states with observer status is the major platform for protecting the environment and coordinating sustainable development initiatives in the Arctic.

Scientists at Environment and Climate Change Canada have played a leading role in more than 20 international reports on persistent organic pollutants and mercury. In fact, department researchers have acted as the largest group of chapter leads in these global assessments since the 1990s.

Budget cuts at the department raise concerns about how governments will develop effective policies and laws that rely upon scientific research.

The risks from budget cuts

Many of the scientists who lead projects on the long-term trends of toxins in Arctic wildlife face cuts or might lose their jobs entirely. Department scientists are often the ones to identify and assess “chemicals of emerging Arctic concern” — newly discovered chemical threats to human and environmental health that scientists are only just beginning to understand.

Losing the scientists who lead and interpret contaminant data in Arctic wildlife will take much more from Canada than scientific expertise; we risk losing our ability to understand and effectively react to chemical threats and their potential environmental and health impacts.

Data collection for unique monitoring datasets spanning up to 50 years is at risk of being discontinued. Even more concerning is the potential loss of national tissue archives if monitoring and research projects are cut. Contaminant data in Canadian wildlife have been instrumental to the listing of toxins under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, an international treaty to control the global production and use of particularly hazardous chemicals.

Similarly, monitoring for mercury in Arctic air and biota is an important part of the rationale for the Minamata Convention, a global treaty designed to protect human and environmental health from mercury contamination.

In many ways, these global agreements exist because Canadian data, produced by Environment and Climate Change Canada scientists, proved that chemicals used thousands of kilometres away end up in the bodies of Arctic wildlife and Indigenous Peoples who rely on healthy wildlife for food security and cultural identity and practices.

These international treaties set out the norms, legal principles and regulatory schemes that have been incorporated into Canadian law. They support the risk assessment and management of many toxic chemicals under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Losing these samples and monitoring programs would set back Canadian and global contaminant research and reinforce criticisms that Canada is a laggard in environmental law and policy.

Risk for Indigenous communities

Budget cuts could also intimately impact the daily lives of those living in the Arctic and raise questions of environmental justice. Indigenous communities in the Arctic face higher exposure to many toxins than other Canadians due to their reliance on foods like fish, belugas and seals.

Despite global efforts, blood mercury levels in many Inuit communities remain higher than the general Canadian population. Furthermore, concentrations of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals,” are consistently higher in these communities than in the south.

Without ongoing research, we risk creating a vacuum in environmental governance and law. Current legislation, like the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, aims to protect vulnerable populations and uphold the right to a healthy environment and environmental justice. But we cannot uphold these rights if we stop measuring how contaminants are impacting the health of the environment, food and water of the populations most affected by these chemicals.

Across Canada, the cuts undermine effective chemical management. Canada’s chemical management plan depends heavily on the expert assessment of government scientists. This expert-based risk assessment has enabled the discovery and monitoring of new chemical risks with comparatively few bureaucratic hurdles. However, it also means that the proposed cuts are particularly devastating to this program.

If we remove the scientists the regulatory system depends on, the system breaks. This means that these proposed cuts could not only cost jobs and reduce scientific excellence in Canada, but also leave the health of Canadians and our environment less protected.

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We are living through some pretty head-spinning political times, making it harder than ever to focus on longer-term, bigger-picture issues like climate change and biodiversity loss. Yet these problems are not only persisting — they are escalating.

As scientists, we know we simply cannot ignore the link between human health and well-being and the health and survival of wild species, ecosystems and our planet. No amount of economic growth is going to insulate us from the continued deterioration of critical life support systems. 

The growing impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss are becoming impossible to ignore, from record-breaking wildfires and extreme weather to the northward spread of disease-carrying insects. Even rising infant mortality rates have been linked to increased pesticide use, driven in part by the loss of natural insect control from species like bats.

Our political and social systems don’t just overlook the inconvenient fact that we can’t survive without healthy natural systems — they actively accelerate the unsustainable, extractive status quo, chipping away at the very systems that are vital for our well-being.

Research shows Canadian identity remains wrapped up in the idea that just outside our urban boundaries, landscapes stretching across endless expanses of forests teem with moose, wolves and bears. While Canada still holds some of the largest expanses of unroaded landscapes on the planet, many wildlife species have been pushed back by human settlement and displaced by resource development in Indigenous homelands. Caribou once ranged as far south as Algonquin Park and inhabited many parts of southern Canada. Now they struggle to survive in remote forests or, even more tenuously, on rugged mountain slopes. 

It’s the same story for hundreds of species — from fish to plants to our most iconic mammals. So far, where we have pursued industrial-scale extraction, efforts to mitigate impacts at the margins have largely failed. Industrial development has learned little from the original Indigenous stewards of these lands. 

And now, as we confront mounting political threats, we seem poised to double down and push even harder to leverage our natural resources, further entrenching an extractive-driven model of development.

The scale of the challenges facing wildlife and wild places today demands a different and bolder approach — one that acknowledges that while past efforts have helped slow the pace of loss, they have not been enough to reverse it. Incremental, piecemeal responses — through a jumble of after-the-fact assessment processes, mitigation measures, patchwork resource regulations and even efforts to recreate what has been lost — have consistently failed to keep pace with accelerating threats. This system will not work any better with minor tweaks or so-called “red tape” cutting. 

We can start to make actual progress by changing the frame through which we view these challenges — shifting from seeing the health of the natural world as a fringe, distant concern to recognizing it as a central, immediate necessity embedded in decision-making from the outset. This shift will allow us to plan beyond the short term and adopt a mindset where mobilizing adequate funds and resources is not an afterthought or a discretionary expense, but an essential investment in the well-being and resilience of future generations.

Making conservation investments more effective (and productive) requires proactive approaches to addressing growing threats to nature — and ourselves. For example, this can mean planning at a regional scale before major industrial developments, such as road development and mineral extraction in Indigenous homelands. Or it could mean implementing serious forward-looking measures to control ship noise in increasingly ice-free Arctic waters. 

Proactive action is far more likely to succeed than reactive efforts — whether attempting to restore waterways contaminated by mine waste or cajoling ship operators to shift routes away from whale-calving areas only after harm has been done.

If that sounds radical, it is — but only because it requires a fundamental shift in how we prioritize the systems that sustain us. 

Assigning proper value to wildlife and ecosystems will drive investments in their protection, benefitting society today and even more so for future generations. This is not anti-development or blind to economic realities — it is practical, forward-looking and essential for long-term prosperity and survival.

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Picture this: you’re a male clownfish moving on up within clownfish society. The local anemone is bustling, and for society to function, each fish, including you, fills a specific role in the pecking order. Over time, you swim your way up the ranks and eventually make it to be second in command — vice-clownfish, if you will.

One day, the alpha clownfish dies, leaving a gaping leadership void. 

In this fish version of Succession, there aren’t terrible adult children all vying to become top dog. There’s no actually-not-the-eldest boy Kendall Roy primed to step in, Roman Roy having a meltdown, or Tom Wambsgams scheming to ultimately take it all. No, it’s meant to be you and only you! But to do that, one big thing about you has to change — because in clownfish society, a female is always in charge.

So you, the clownfish heir-apparent, do the obvious thing: you become a female. 

Seems simple enough right? Something triggers genetically, and your little clownfish body changes to suit your new role. Research has shown again and again and again that in the clownfish world, that’s how you get ahead. Those are, to borrow a phrase from U.S. President Donald Trump, the “biological facts.” 

When it comes to transgender and non-binary human beings, some intolerant politicians seem endlessly fixated on trying to prove biology wrong and declare that a rigid gender binary is the only truth there is. 

But they couldn’t be further from the truth. 

Evolutionary expressions of variability in sex are also present in humans. It’s one of the reasons a number of politicians — in Canada, too — have such a hard time actually defining “biological sex,” because there will always be exceptions. 

Intersex people exist, chromosomal differences are most definitely a thing, hormones vary wildly and there are medical accounts of all sorts of variations in physical sex characteristics. Transgender people have existed for centuries and have pursued mainstream medical transition since the middle of the 20th century. 

Sure, people who transition aren’t triggered by some environmental cue in the exact same way that sex-changing clownfish is. But it’s still biological. It’s still evolutionary. And it’s still natural — just with the added sentience and agency that makes us human. 

Name a gender, any gender!

In a recent interview for CP24, Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre claimed there are only two genders. It was a comment delivered with a smirk and a challenge, simultaneously an anti-transgender declaration and a trap, inviting opponents to resist his declared “reality” and wade into a fraught debate where human rights, science, culture and opinion churn together into zero-sum muck. 

Poilievre likely felt empowered to say such a thing thanks to the freshly inaugurated Trump, who used the first hours of his presidency to sign an executive order declaring there are “only two genders.” His administration has since targeted everything from gender-affirming care for young people to trans youth in school sports to restricting — even reportedly confiscating — trans peoples’ passports in an all-out attack on transgender rights. 

Then again, a wave of legislation limiting the rights of trans children and their parents in New Brunswick, Alberta and Saskatchewan in recent years shows Poilievre’s comments are not the first attack levied against trans youth by Canadian politicians. 

Former New Brunswick Progressive Conservative premier Blaine Higgs called gender dysmorphia “trendy” — a particularly hurtful statement given how at-risk transgender youth are — while rolling back protections for trans and non-binary students (which current Premier Susan Holt has thankfully reversed). Alberta’s United Conservative Party Premier Danielle Smith’s slate of policies are the most restrictive anti-trans legislation in Canada yet, framing trans kids as confused and misguided and trans girls as a “threat” to women’s sport (neither of which is true).  

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But Trump has the biggest stage, and Poilievre has indicated he might lean into many of the American’s policies on this front. And his government’s statements continuously reiterate an idea of “biological reality” or “biological truth” to sex (which relates to physical characteristics you’re born with, usually) and gender (a socially-constructed category of actions, dress and manner, often assumed based on sex). 

They suggest that gender — or sex, for that matter — is unchangeable, and the existence of trans and non-binary people is merely performance or resistance. 

Nevermind the fact humans are constantly “resisting” biological reality. If this is your argument against hormone replacement therapy or gender-affirming surgery, you should also take issue with chemotherapy, laser eye surgery and Viagra, because those are equally “unnatural.”

Every day, surgeries are performed to force people’s vastly unique bodies to conform to traditional gender expressions. The obsession with gender-affirming surgery for young trans people is particularly misinformed. Just look at the numbers: a 2019 study by the Harvard University school of public health found that, for every one trans kid getting top surgery in the U.S., there were 32 cisgender boys getting surgical chest reductions. Those procedures, of course, aren’t deemed unnatural.

All of this supposed science talk — from an administration gutting crucial, public health and climate science — is just political bluster. It’s not about biological reality, it’s about control. Trump’s policies aim to tamp down any non-conformity, including straight-up writing gender out of scientific research. 

Such weaponization, unsurprisingly, disproportionately affects people marginalized in other ways, such as the spectacle of targeting non-white female athletes like Castor Semenya, Dutee Chand, Imane Kheif and Lin Yu-Ting for “gender testing” in competition. 

The evolutionary advantage of switching sexes — or being more than one

From clownfish to cardinals, sex in the natural world is malleable — in fact, that malleability is a key part of evolutionary advantage. The real biological reality is constant change. 

Hawkfish typically start off as females, before transitioning to males, thanks to environmental cues. And they can change back if the environment calls for it, such as if their social group loses too many females or if a larger male challenges them.

Butterflies have been observed with intersex traits — that is, multiple sex characteristics — including  wing patterns typical of both male and female insects. Thanks to coloration, intersex traits are easy to spot in birds such as cardinals, which have been observed showing an even split down the middle of bright male colouring and brown female colouring. 

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Most earthbound slugs and snails are born hermaphrodites: they always have both sex characteristics, and can self-reproduce if necessary. 

Female lions have been spotted growing manes and exhibiting “male-like” behaviour such as mounting other females (we love a butch top). 

Frogs who spontaneously transition from male to female were thought to do so because of exposure to estrogen from human pollution — but new research shows that happens naturally in the wild too.

None of these discoveries are particularly new. Research on the malleability of sex in the natural world has been conducted for decades. It’s not trendy — and it’s not being done to try to justify trans humans’ existence. 

Being trans is an expression of humanity and the power of personal choice

While science — and biological facts — overwhelmingly support a variety of creatures transitioning, I’m not here to tell you that animals can be transgender. As much as I love the idea of a transsexual creature of any kind, I actually don’t think being trans is something animals outside of humans can be. 

Clownfish can change their sex when it is evolutionarily necessary. Birds and butterflies can be multiple sexes at once. Slugs can reproduce asexually. Female lions can grow manes. 

But gender, and specifically the idea of two genders, is a uniquely human construction. A non-human animal can’t be transgender, just as it can’t be a man or a woman. These fish don’t know they’re changing from “boy” to “girl.” They’re just doing what they have to do to survive. For so many animals, the biological reality is that sex is meant to change. 

But being transgender is a uniquely human label for a uniquely human experience — in a good way. What separates humans from animals is our sentience, our big brains full of thought and consideration and choice and identity. We can choose to change our reality for the better, and modern medicine exists to support that. 

The clownfish doesn’t have any say in its sex change. Nor does the bird, or the frog. But people are able to examine our reality and choose something better for ourselves. Transitioning is the ultimate act of human biological and philosophical reality, the same as choosing to save a life by cutting out a malignant tumour, or choosing to put a cast on a broken bone to help it heal. 

Non-binary writer Sabrina Imbler’s 2022 memoir, How Far The Light Reaches, is a luminescent book that looks at aspects of their life through the science of 10 sea creatures. In an interview following its release, Imbler frames transness in the natural world as a distinctly human projection.

“Our understanding of being transgender is very specific to our own experience as a species. I tried to understand the limits of the metaphor and not equate one thing to another, and I tried to celebrate all of these different ways of having a body and being with another body that exists in the ocean,” they said. 

The only real biological reality is change, and that’s what trans people represent. 

We’re the living embodiment of one of humanity’s deepest traits — personhood and autonomy. When a male clownfish becomes a female clownfish, it’s doing it to survive. When a person transitions, we’re also doing it to survive. 

But unlike the clownfish, at least consciously, we’re also choosing to do it, and choosing to survive. The independence, intellect and autonomy to choose one’s own path is one of the most human things I can imagine. It’s what separates us from animals. 

And that’s what politicians like Poilievre and Trump are most afraid of — the choice, possibility and hope for a better, more human life that being trans represents. 

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“If I wasn’t playing hockey, I think I’d be doing research for National Geographic,” Raygan Kirk says. The Toronto Sceptres goaltender owes her love of nature to yard-work, after a neighbour in her hometown of Ste. Anne, Man., enlisted her help. It sprouted a fascination with growing things that carried all the way through a degree in environmental science.

But Kirk is playing hockey, as a rookie member of a rookie team, having joined the Professional Women’s Hockey League, or PWHL, in its second season. Starting something new is hard, and the Sceptres wobbled on the ice to start the season. 

Yet Kirk has shone, including stopping 33 out of 35 shots taken by the Ottawa Charge on Feb. 16, helping the team hit a four-game winning streak. It’s not really a surprise given her college career in the U.S., which included helping the Ohio Buckeyes women’s team land its first National Collegiate Athletic Association title in 2022. 

If you’re yet to catch Kirk in action, CBC, TSN and Prime Video Canada are broadcasting the Sceptres and the rest of the PWHL. And when she’s not in net, she’s probably out hiking, as she told The Narwhal when she took our Moose Questionnaire.The interview has been edited for length and clarity — all opinions are the subject’s own.

What’s the most awe-inspiring natural sight you’ve witnessed between the Pacific, Atlantic, 49th parallel and Hudson Bay, i.e Canada? 

Hiking with my family through Burnaby Mountain park in B.C. was the first time I had seen tree species of that size. Massive Douglas firs. 

What’s the most awe-inspiring sight you’ve seen outside of Canada? 

Hiking a portion of Crow Pass in the Chugach National Forest, Alaska, this past summer was the coolest experience ever. The views of Eagle River and Raven Glacier at our turnaround point were incredible and any photos I have truly do not do it justice. 

Think of three iconic Canadian animals. Choose one each to kiss, marry and kill. 

Kiss: A beaver. They are adorable and one of the smartest creatures. They’re literally engineers! 

Marry: A moose. Simply because they are so cool. 

Kill: I hate to kill anything, but I wouldn’t mind getting rid of Canada geese since I have a bad habit of stepping in their droppings. 

Name a person or group doing something meaningful for the environment that everyone should know about.  

David Attenborough! I think he has done so much to advocate for environmental causes and inspire people to care about nature through his work on The Blue Planet and Our Planet. I think his documentary A Life on Our Planet is something everyone should watch. 

Outdoor cats, yes or no? 

I am a cat fan, but would have to give a hard no to outdoor cats since they are one of the top killers of birds. 

Tell us about a time that you changed your mind about something, environmental or otherwise.  

Getting a bachelor’s degree in environmental science was truly an eye-opening five years for me. A perspective I had that changed a lot was the concept of wildland fires. I think the image of acres of burned forest land can seem upsetting, but many of my classes in university taught me about the importance of wildland fires for specific tree species, and how this can actually benefit the ecosystem long term. I learned a lot about the history of fire suppression across North America and the changes that have been made to restore natural fire regimes. 

Yes, you have to choose: Rocky Mountains or Great Lakes? 

This is a tough one since driving through the upper peninsula of Michigan is one of my favourite trips to do. But I would have to say the Rocky Mountains. I would love to visit the southern range of the Rockies someday. 

If you could dip a toe off Canada’s coastline, which ocean would it be in?   

I have never been to the Maritimes, so I would have to say the Atlantic Ocean. 

What’s the farthest north you’ve been and what did you do there? 

Anchorage, Alaska. I took a trip with some of my old teammates this summer and it was incredible. We did a lot of hiking, explored lots of small towns, camped outside and took a fishing charter out of Homer. 

What’s one way you interact with the natural world on a daily basis? 

I love to go on walks. No matter what city I am living in, it is a simple thing to do to go outside and stay in touch with the outdoors. 

Who in your life has had the greatest impact on your connection to nature? 

When I was in high school, a neighbour of mine hired my brother and me to help with her very large garden and backyard. I think those summers helped me realize how much I cared about the environment and pushed me to pursue a degree in environmental science with a specialization in ecosystem restoration. (Thank you, Erika!)

Camping: yes or no? 

Yes! If done responsibly it is a great way to connect with nature and get a break from suburban life.

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The village of Kiix̣in was built to face the heavens. Standing between mossy ancient forests and the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, Kiix̣in (pronounced kee-hin) was the capital of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, whose members lived on the rugged edge of what is now called Vancouver Island. They lived there for more than 5,500 years, until the end of the 19th century.  

Today, the skeletal remains of the village’s longhouses — remnants of massive carved pillars and doorways, now entwined with the roots of spruces towering overhead — reveal the close connection between the Huu-ay-aht people and the skies above them. The archway of the big house was oriented toward the three stars of what many call the Big Dipper, explains Qiic Qiica (Robert Dennis Jr.), a knowledge keeper and cultural ambassador for the nation. “The stars represent all points in time,” he says: past, present and future. 

Like their neighbouring Indigenous communities, Huu-ay-aht was a nation of ocean voyagers who travelled and traded widely. “The sea was our highway,” Qiic Qiica says, and the skies were the road map. They marked the changes in seasons, harvests and natural cycles. Sailors navigated by the stars, while whalers used them to determine when to hunt. 

“Think about what teenagers do — sneaking out at night to go to a skate park or a party,” Qiic Qiica says. “Well, we would sneak out and go down to Pachena Bay beach at night, just so we could watch the stars.” On a clear night, the sky dances with light, every bit as lively and lush as the sea below.

The skies overhead are just as starry as they were when Qiic Qiica was a kid climbing over his roof to gaze at them; in his lifetime, he says, it hasn’t changed much at all. That makes Huu-ay-aht the rare exception on a continent that is getting more saturated with artificial light every year.

Artificial lighting has only been around for around 150 years; before that, we slept each night under radiant, undimmed skies. In the 1970s, astronomers first began raising the alarm about the interference of brightening skies on their research. Today, you don’t need a telescope to see the impact. Just look up at night from any city or town in Canada, where only a faint smattering of stars can be seen among the thousands of satellites now criss-crossing the night. As of 2016, 80 per cent of North Americans could no longer glimpse the Milky Way. Since then, the night sky has doubled in brightness as a result of artificial lighting. Each year, the light pollution grows thicker, like smog.

Huu-ay-aht wants to protect its stars. The nation is developing a dark sky festival, one it hopes will bolster economic development, preserve astronomical traditions and draw attention to our endangered, irreplaceable view of the stars. 

Huu-ay-aht First Nation hopes dark skies will draw visitors

Located 300 kilometres northwest of Victoria, B.C., Huu-ay-aht First Nation is a member of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council. The first ancestors of the nation came down from the heavens: Nutchkoa, the first man, and Ho-miniki, the first woman, who was born from the moon. Twelve-metre-tall cedar carvings of Nutchkoa and Ho-miniki welcomed visitors to Kiix̣in until they were taken without permission from the abandoned village in 1911; the captive ancestors now greet visitors to the Royal BC Museum in Victoria. 

The heart of their homeland is Pachena Bay, a scenic coastal enclave. Three hundred and twenty-five years ago, their Pachena Bay village, Anacla, was devastated by a tsunami after a mega-earthquake (a historic record confirmed by western scientists and researchers centuries later.) Soon after, colonizers arrived, bringing diseases. By the 19th century, an estimated 90 per cent of Huu-ay-aht members had died. 

Like many First Nations decimated by colonization, Huu-ay-aht is working to protect and restore the knowledge, traditions and language of the nation. Among those are the stories and legends of the night skies, passed down across generations. Qiic Qiica learned them from his grandfather, Art Peters, and now shares them as a tour guide, leading visitors along a winding trail through the verdant rainforest and across the beach to Kiix̣in, which is recognized as a national historic site. “A big part of what I talk about as a tour guide is our connection to the stars, and to the night sky,” he says. 

The nearest town to Kiix̣in, 15 minutes up Pachena Road, is Bamfield: a tiny community of roughly 200 residents cleaved by an inlet. The east side is home to an inn, a market and the renowned Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre. On the west side, reachable only by boat, a smattering of restaurants, businesses and residences are tucked into the trees above a wooden boardwalk. Water taxis ferry passengers across the inlet, advertising their services on hand-painted signs. Other signs caution visitors and residents alike of their proximity to tsunami zones and evacuation sites. 

Until recently, Bamfield could only be accessed by two winding gravel roads, but in 2023 — following a devastating bus crash in 2019 that took the lives of two university students — the route from Port Alberni was paved.

That new road has transformed access to the community and brought a swelling number of campers, fishers and day-trippers to Huu-ay-aht territory. 

Patrick Schmidt, the chief executive officer overseeing the business arm of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, calls the new road an economic catalyst — particularly outside the summer months. “From an economic development perspective, we’re looking for ways to expand tourism,” he says. With access taken care of, they just need to give people a reason to visit in the shoulder seasons. 

“Tofino has storm-watching,” Schmidt says. “But we have darker skies.” 

Indigenous cosmologies also preserved by protecting the night skies

Indigenous nations across what’s now called Canada all have their own cosmologies. Wilfred Buck, a Cree astronomer, grew up under the northern lights in Opaskwayak Cree Nation, in Treaty 5 territory in Manitoba. In a video with the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre, Buck says that in Cree, they’re called cîpiyak nîmehitowak, which means “the spirits are dancing.” 

What some call the Big Dipper and Huu-ay-aht calls the Three Stars, Buck calls mista muskwa — the Big Bear. As an educator, he tells the legend of mista muskwa, who was chased off the land and into the heavens by seven birds.

Buck has written about the significance of learning Cree astronomy after being taught the constellations as they were identified in ancient Greece. “As children, the stories of Orion the Hunter and the Great Bear were presented to our impressionable young minds as knowledge given from great cultures; no other alternative viewpoints were presented,” he wrote. “Such experiences left me with the impression that my people were not smart enough to have such perspectives as those that can be associated with the heavens.”

In recent years, there has been an embrace of Indigenous-led conservation as both a recognition of Indigenous Rights and sovereignty, and a critical strategy for protecting imperiled lands and waters in the face of escalating climate change. But for Indigenous nations, protecting the land, water and sky is indistinguishable from protecting language, culture and knowledge. 

When an old-growth tree is felled, or oil spilled into the ocean, many people will recognize this as a profound loss of something ancient and irreplaceable: a wounding of the world. But the unobstructed night sky is a similarly precious natural resource, one we’re losing a little more of each year, and with it the opportunity to learn the teachings and stories woven into the stars. 

Achieving a dark sky certification in Canada is a lengthy process

Dark sky conservation is still a relatively new concept. The first dark sky preserve in Canada, Torrance Barrens near Muskoka, Ont., was established in 1999 — only the second such site in the world, according to Bob King, chair of the light-pollution abatement committee for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. There are now 22 across the country. 

To receive a designation as a dark sky area, it’s not enough to just be incidentally dark. The astronomical society has three levels of designation: dark sky preserves, which have no artificial lighting within their borders, as well as urban star parks and nocturnal preserves, which must adhere to strict light-limiting measures.

“A dark sky preserve not only protects the nocturnal environment, it also provides a place for amateur astronomers to go and observe the dark skies,” King explains. In comparison, Canada’s three nocturnal preserves are focused on benefits to wildlife — like frogs, who sing at night to attract potential mates — not stargazers. 

“And if you want to go a bit brighter, we have an urban star park,” King says. There are just two of these parks, bookending the western and eastern edges of Canada: Cattle Point in Victoria and Irving Nature Park, just south of Saint John, N.B.

The astronomical society fields a handful of inquiries about setting up new preserves and parks each year. The process of getting a designation is lengthy, Roland Dechesne, also a member of the light pollution abatement committee, says. After a community’s application is reviewed, the site is assessed for current artificial lighting, as well as any development plans in nearby communities that could make things brighter. 

“There has to be a visitor experience plan in place — how are we going to educate them about responsible lighting and the nocturnal environment?” Compliance may involve retrofitting or replacing lighting, Dechesne adds. 

All of this takes time, typically a few years or more. If Huu-ay-aht pursues a designation, they could be the first Indigenous nation to achieve it. Piyush Pushkarna, director of economic development for Huu-ay-aht, says Huu-ay-aht’s process would involve additional steps — for instance, determining what lands would be part of the protected area. 

“To identify those lands, it has to go to the lands committee, to the ḥaw̓iiḥ council [of Hereditary Chiefs], so there’s a lot of work to do,” he says. “But it will happen. We’re positive.” 

Humans love artificial lighting — but it’s bad for us, and also for the environment

King and Dechesne have been involved in the astronomical society since 1977, when astronomers were just beginning to sound the alarm about light pollution. The rate of change has accelerated in last 10 or 15 years with the widespread adoption of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. The bulbs are cheaper, longer-lasting and more energy-efficient than their predecessors but also brighter: our eyes are more sensitive to the cold blue light they emit, compared to the warmer tones of halogen lights. 

“They’re perceived to be environmentally benign and very efficient,” Dechesne says. “So there’s no harm in adding two or three more, or using brighter LEDs, or adding them to your home as decorations. But what we’re trying to show is that, in fact, they’re not benign.” 

Light pollution has extensive ecological impacts, particularly on nocturnal creatures, who exhibit changes to their hunting, mating and migration patterns in response to artificial light. Confused songbirds sing at the wrong time, breeding too early in the year for their hatchlings to survive. Disoriented baby sea turtles can’t find the ocean. Bats, already threatened across most of North America, are driven out of their habitat by the scourge of artificial lighting. Insects, fish and even plants are affected. So are humans: artificial light at night has been found to negatively impact sleep, worsen mood disorders and even elevate breast cancer risk. 

Despite these extensive drawbacks, many people believe lighting at night offers worthwhile benefits for public safety — though a U.K. research study did not find reduced street lighting led to an increase in crime or traffic accidents.  

“We’ve cultivated a story, especially in western cultures, that light equals safe,” Niki Wilson, a science journalist and host of the Jasper Dark Sky Festival, says. “And I suppose there might be instances where that’s true — lighting a busy intersection, you know, on a rural highway or something like that. But a lot of those perceptions aren’t really grounded in what we’re seeing in terms of science.” 

Wilson grew up in the town of Jasper, Alta., located within the national park. “You don’t have to go far off the beaten track here to find yourself in complete darkness,” she says. Also designated as the second-largest dark sky preserve in Canada, Jasper National Park has been hosting a dark sky festival since 2011. Wilson’s been a part of it for the last decade, but she’s been mesmerized by the stars for much longer.

“You only have to stand near someone who is looking into a deep-space telescope for the first time to understand what a deeper connection with the cosmos does for people,” she says. “In a world that’s very polarized, you see people coming from all walks of life to share in the wonder, and to connect with something bigger than themselves.” 

Wilson also happens to be a family friend of Schmidt’s, and when Huu-ay-aht started exploring the possibility of putting together a dark sky festival of their own, he asked her to help. 

For Wilson, dark sky festivals offer visitors a unique opportunity to connect to the cosmos, and spark their desire to conserve it. “I think it’s hard to ask people to protect something they have no relationship to,” she says. “But by coming to places like Jasper or Bamfield, and cultivating your relationship to the sky, and giving people these hopeful messages — that’s something they can get behind.” 

In a language lesson, a vision of the past

The entrance to the House of Huu-ay-aht is flanked by carvings of their first ancestors, who welcome visitors inside. Majestic white Sitka spruce beams, more than 42 metres long, hold up the roof of the longhouse. Slightly more humble basketball hoops adorn the walls. Like many First Nations gathering places, it serves multiple functions. 

Today, it is hosting a language lesson by Hinatinyis, a Huu-ay-aht member and Nuu-chah-nulth language warrior. Nuu-chah-nulth is carried by a small but growing number of fluent speakers, Hinatinyis among them. She was given her name by her grandmother; it’s pronounced high-nah-tin-ee-ous, and means “she is always welcoming.” 

The word for star in the Nuu-chah-nulth language is t̓at̓uus, Hinatinyis says. Tat-oose. The second t is emphasized — what linguists would call an aspirated consonant, accompanied by a little puff of air. The Nuu-chah-nulth dialect spoken in Barkley Sound has lots of deep “h” sounds, which sound like a breath fogging glass. Short and long vowels give the language its rhythms, like water rushing over rocks, or oars propelling a boat through the oceanic highway, under the starlight of a heavenly atlas. 

Artificial lighting is not an oil spill or a felled tree. Unlike other forms of environmental devastation, we can undo much of it with the flick of a switch. It might not be so simple as that, but it’s possible to restore some of what we’ve lost, and protect what we still have. 

A sacred value of Huu-ay-aht is hišuk ma c’awak, which means that everything is connected. As Qiic Qiica says, “We’re all one and the same under the stars.” It’s easy to forget the interconnectedness of the world until it’s right in front of us: the trees nourished by ancient house poles, the fog swallowing the land, the artificial lights blotting out the stars. On that morning in Bamfield, the horizon was swaddled by clouds, a soft grey blur obscuring the point where the sea ended and the sky began.

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On a cloudy evening in early September, fisherman Darren Porter pulls an aluminum boat up to shore on Lake Pisiquid, a small body of water bordering the Nova Scotia community of Windsor. Two fish scientists aboard his boat hop out and begin dragging a seine net through the long grass poking out of the shallows, looking for juvenile fish.

For seven years, a monitoring team made up of the Mi’kmaw Conservation Group, Acadia University and Porter has been testing this site, along with others on the Avon and on an unobstructed tidal river across the bay, to establish the relative abundance of fish.

It’s a windless evening, and as the team brings the net to the beach to check its contents, the water mirrors the pastel sky above.

But Porter knows the situation on this lake is anything but calm.

“I got my car hit by a baseball bat a month ago, I got my truck keyed three weeks ago — it’s insane,” Porter says.

“This is very political now. It started out different.”

Lake Pisiquid is an artificial reservoir created by the construction of a causeway across the Avon River more than 50 years ago.

For much of its existence, the causeway — and the tidal gate, or aboiteau, built into the causeway to allow the Avon to flow out to the Bay of Fundy — has maintained the lake and protected land upstream. But because that protection has required the gate to be almost constantly closed, it’s come at the expense of the fish travelling upriver to spawn. 

In 2017, when the Nova Scotia government began the process to twin the highway running across the causeway, it convened an expert panel to find ways to improve fish passage at the aboiteau — work that included engaging Porter, the Mi’kmaw Conservation Group and Acadia University on monitoring. Then, in 2021, a ministerial order from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) ordered the lake be drained and the aboiteau opened so fish could pass through.

Yet seven years later, fish passage remains obstructed, while the lake has been maintained by a provincial emergency order for over a year. Politically, the situation is at a stalemate, while the continued existence of the lake divides residents, places governments at a standoff and overrides the objections of the Mi’kmaq, who say their Treaty Rights are being violated.

At the centre of all of this is an ecosystem and a community that have been thrown out of balance. And both have reached a breaking point. 

Avon River becomes political wedge between lake community and environmental advocates

The Avon is one of the rivers flowing into the Bay of Fundy, an ecosystem that pulses with the rhythm of the world’s highest tides, sending saltwater and nutrients upriver and creating a shifting coastline downstream. 

For millennia, the tidal ecosystem sustained fish such as Atlantic sturgeon, Atlantic salmon and gaspereau (a kind of river herring), as well as Mi’kmaq communities who travelled the river and established settlements along its banks. In the 1600s, Windsor — an area originally known as Pesaquid or Pisiquid, a Mi’kmaq name meaning “junction of the waters” — was settled by Europeans. Two centuries later, a causeway was built across the mouth of the Avon to protect the community and surrounding agricultural lands from coastal flooding.

Work on the causeway began in 1968; even before it was finished, there were changes to the ecosystem. Sediment began accumulating on the seaward side, forming what is now an extensive saltmarsh that continues to expand. “We haven’t reached a new balance — the system is still adjusting,” Tony Bowron, CEO of a wetland restoration firm that has done work in the area, says. The Windsor saltmarsh is incredibly productive, Bowron says, but on the upstream side, saltmarshes disappeared as the river transitioned to a freshwater ecosystem. “What was one of our major tidal rivers is now essentially an impoundment,” he says.

Over time, different groups came to depend on that impoundment, including farmers, a ski hill, a canoe club and property owners and developers in Windsor and upstream.

Yet by 2017, it was clear something had to change. The highway had become dangerous and needed to be twinned, and the aboiteau had reached the end of its useful life, especially given climate change projections. But for the causeway highway project to proceed with federal funding, it had to have Fisheries Act authorization. Following Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s recommendation, the province put together a group of provincial and federal officials, fishers and Mi’kmaq to develop ideas for how to meet Fisheries Act requirements. The group members proposed an option that would have restored tidal flow, improving fish passage and flood protection, though with lower lake levels. 

But at a municipal council meeting for the area on Sept. 27, 2017, provincial officials explained the community had pushed back against the idea of changing lake levels and introduced a new option — option D — which would maintain the status quo but add additional fishways (structures to help fish navigate an obstacle). 

Paul LaFleche, who at the time was the deputy minister of transportation and infrastructure renewal (now the department of public works), told those gathered that the option could mean a future constitutional challenge. While LaFleche didn’t specify who that challenge might come from, constitutional challenges have been used by the Mi’kmaq to address violations of Treaty Rights.

Still, LaFleche said for his department, there were only two options at the time: option D, or leaving the aboiteau in place. 

For Porter, this marked the moment the process became political. 

“It’s simple: they were told what to do, then they had this meeting on the 27 of September, and they reversed it,” Porter says.

Mi’kmaq say Treaty Right to fish is being violated: ‘That, to me, is not reconciliation’

On the banks of the Avon River, on the opposite side of Lake Pisiquid from Windsor, two small buildings sit amid the marsh grass and the gravel of the stalled highway project.

In 2020, Nikki-Marie Lloyd, a member of Annapolis Valley First Nation, and other Mi’kmaq water protectors built a protest camp at this site. Llloyd called the site Treaty Truck House #2, a reference to the names used for trading posts between Europeans and Mi’kmaq that evokes the historic Mi’kmaq use of the river. “We wanted to bring a little bit of that back here.”

For months, Lloyd stayed at the site in protest of the aboiteau. On hot days, when there was very little water left on the downstream side of the barrier, she says she watched as thousands of migrating gaspereau struggled and died in the muddy water.

Even when the gates are open, passage is limited. And when they’re closed — as they are for more than 23 hours a day and for months at a time in the summer — the effects are clear. “It’s quite noticeable when the gate is not open,” Trevor Avery, a professor at Acadia University who’s working on the monitoring project, says. “The fish do not make it through.”

Meanwhile, at low tide, the water below the barrier is too warm and low in oxygen for fish to survive. Correspondence between Fisheries and Oceans Canada staff in June 2023 observed “large numbers of fish” dying as a result.

It’s too early to say whether there are any population level-effects for those species, as there are other rivers in the area where fish can spawn; that’s why long-term monitoring is important, Avery says. Yet the obstruction of one river can still have consequences for biodiversity. Research suggests some species of fish found in the river, like gaspereau, largely return to their birthplace to spawn, giving each river a unique genetic signature. If that site is lost, those genetics are lost too. 

Avery is wary of wading into politics — it’s not science, he notes — and the fate of the Avon has become very political. But on a personal level, he thinks the obstruction of the river is the wrong decision. “There’s just good advice that’s being ignored, in this case.” 

For Lloyd, the situation was especially infuriating; without fish being able to pass the barrier, there was no meaningful exercise of the Treaty Right to fish. “We hear a lot of talk about reconciliation, but then when you come here and you see everything that’s going on, especially politically, and you realize that a lake and a gated structure currently are trumping our rights — that, to me, is not reconciliation.”

Then, in March 2021, after Mi’kmaq groups raised concerns — and, according to a briefing note, after Mi’kmaq chiefs passed a resolution to pursue legal action if Fisheries and Oceans didn’t act — the department issued a ministerial order requiring the gate be opened for fish passage (which the department then renewed every two weeks). The lake quickly became a dry, and then dusty, plain.

For many Windsor residents, the resulting dust storms were miserable. To mitigate the problem, a coalition of environmental groups, government officials and the Mi’kmaq planted vegetation on the dry lake bed. For a minute, everyone was working together, Lloyd says. The saltmarsh began regenerating, and fish not seen in the river for decades appeared. Travelling the river on a bright green pool floaty in August 2021, seeing the diversity of fish and the marsh grass “was my all-time favorite moment,” Lloyd says.

In March 2023, West Hants municipal council — which encompasses the community of Windsor — wrote a letter to the federal fisheries minister acknowledging the lake may not return and expressing interest in reimagining the Windsor waterfront and surrounding area to realign with the new operating scenario of the aboiteau.

Then wildfire season started.

Minister claims lake necessary for fighting wildfire, but fire chief says that’s ‘ridiculous’

In May 2023, wildfires tore across Nova Scotia, including one that burned 23,525 hectares, the largest in the province’s history.

On June 1, 2023, the province declared a state of emergency for the area around Windsor. The only action associated with the state of emergency was to order the gates at the aboiteau closed, overriding the federal order that had opened them. The provincial order came just two weeks after Premier Tim Houston released a video with area MLA Melissa Sheehy-Richard describing the dry lake as “appalling” and calling for it to be refilled. 

The provincial minister responsible for the emergency management office, whose deputy was LaFleche, formerly of the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal, said in a statement that the dry lake posed a “significant risk during this wildfire season.” (The province did not respond to a question about what role LaFleche, or staff from his former department, played in the decision to issue the emergency order.)

In an interview with CBC, the provincial minister responsible for the office of emergency management , John Lohr, said the request had come at the request of local fire chiefs.

Others have disputed that statement. 

In response to the state of emergency, Porter launched a lawsuit, attempting to stay the order and reopen the gate. In an affidavit provided for that lawsuit, Windsor fire chief Jamie Juteau said neither he nor anyone he was aware of in the department had made “any request to Minister Lohr or his department or anyone else for water resources in Lake Pisiquid or to ‘reinstate’ Lake Pisiquid.”

Since then, the province has renewed the emergency order every 30 days, even after historic rain and flooding, including in Windsor.

Brett Tetanish is the fire chief for Brooklyn, another community in the same municipality as Windsor. He says fire suppression appeared to be an excuse to close the gates.

“I just thought how ridiculous that was,” he says. “There’s actually no need.”

Tetanish is an experienced wildland firefighter, and when parts of Nova Scotia were burning in 2023, his department was dispatched to those fires.

If there were a need for water, Tetanish points out there are many other sources a helicopter could draw from. What’s more, because the presence of the causeway has caused silt to built up, much of the lake is only a little more than a meter deep — too shallow for fixed wing aircraft to use, Tetanish says. 

The existence of alternatives was also outlined in a July 2023 report by the municipality’s emergency management office. The report noted if lake levels dropped again, the Windsor fire department would go back to its previous plan for water, and that the department “is confident operating in both scenarios.”

“[The minister] is using the fire service to get what they want,” Tetanish says. “It’s very disheartening that the government would do that.”

Advocates say the existence of alternatives for fire safety suggests the preservation of the lake serves interests beyond fire safety. 

‘LEAVE LAKE ALONE’: Rift in community grows deeper as mayor pleads for unity

Developer Mitch Brison, brother of former Liberal MP Scott Brison, has a house on the lake, and his company, Brison Developments, has residential projects in Windsor and the surrounding area. He wants the lake full.

“Is the town better off to have a body of water in front of your town, or is the town better off to have something that smells and has no water — I prefer the water,” Brison says. “I don’t see the benefit of taking it out, I really don’t.”

Brison says the municipal council now supports the lake, “so we got that reversed.” (Abraham Zebian, the mayor of West Hants, says the council has no official position on the lake.) And while he acknowledges there was movement toward reconciliation, he and most people he knows are tired “with the stuff that’s going on and the money that’s being thrown around in that direction.” 

“It’s time for us all to live and cooperate.”

Ultimately, he says resolving the situation will take a change in the federal government. 

Zebian says his personal position is that the lake is an asset for recreation, firefighting and community well-being. 

Yet he’s acknowledged has divided the town, including last July, when bristol board signs appeared in the community reading “F*CK DARREN PORTER,”and “LEAVE LAKE ALONE.” 

In the aftermath, Zebian took to Facebook to make an impassioned plea for unity. “I’m so disappointed in our community for the things that are being said in regards to the Avon River and Lake Pisiquid,” he wrote. “United we can do anything. Divided we all lose. WEST HANTS… I KNOW YOU ARE BETTER! NOW LET ME SEE IT!”

Over a year later, Zebian says it’s unfortunate the town is still caught in the middle of a fight between the province and the federal government.

Avon River situation at a standstill, as provincial and federal governments fail to find a solution

Documents shed light on the dynamics in the standoff over that fight. At issue is which directive takes precedence — the federal order to open the gate, or the provincial emergency order to keep the gate closed and the lake full — and at whose feet blame for the delay in a resolution can be laid.

The federal department has a legal mandate to protect fish and fish habitat, but it has yet to reissue the ministerial order, which it let lapse after the provincial state of emergency was declared. Documents obtained through access to information requests suggest the department has struggled to get information from the province. 

In an email sent on Aug. 31, 2023, Fisheries and Oceans Canada officials said they were still waiting to receive results of a Nova Scotia emergency management office assessment supporting the emergency order. 

Two months later, in an email regarding a Mi’kmaq proposal to address fire safety while improving fish passage, Fisheries and Oceans Canada regional director general Doug Wentzell wrote, “Bottom line is that this letter presents what seems to [be]reasonable solutions to be able to draw water from the Avon river to support emergency response — which was the stated objective of the province in issuing their continued states of emergency. The key piece of the puzzle for our purposes will be to obtain the province’s assessment around whether these, or other options, have been considered.”

The following spring, an April 2024 letter from Fisheries Minister Diane Lebouthillier to provincial ministers asked the province to take measures to ensure proper fish passage, and to communicate with her ministry about efforts to reconcile that with fire safety. 

In response to a question from The Narwhal about the information it provided to the federal government, Nova Scotia’s department of public works said information requested by the federal government was submitted in January 2024, and that this was “one of a series of requests we have responded to from [Fisheries and Oceans Canada] over several years.”

But an August letter to Public Works from Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s department of Ecosystem Management (which Porter provided), shows that in January, what the province proposed was to maintain the lake — a proposal that, as the letter noted, the province had already been told would not pass fish (or the Fisheries Act) — and that the information included with the application was ‘incomplete or inadequate.”

In other words, the situation is gridlocked, with the province proposing an option Fisheries and Oceans Canada can’t approve. 

For Porter, these documents raise questions of why Fisheries and Oceans Canada is hesitating to enforce its own legislation, in the meantime. 

In a 2023 internal presentation, a slide describes Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s intention to continue reissuing ministerial orders until the aboiteau is replaced, but the department let the last order expire after the state of emergency was declared in June 2023.

In a statement, Fisheries and Oceans Canada spokesperson Christine Lyons did not directly answer a question about whether the emergency order takes precedence, instead saying questions about the order and its duration should be directed to the province. Gary Andrea, spokesperson for the department of public works, said the state of emergency will be renewed as long as it is needed for public safety. 

Fisheries and Oceans Canada said it’s working proactively with the Nova Scotia department of public works on the proposed aboiteau, and that it remains committed to consultation with the Mi’kmaq. After the emergency order was first issued, the Assembly of Mi’kmaq chiefs sent a letter to the province, stating the lake contravened Mi’kmaq rights and title. (The Assembly of Mi’kmaq chiefs did not respond to a request for an interview.)

The department also said the province has a legal requirement to operate the aboiteau to allow the passage of fish, and that voluntary compliance is the expected and preferred approach. 

To advocates, this looks like the federal department is avoiding a fight in advance of an election. 

“They don’t want to give the province a wedge issue,” Porter says. “So they backed off, and nature suffers, the fish suffer, there’s a whole bunch of things that suffer because of those decisions — and they’re simply political.”

Emergency order remains in place, with no clear path forward for resolution

In September, members of the monitoring team on Lake Pisiquid finish noting the fish they’ve caught in gill nets and minnow traps— one striped bass, a couple of tomcod — and then head back upriver, to turn in for the night.

For now, the situation is at a stalemate. While Porter has a court date in November for his lawsuit against the emergency order, he’s not optimistic that it will bring any change. 

With a municipal election approaching on Oct. 19, current mayor Zebian said the uncertainty around the causeway continues to pit “neighbor against neighbor and family member against family member, and I think unfairly so, for my community.” The project was supposed to be completed in 2022, he notes; two years later, there’s no clear indication of a way forward.

Yet in other contexts, communities have found solutions. 

Three hundred kilometres from the Avon, water flows under a bridge over the tidal Petitcodiac River in New Brunswick. In 2021, the bridge was completed to replace a causeway built in 1968, despite the opposition of some homeowners, and biologists are already reporting greater numbers of fish. 

To the south, Peskotomuhkati Nation was instrumental in removing an aging hydroelectric dam on the St Croix/Skutik River this year, which runs between Maine and New Brunswick, and restoring fish passage. 

By comparison, advocates say the current situation with the Avon River aboiteau is a missed opportunity, where new infrastructure is needed anyway, to fix a problem.

That problem is a system out of balance — and not just on the Avon. For 400 years, people have been building structures to hold back the Bay of Fundy’s tides. Asking people to imagine a different relationship with this system is challenging. Yet in the 21st century, the costs of drawing hard lines across the landscape have become clear, severing ties between animals, people and the environment in which they all live. 

Whether work on the Avon will ever restore those links is far from clear. But for better or for worse in this dynamic, shifting ecosystem, there’s no going back to the past.

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This story is part of In the Line of Fire, a series from The Narwhal digging into what is being done to prepare for — and survive — wildfires.

When Sarah Henderson began her doctorate in environmental epidemiology at the University of British Columbia, she planned to study how Canadian oil refineries impact air quality and the implications for human health. 

But in the summer of 2003, the Okanagan Mountain Park fire ripped through Kelowna, forcing 27,000 people to flee their homes. The fire destroyed 239 houses and smothered southern British Columbia in smoke. At the time, there was little research on how wildfire smoke impacts air quality — and how exposure to smoky air affects human health. 

So Henderson, who has a background in environmental engineering, changed the focus of her studies.

She did her PhD thesis on how the 2003 wildfires in B.C.’s southern Interior impacted air quality and has been studying the health effects of wildfire smoke exposure ever since. Today, she’s the scientific director of the BC Centre for Disease Control’s environmental health unit. 

“Even though the risk for any individual is small, because everybody has to breathe the air, those risks really pile up in the population,” Henderson said in an interview with The Narwhal.

Wildfire smoke may increase risks of dementia, heart disease and more

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

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

Research by Henderson and other scientists suggests even moderate levels of wildfire smoke can pose significant health risks, especially for people with chronic lung diseases like asthma or emphysema that make them more vulnerable to negative health impacts. Fine particulates found in smoke and other types of air pollution have been linked to damage in several organ systems, including the heart, brain and reproductive system. 

For example, research released at this year’s Alzheimer’s Association international conference found the risk of developing dementia following exposure to fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke was higher than the risk posed by other sources of air pollution, even when the exposure to wildfire smoke was less intense.

“Exposure to non-wildfire PM2.5 raised the risk of dementia diagnosis, but not as much as wildfire smoke,” the researchers concluded, noting it could also raise the risk of heart disease, asthma and low birth weight.

“There’s no way in which it’s good for you; it’s only bad for you,” Henderson said of wildfire smoke. “It’s not something to panic about, but it is a form of air pollution that can affect your health and the more you reduce your exposure, the more you protect yourself, both in the short term and long term.”

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

In 2023, Canada experienced the most destructive wildfire season ever recorded, with about 6,550 fires burning more than 184,900 square kilometres between April and October. The fires prompted evacuations in 200 communities from B.C. to Nova Scotia, including the Northwest Territories capital of Yellowknife, home to 20,000 people. 

On average, Canadians experienced eight days of poor air quality due to the 2023 fires, according to the science journal Nature. Some Canadians spent more than half their summer breathing air heavily contaminated by wildfire smoke. 

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

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

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

“We really need to build a culture of encouraging people to consider protecting themselves from those smoke exposures whenever smoke is affecting air quality, not just when things are orange and awful,” Henderson told The Narwhal.

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

While it’s reasonable to assume wildfire smoke is bad for your health, pinpointing specific health risks from wildfire smoke exposure and separating them from the impacts of other types of air pollution — such as those from vehicle or industrial emissions — is not easy.

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

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

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

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

Carlsten said researchers and public health officials have to “walk the line” between ensuring people are adequately informed and “excessive, intimidating and frightening messaging.”

“I think we already have a ton of data — a ton of appropriate and helpful data,” he told The Narwhal. “The bigger gap … is understanding how the population thinks and processes information, what’s important to them and giving them the information [they need].”

Offering people too little information risks failing to communicate the severity of a situation but too much detail can result in people tuning out, panicking or just failing to retain much, according to Cathy Slavik, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oregon’s Center for Science Communication Research who studies ways to improve communication about environmental health risks.

“As scientists, we often think that we need to share lots of information; we need to help people understand how we know what we know and what we don’t know,” Slavik said in an interview. “But oftentimes that isn’t actually super helpful for people who just want to know if they’re at risk and what they can do to protect themselves. … It might sound a little bit reductionist, but it’s true that most people will only remember the gist of what you tell them.”

Scientists are testing ways to communicate the message about risks

Figuring out the best way to communicate information about health risks — which often involves complicated and technical information — is challenging.

“We don’t necessarily always know what is the most effective way to communicate a particular kind of risk about a particular kind of hazard,” Slavik said.

Slavik and her colleagues at the centre recently set out to test how effective the U.S. Air Quality Index and Canadian Air Quality Health Index are at communicating the risk of wildfire smoke to parents. 

“One of the really most important aspects of crafting effective communications is testing them and unfortunately, we don’t do enough of that,” she said.

The two indexes broadly communicate the same thing — concentrations of hazardous gases and particulate matter in the air — but the Canadian index was designed to help people better understand health risks stemming from air conditions. It uses a one to 10+ scale while the U.S. index uses a zero to 500+ scale.

Study participants were shown infographics — either linear scales or gauges — representing various levels of air quality compromised by wildfire smoke. Researchers found intense smoke levels sparked similar levels of concern among participants — all of whom were parents — regardless of how the information was presented visually. 

But moderate concentrations of wildfire smoke were a different matter: participants who saw infographics based on the Canadian index reported being more concerned about the impact poor air quality could have on their kids and had stronger intentions to take action to protect them. Their reactions “more closely resembled those parents who had seen the infographics of high levels of smoke,” Slavik said.

The results indicate the Canadian index might be a better tool to help parents better understand that even moderate levels of wildfire smoke exposure can be hazardous to children’s health.

These days, new tools mean anyone can monitor and track air quality 

Advances in technology are making it easier to measure air quality where it affects people most — at home.

Until recently, air quality reports in Canada have been based on data gathered “at a finite number of government-run air quality monitoring stations in Canada using very expensive instrumentation,” Henderson told The Narwhal.

Government monitoring stations equipped with highly accurate $30,000 sensors can be dozens or even hundreds of kilometres away from the communities they were developing advisories for. Meanwhile, low-cost sensors can measure particulate matter concentrations almost as accurately as the government’s monitoring equipment — and at one-tenth the price tag. 

“We now have hundreds of these sensors running in places across Canada, especially in more remote areas, Indigenous communities — places where there were no big, expensive government centres,” Henderson said.

Even communities that are quite close together can be impacted very differently by nearby fires, because of wind and other atmospheric conditions, Peter Jackson, an atmospheric science professor with the University of Northern British Columbia’s geography, earth and environmental sciences department, said in an interview.

Jackson has become the face of a made-in-Canada effort to improve local data about air quality.

In 2023, he led a team of researchers, in partnership with Environment and Climate Change Canada, to launch the AirQuality map, which displays hourly data pulled from both government monitoring stations and hundreds of low-cost sensors installed at peoples’ homes. 

“By putting both kinds of data on the same map, we could evaluate in real time how the low-cost monitors compared with the regulatory monitors,” Jackson said.

The map now includes an overlay that shows where wildfires are burning and predicts where smoke will be blown. Jackson said the hope is to expand the map to cover more of North America and to allow its algorithm to update more quickly to reflect changing conditions.

As Canadian summers get drier and smokier, the air quality map and tools like it can help people prepare for wildfire smoke events, both moderate and intense.

“This is our lives now in British Columbia, and the more we can raise the bar on communicating about air quality and its risks, the better off the whole population is going to be,” Henderson said.

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Manpreet Kaur arrived in British Columbia from India in 2015 with all the knowledge needed to help Canada’s electrical sector transition to renewable energy. She had a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s degree in nanotechnology, a branch of science and engineering that includes creating cells for solar panels.

Such specialized expertise is at the heart of Canada’s ambitious renewable energy goals, a core part of the planned transition to a net-zero economy. But Kaur’s degrees aren’t from a Canadian school: she studied at India’s Amity University and National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. Even after earning a PhD in mechatronic systems engineering from Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University in 2019, Kaur faced significant hurdles to work as an engineer in Canada. 

After completing her PhD, Kaur had to earn her professional engineering licence. This meant a huge amount of paperwork, which Kaur calls one of the most onerous yet least appreciated requirements for skilled immigrants in her field. It requires providing not just course descriptions or degree certificates from institutions overseas, but signatures from instructors continents away, sometimes years after study.

“You really have to look back in time and think about the examples where you have met those competencies. The process of initiating the application to submitting and getting the approval takes almost a year,” Kaur said. 

Today, as an engineering professor at Simon Fraser’s school of sustainable energy engineering, Kaur said she “can see the demand in the industry” as she tries to find her students co-op placements. But despite this need, the hassles immigrant engineers must go through to obtain Canadian licensing mean the sector “prefers a candidate who has Canadian experience.”   

The federal government has promised to double clean electricity generation by 2028, both to serve Canada’s growing energy needs and to meet internationally ambitious, legally binding commitments to renewable energy. To meet these targets, Canada will require 28,000 additional electricity workers by 2028, according to Mark Chapeskie, vice-president of program development at Electricity Human Resources Canada. The non-profit organization supports the human resources needs of the Canadian electricity and renewable energy sector. It has found that by 2050, Canada’s growing solar and wind electricity sector will need to fill 130,000 jobs, in part because renewable power is more labour intensive than traditional hydro or coal-fired electrical generation. 

But qualified workers in the sector are already scarce, with retirements and demand outpacing the capacity of Canada’s economy. Between 2003 and 2023, the number of workers in electric power generation, transmission and distribution grew by only about 20,000 people, according to Statistics Canada. Kaur, Chapeskie and others say that, as with so many other fields, the length of time it takes for skilled immigrants to qualify to work here is a big part of the problem — and the issue will only get worse as the demand for green skills grows. 

“The reality is that immigration is an integral component for Canada to be able to meet its labour workforce needs,” Michelle Branigan, CEO of Electricity Human Resources Canada, told The Narwhal. 

Medical practice differs between countries but in engineering ‘the science is really the same’

The fundamental qualification for Canada’s electrical energy sector — the professional engineer’s licence, or P.Eng — creates one significant set of hurdles. No one wants to get rid of it, since it ensures engineers in Canada have fulfilled considerable health and safety training requirements. “We need people to meet a certain standard of performance and capability in order to perform in those roles,” Chapeskie said. 

The problem, he said, is that the licence and its safety standards are administered at the provincial level, instead of federally.

“If you were to emigrate to another country for a regulated occupation, the first thing you would probably ask is, ‘What’s the national organization or body to get my credentials recognized?’” Chapeskie said. In the United Kingdom, for instance, two organizations — the National Inspection Council for Electrical Installation and Contracting and the National Association of Professional Inspectors and Testers — issue certifications recognized throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. 

In Canada, “We sometimes see labour market barriers for folks wanting to work from one province to the other, let alone international workers coming in,” Chapeskie said. Whether workers are born in Canada or abroad, transferring an apprentice engineering qualification between provinces can take as long as four years, he said.

“We don’t have good and consistent prior learning recognition in Canada,” Chapeskie said. “It’s hard for an immigrant coming in to identify ‘Where do I best fit?’ without having to go back to school to start all over. Four years is a long time to start over, especially if you’ve already been practising in your trade overseas.”

And as the process rolls along, Branigan, too, finds the bureaucracy excessive. “The paperwork — its time and effort — is so overwhelming that [skilled immigrants] feel that they don’t have the time to deal with it,” Branigan said. “It’s one of the biggest barriers I see for employers who may be interested in trying to support newcomers.” 

Mehran Ahmadi is also a professor at Simon Fraser University’s school of sustainable energy engineering. He earned his master of mechanical engineering at Iran’s Tehran Polytechnic before arriving in Canada in 2014 for a PhD fellowship, which included a brief placement with the B.C. engineering consultant firm Stirling Cooper. 

Without that placement, Ahmadi said, his journey to find work in the Canadian electricity sector “would have been hugely different” and “very challenging.” Networking is “the most crucial part of finding a good job, being an immigrant,” Ahmadi said. Even a short stint at a Canadian company means “you will see way more opportunities,” as well as gain a better understanding of how work experience abroad applies here. 

Electrical engineering is universal enough that qualifying in another country, let alone another province, should be relatively easy, Ahmadi said. 

“Medical sciences have different practices in different countries. But in engineering … the science is really the same,” he said. The fundamentals of a Canadian bachelor’s degree in engineering are entirely the same as his curriculum in Iran, he said, aside from lessons on Canadian engineering law.

No province ‘any better than any other’ in helping newcomer engineers enter Canadian job market

By the time Kaur’s training and paperwork were done, she had found it far easier to obtain work as a professor than in Canada’s electrical engineering sector. 

That sentiment was echoed by respondents to another 2023 Electricity Human Resources Canada report examining newcomer perspectives on working in Canada. Nearly 60 per cent of respondents found the electrical sector hard to get into, while 46 per cent said they had difficulty obtaining Canadian credentials. 

Networking came up, too: 36 per cent of the 500 newcomer respondents said not knowing others in the industry was a hurdle. A quarter felt they were disqualified because of their language skills, while 20 per cent said racism and discrimination kept them from entering the field. 

“I’m not blaming Canada or the Canadian system,” Ahamdi, who has heard anecdotes that support the report’s statistics from students and peers, said. “But there are these unconscious biases that we live with.” 

Branigan said Canada’s electrical engineering sector is taking steps to address non-governmental issues. She said one large engineering company told her it was increasingly relying on technology and pictures to address language barriers for newcomer employees.

Others are piloting engineer “training programs” to hasten their employees’ acquisition of the engineering licence. They see internationally accredited engineers working under a direct supervisor to earn the Canadian experience required. “They’re doing engineering work, but they can’t sign off on any of the designs without having somebody who’s got their certification,” Chapeskie said. 

As of July, B.C.’s International Credentials Recognition Act requires 18 regulatory bodies to remove barriers from dozens of trades professions under the guidance of a provincially appointed superintendent. “Skilled professionals from around the world move to B.C. hoping to put their skills to good use, but instead face huge obstacles and an often-confusing process to get their credentials recognized,” Premier David Eby acknowledged in a press release. 

Ontario, for its part, is experimenting with methods to improve the province’s registration and retention of tradespeople. Last year, Queen’s Park introduced a program meant to streamline recognition of interprovincial qualifications. But when it comes to easing the transition of skilled newcomers into the Canadian job market, Chapeskie said no province is “doing any better than any other.” 

In rural regions or less populous provinces that have fewer immigrant services, “it can be very challenging,” Chapeskie said. The solutions being pioneered by private companies demonstrate the need for better electrical engineering skills recognition standards at the federal level, he said.  

The addition of skilled immigrants, such as Kaur and Ahmadi, to the country’s electrical energy sector is a global advantage Canada shouldn’t take for granted, Chapeskie said. Immigration has allowed Canada’s population to grow faster than its G7 peers in recent years. 

“Most of those [G7] populations are actually going to head into a decline. Unless you can figure out how to boost the productivity of your population, [other G7 countries] are actually looking at some significant social challenges in the future,” Chapeskie said. 

“Canada is uniquely positioned in that our population continues to grow. We have a competitive advantage internationally. Unless we sort out our internal challenges around integrating internationally trained workers, we could lose that.”  

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