Just before the 2022 provincial election, Doug Ford said five words Ontarians hadn’t heard often during his first term.

“I believe in climate change,” he told reporters in May, days after a deadly derecho storm left hundreds of thousands of homes east of Toronto without power and left three municipalities in a state of emergency. “And we’re doing everything to prevent it by building electric vehicles, having investment into the battery plants.” 

The premier’s second term has seen a lot of promises around electric vehicle production — and even some commitments from manufacturers. But arguably, the Progressive Conservatives’ latest tenure has been defined more so by lost battles over land use, as the province opened up land in the protected Greenbelt to get “more homes built faster” — and then reversed it, though the government is still pushing a couple highway projects through the protected area.

Playing in the foreground now is a looming energy supply crisis, which the Ford government is largely planning to tackle through a steep increase in natural gas use that will likely grow Ontario’s emissions. But it has also shown renewed interest in renewable energy, which again reverses Progressive Conservative policies and promises: one of the government’s first moves in power was to cancel hundreds of clean energy contracts and policies. 

Meanwhile, the government has done little to push forward climate adaptation efforts despite it being called for by the first comprehensive province-wide study of the impacts of climate change. Released in August 2023, it found that without serious climate action Ontarians will face four times as many days of extreme heat, which will hurt businesses, vulnerable populations (particularly Indigenous and homeless communities) and the province’s ability to grow food. The government has downplayed its findings and seems to be avoiding its suggestions. 

For the second time, The Narwhal is keeping a running tally of how the Ford government is reshaping environment, climate, conservation and energy policy. Stay tuned for updates — and if you’d like a refresher on what happened in the Progressive Conservatives’ first term, go here.

Table of contents

• Doug Ford is still changing Ontario environmental policies without meaningfully consulting the public [jump to section]
• Doug Ford is looking to rip out downtown Toronto bike lanes [jump to section]
• Ontario cut into the protected Greenbelt at the request of developers — then reversed course [jump to section]
• Ontario made it easier to build on wetlands [jump to section]
• Ontario gutted conservation authorities to speed up development [jump to section]
• Doug Ford forced Ontario municipalities to open farmland to development — then flip-flopped [jump to section]
• Ontario’s plan for York Region’s sewage threatens the health of the Great Lakes, possibly violating an international agreement [jump to section]
• After cancelling hundreds of renewable energy contracts, Ontario is bringing back solar and wind power — but also amping up nuclear and gas [jump to section]
• Ontario is building two highways through the Greenbelt, and changing laws to do it faster [jump to section]
• The Ontario government is making it easier to open mines [jump to section]
• Ontario is moving to speed up environmental assessments — again [jump to section]
• The Ford government is ending a prohibition on sequestering carbon underground [jump to section]
• Ontario begins manifesting its electric vehicle battery bonanza — with more to come [jump to section]
• Ontario launched a plan and funding for emergencies, including natural disasters [jump to section]
• Ontario has opened a new provincial park and conservation area — and promised new Muskoka campsites [jump to section]
• Ontario has abandoned a cornerstone of its environment plan, the Carbon Trust [jump to section]
• Ontario restored some — but not all — of the funding it cut from its Environment Ministry [jump to section]
• Ontario is under fire for its approach to protecting woodland caribou [jump to section]
• Ontario made more sweeping changes to convert land into suburbs [jump to section]
• Ontario made its controversial land zoning orders even stronger — while reversed some previous orders [jump to section]
• Ontario scrapped plans to reform its lagging recycling system [jump to section]
• The Progressive Conservatives are redeveloping Ontario Place — without an environmental review of the spa they want to build there [jump to section]
• Doug Ford has delayed stronger green building standards [jump to section]
• The Ford government is proposing to exempt companies that transport hazardous waste from scrutiny [jump to section]
• Doug Ford wants to ‘streamline’ stormwater management to help developers [jump to section]
• Ontario imposed a pollution price on industries [jump to section]

1. Doug Ford is still changing Ontario environmental policies without meaningfully consulting the public

Since 1993, the Ontario government has been legally mandated by the Environmental Bill of Rights to consult the public before changing environmental or energy policy, with the independent environmental commissioner’s office acting as a watchdog. 

When the Ford government axed the commissioner’s office in 2019, those responsibilities shifted to Ontario’s auditor general. Every year since, the watchdog has found recurring violations. 

In her 2022 review of how the Ford government is upholding the bill of rights, former auditor general Bonnie Lysyk found the Progressive Conservatives did not properly consult the public about three major policy changes that affected the environment, including housing policy, plans to build small modular nuclear reactors and the development of a low-carbon strategy. 

This vacuum of consultation and clear information continued in 2023, when that year’s acting auditor general Nick Stavropoulos called out the government for creating a new energy plan without consulting Ontarians, and for understating the consequences of weakening protections for wetlands. 

The year 2024 brought a new auditor general, Shelley Spence, and a fresh round of critiques. Though the province is supposed to be using its online environmental registry to inform the public, an audit of the postings there found one in five lacked important context — and the government is increasingly using it to post “self-congratulatory” notices to promote its plans instead of explaining them.

The auditor general’s office isn’t the only one noticing the Ford government’s failure to meaningfully consult the public. The Chiefs of Ontario are still calling for the repeal of a major omnibus housing act introduced in 2022, Bill 23, citing the Progressive Conservatives’ lack of consultation with Indigenous communities. Two court cases are also challenging the Ontario government’s failure to consult First Nations about mining claims staked in their territories.

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2. Doug Ford is looking to rip out downtown Toronto bike lanes

In fall 2024, most of the chatter at Queen’s Park revolved around two words: bike lanes. The premier teased the move for weeks, taking aim at two particular downtown Toronto bike lanes that he passes by on his way to work. He also blamed bike lanes for causing traffic woes, even though evidence shows bike lanes usually make congestion better. 

In October, the government hit the gas pedal on the plan and introduced a bill that allows the province to take out existing bike lanes — and restrict new ones. Even before the bill passed, Ford said his decision to take out his three least-favourite bike lanes — on Bloor and University avenues, and Yonge Street — was a done deal. 

The move was divisive, sparking protests and concerns about cyclist safety. Critics also pointed out that taking away bike lanes encourages the use of emissions-intensive vehicles, with consequences for human health and climate change. Opposition parties also accused Ford of trying to sow division to distract from other problems, like the ongoing crisis in Ontario’s health care system.

The changes also raised red flags internally: government staff warned restricting bike lanes may not help traffic, according to an internal government document obtained by several news outlets.

Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria, whose ministry will oversee the bike lane removals, hasn’t said exactly which sections of bike lane will be removed. But with the bill now passed, the province is planning to wait at least until spring 2024, according to an email obtained by The Trillium.

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3. Ontario cut into the protected Greenbelt at the request of developers — then reversed course 

On Nov. 4, 2022, the Ford government announced plans to open up 7,400 acres of Greenbelt land in southern Ontario for housing development — a stark reversal of the premier’s years of promises to never touch it. Then-municipal affairs and housing minister Steve Clark, who had also previously promised not to touch the protected area, said the move would help the province build 50,000 new homes, a small fraction of its goal of 1.5 million homes over the next 10 years.

In exchange, the province added 9,400 acres of other land to the Greenbelt, which was mostly protected under other mechanisms anyway. The move went against the advice of the government’s own housing affordability task force, which said Ontario’s housing crisis can be solved without cutting into the Greenbelt. It also touched off a political scandal that, over the course of 2023, gradually engulfed the government until Ford saw fit to reverse the changes.

Two weeks after the government announced it would cut into the Greenbelt, an investigation by The Narwhal and the Toronto Star found developers with Progressive Conservative ties were the main beneficiaries of that land swap.

The reporting prompted the opposition parties to ask two watchdogs, Ontario’s integrity commissioner and auditor general, to investigate what had happened. Those watchdog reports landed in August 2023, revealing the government selected the land it removed from the Greenbelt in response to requests from well-connected developers. The findings also documented other problems that sparked more public backlash, and over the course of two chaotic months, as Ontarians protested and the government remained defiant, two senior staffers and two ministers resigned, including Clark. 

Finally, on Sept. 21, 2023, Ford reversed the decision and apologized. His government passed a bill to officially put the 7,400 acres back into the Greenbelt in December, while also leaving the 9,400-acre addition in place. The Greenbelt technically ended the year slightly bigger than it was before.

The RCMP opened an investigation into the Greenbelt changes in fall 2023, which is ongoing. As of fall 2024, Mounties had begun interviewing current and former aides to Premier Doug Ford.

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4. Ontario made it easier to build on wetlands

The Ford government’s plan to make it easier to build housing also included measures that would make it more difficult for wetlands in Ontario to be protected. This is significant because Ontario has very few wetlands left — and because bogs and swamps help sequester carbon and mitigate floods. 

Experts evaluating which wetlands are eligible for “provincially significant” status, which protects them from development, are guided by a manual from the province’s Ministry of Natural Resources, which outlines rules to score wetlands based on their benefits to the ecosystem. In 2022, the government pushed through a huge rewrite of that manual. 

The biggest changes eliminated two major avenues for wetlands to qualify as provincially significant. First, wetland evaluators now can’t consider whether the habitat is important to species at risk. As well, wetlands must now qualify in isolation — disconnected from the wetland complexes of which they’re often a part. That means very few wetlands will actually be eligible for the protection, experts told The Narwhal, particularly smaller wetlands that don’t seem important on their own, but are part of complex watersheds and migration paths. 

The new rules, finalized in December 2022, also give the province the ability to remove protection for wetlands that qualified under the old requirements but not under the new ones.

Wetland experts told The Narwhal the changes could contribute to problems with flooding, worsening water quality and the decline of endangered species.

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5. Ontario gutted conservation authorities to speed up development 

For the second time in five years, Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have disempowered conservation authorities, agencies unique to Ontario that are tasked with protecting watersheds. This time around, the gutting came via Bill 23, which weakens the authorities’ oversight powers over development plans, and instructs them to find land in the natural conservation spaces they protect that could be suitable for development. It also empowers the natural resources minister to issue development permits without conservation authority review.  

The list of changes is extensive. It includes watering down the criteria conservation authorities can use to review development — they can no longer consider “pollution” or “conservation of land.” The authorities are also no longer mandated to work with municipalities to ensure vital environmental spaces that supply drinking water and contain wildlife habitat aren’t damaged: these relationships are now optional and can only be advisory. For the most part, the important responsibilities of a conservation authority are now being downloaded to municipalities, which even developers say have neither the in-house technical expertise nor the financial capacity to take on.

The government has said repeatedly that conservation authorities will maintain their key role: to protect people and property from flooding. But authorities say the sweeping changes were made quickly and without any consultation. The new regulations came into full effect on April 1, 2024.  

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6. Doug Ford forced Ontario municipalities to open farmland to development — then flip-flopped

On a Friday afternoon in November 2022, the Ford government released a series of bombshell decisions about municipal growth plans. These unilateral decisions ordered some of Ontario’s largest urban centres to expand beyond their current boundaries and start allowing development on farmland and green space that many local residents had clearly signalled they wanted protected. These decisions could not be appealed. 

In Hamilton, the municipal government underwent a year-long public consultation that saw 18,000 residents opt for intensifying development instead of permitting sprawl. Halton Region took a similar stance after a detailed study of its residents’ housing needs, concluding it could meet growth targets through intensification. 

Despite all this, both Hamilton and Halton Region were overruled by the Ford government and ordered to extend their urban boundaries, as were 10 other municipalities including Waterloo Region, Wellington County, Belleville and Peterborough. 

An investigation by The Narwhal showed the province made many of the changes to Hamilton’s urban boundaries in response to requests from unnamed third parties. The move came in the face of public opposition and warnings from public servants about potential environmental consequences. 

Then, reports from both the auditor general and integrity commissioner revealed some of the same government staffers and developers implicated in the Greenbelt scandal had been involved in the urban boundary decisions. The government backtracked in October 2023, a year after the original decisions, with Housing Minister Paul Calandra saying they weren’t done “in a manner that maintains and reinforces public trust.”“The process was one that I was just not comfortable with,” Calandra told reporters. “I think there was just a little bit too much involvement from the minister’s office, from individuals within the previous minister’s office.”Calandra asked municipalities to give their feedback on original growth plans again, and through 2024 set about amending and finalizing revised versions.

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

In October 2023, the Ford government also made a sudden decision not to build a contentious sewage facility in York Region that has been fiercely debated and delayed for 13 years. 

One of the big challenges with residential development is ensuring new neighbourhoods are properly serviced to support a growing population, including with wastewater infrastructure. Development cannot begin without these pipes and supporting facilities in place.

Since 2009, York Region, north of Toronto, has been trying to set up a new sewage plant to serve the rapidly growing towns of Aurora, Newmarket and East Gwillimbury. Successive governments have long delayed making a decision on this facility. In the fall of 2020, the Progressive Conservatives offered an alternative solution: instead of creating a new facility that would dump sewage in Lake Simcoe, it proposed to expand the sewage lines from York Region to reach the existing high-tech Duffin Creek Water Pollution Control Plant in Pickering, which releases treated water into Lake Ontario.

Ontario’s proposal is to permanently increase the quantity of water — by tens of millions of litres — moving between these two Great Lakes regions, which could irreversibly change and harm them: sewage carries the mineral phosphorus that can cause excess algae to grow in water, which could impact the quality and quantity of clean drinking water available to residents. It could also breach an international agreement Ontario signed in 2005, pledging to protect and improve the Great Lakes ecosystems in perpetuity. This proposal has been greenlit, despite the controversy.

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8. After cancelling hundreds of renewable energy contracts, Ontario is bringing back solar and wind power — but also amping up nuclear and gas

One of the first things the Ford government did after first taking power was lay waste to clean energy, cancelling hundreds of solar and wind contracts, including a wind farm already under construction in Prince Edward County.But in the government’s second term, green energy is back in a big way — as are methane-heavy gas plants.

The government has adopted an “all of the above” supply approach to stave off a looming energy supply shortage, caused by a growing population, the aging-out of nuclear plants and a shift to the electrification of transportation and industry. On Oct. 16, the Independent Electricity System Operator said electricity demand is set to rise 75 per cent by 2050 — far higher than the 60 per cent increase the operator projected last year.

In July 2023, the Progressive Conservatives released their first comprehensive energy policy, an 86-page plan designed to address the coming crunch. Nuclear is a centerpiece. The government has delayed the shutdown of the Pickering nuclear plant and doubled the output of the Bruce Power plant in Kincardine. The government has also asked Bruce Power to look into building a new facility, which would be the first new full-scale nuclear plant in Ontario since 1993, and announced the building of four small modular reactors at the Darlington nuclear plant.

The Ford government is also investing big in storage projects to help the province bridge the energy supply gap in the short term. Along with battery proposals, the province is considering two proposals for pumped storage, which uses water to store and create energy: one by TC Energy in Meaford, which would move water in and out of Georgian Bay, and another in the eastern Ontario town of Marmora and Lake, where an old mine pit would become one of the water storage reservoirs.  

Despite this nod to renewables, the new energy plan doesn’t make a commitment to a net-zero grid, a federal directive for all provinces to reach by 2050 to limit the worst effects of climate change. The government has received expert advice that natural gas should be phased out from Ontario to reach net-zero, but the government hasn’t released that report and instead significantly increased its use of the fossil fuel. The province has awarded power contracts for four natural gas facilities — the first new gas plants in more than a decade. Three new power plants are also in the works, which could either be natural gas or nuclear. 

The biggest thing Ontario has done to keep the methane-heavy fossil fuel in the energy mix is overturn a decision by the independent energy board that would have prevented Enbridge Gas, which has a monopoly on gas distribution in the province, from charging homeowners for new gas hookups. Internal communications show the province made this unprecedented decision after consulting Enbridge and weighing the “substantial” costs to the private energy company.   

As a result, during the Tories’ tenure, Ontario’s widely lauded low-emissions grid has already gotten dirtier, per the government’s own estimates. In 2021, the electricity system was 94 per cent emissions-free, but that is now down to 87 per cent.

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9. Ontario is building two highways through the Greenbelt, and changing laws to do it faster

Highways have been a pillar of the Ford government’s plans for Ontario for years — the Progressive Conservatives campaigned in 2022 on their push to build Highway 413 in particular. But with the next provincial election fast approaching and no shovels yet in the ground on the controversial project, Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria made a renewed effort in 2024 to get it moving.

“We will do anything and everything to get this highway built,” he told reporters in fall 2024.

Highway 413 would cut through Ontario’s Greenbelt, prime farmland and endangered species habitat, connecting suburbs to the north and west of Toronto. Concerns about its environmental impact led the federal government to subject the project to an impact assessment, a process that left it in limbo for three years. But the federal government agreed to drop its review in April 2024 amid a court challenge from Ontario. A second attempt to have the project designated for review in late 2024 was turned down by the federal Impact Assessment Agency.

In the meantime, the provincial government passed a bill in fall 2024 to speed up the process for Highway 413. The changes mean the province doesn’t have to finish its environmental assessment and can give less information to the public about it.

Bill 212 also outlines a longer list of priority highway projects for which the Ford government may now permit 24-hour construction, and make it harder for landowners to stand in the way. One of the other projects on that priority list is a second highway through the Greenbelt: the Bradford Bypass.

The province already broke ground on early work for the Bradford Bypass in November 2022. 

The bypass would connect highways 400 and 404 north of Toronto, running a 16-kilometre path through the sensitive Holland Marsh section of the Greenbelt. The project last received an environmental assessment in 1997, before the existence of the Greenbelt or policies tackling climate change.

The Progressive Conservatives have argued that both Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass are needed to relieve congested traffic in the Greater Toronto Area, despite decades of evidence showing new roads don’t relieve traffic jams in the long run. 

Whether or not the Tories’ moves to accelerate highway work actually make the projects go faster is still unclear. Delays could come from a fall 2024 strike by the provincial government’s engineers, who stopped their work on a variety of projects, including Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass.  

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10. The Ontario government is making it easier to open mines

In May 2023, the Ontario government locked in changes to the province’s Mining Act through Bill 71, dubbed the “Building More Mines Act.” 

The legislation made a few key revisions to the law, including making it easier for mine projects to move ahead even if their plans for closure — which should outline how they’ll rehabilitate the mine site once extraction is finished — haven’t been finalized. 

Mining Minister George Pirie said the changes wouldn’t compromise Ontario’s environmental standards. He’s selling them as an environmental win, saying  they’re aimed at boosting the mine approval process to help Ontario produce more of the priority minerals, or critical minerals, needed to make electric vehicle batteries. 

Pirie’s office has also argued the bill would increase environmental scrutiny on mining projects — it would require that all aspects of mine closure plans be certified by professionals, when only some aspects of those plans need that certification right now. And although the changes allow applications to move through the system more quickly, closure plans must be in place before companies can begin building new mines. 

The push for critical minerals as part of a homegrown Ontario electric vehicle supply chain has been a central focus for the Progressive Conservatives, who have touted the idea as a way to lower carbon emissions.

First Nations and environmentalists, however, say Ontario’s environmental protection regime is already too weak and further cuts to mining rules are concerning. For example, public servants warned Pirie in 2022 that the province has a “high-risk” loophole in its rules for dams that hold mine waste, also known as tailings, according to an internal government document obtained by The Narwhal through a freedom of information request. But the government hasn’t fixed the loophole and the risk remains.

There are big questions about Indigenous consent that still need to be answered before many mining projects can go ahead. There’s also the question of how the greenhouse gases released by development and mining in environmentally sensitive areas, like the Ring of Fire in the Far North, stack up against the lower-emissions technology the minerals could help facilitate.

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11. Ontario is moving to speed up environmental assessments — again

Ontario already watered down its environmental assessment regime in the Doug Ford government’s first term, and has used its second term to take aim at it again. When an environmental assessment has been completed, the minister is supposed to consider its findings and public feedback for 30 days before deciding whether to approve the project. One piece of legislation, Bill 69, allowed the environment minister — then David Piccini — to change or waive that 30-day period in some circumstances. That bill passed in May 2023.

Environmentalists and opposition parties expressed some concerns about the bill, The Trillium reported. But Piccini’s office has said it would maintain environmental standards, and the waiting period would only be waived for projects that have fulfilled all of their requirements and have no outstanding issues. 

Separately, the government made changes in February 2024 to which types of projects undergo full environmental assessments and which ones can follow a “streamlined” process. Environmentalists have raised red flags about the changes, which the Progressive Conservatives initially proposed years earlier, during its first few years in government. Railways, multi-lane highways, electricity transmission and waterfront projects now qualify for streamlined reviews. 

The same month, the province made another big change to environmental assessment rules, which it said was aimed at helping build major infrastructure projects faster. It did so by making it easier for the province to expropriate land, or take property from a private landowner to use it for a public project. 

Governments in the past often used the environmental assessment process to figure out which land would be needed for a project — and to make sure the province didn’t accidentally take too much. But the law wasn’t clear on whether environmental assessments were actually required to expropriate land, leaving the government vulnerable to legal challenges that could delay infrastructure projects, according to an internal government document viewed by The Narwhal. To eliminate the grey area, the Progressive Conservatives put measures in an early 2024 omnibus bill called the Get it Done Act, which made it explicitly legal to expropriate land without an environmental review. 

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

The concept of carbon capture, utilization and storage is gaining popularity with governments like Ontario that are lagging on efforts to cut emissions. The idea — at least in theory, though it’s been criticized as greenwashing — is essentially what it sounds like: pursue technology that can capture carbon emissions, which fuel climate change, then store it indefinitely to keep it out of the atmosphere or use it to make other things. 

One use for captured carbon is injecting it underground into old wells to push more oil and gas to the surface. It’s less emissions-intensive than other ways of extracting oil and gas, but does still use carbon to extract more products that will then, in turn, emit carbon.

That practice used to be prohibited in Ontario, but the Doug Ford government had signalled intentions to change its carbon storage rules for a while. It took the next step towards that in March 2023 when it removed the prohibition as part of Bill 46, dubbed the Less Red Tape, Stronger Ontario Act. The province followed that up in January 2024 with a regulation that makes it possible for project proponents to pursue carbon storage, with special approval from the government. And at the end of the year, it introduced the Geologic Carbon Storage Act, a bill that would enable the practice on a commercial scale. It could pass as soon as January 2025. 

The Progressive Conservatives have touted this plan as a way to help industry decarbonize. Environmentalists, however, are taking issue with it for a few reasons. Some argue that carbon capture, utilization and storage won’t make a big dent in the climate crisis because it enables more oil and gas extraction. 

Others say Ontario’s oil and gas history makes storing carbon underground too delicate, if not impossible — especially given the current government’s level of oversight. Keith Brooks of the charity Environmental Defence made that point to lawmakers, which NDP MPP Terence Kernaghan referenced during debate over the bill on March 6, 2023.

According to Kernaghan, Brooks noted the reasons Ontario had avoided underground storage so far are mentioned in a 2022 government discussion paper on the practice.

“The long legacy of drilling for oil and gas in Ontario has affected the suitability of many of these reservoirs for the storage of carbon dioxide,” the paper reads. “Careful site selection and extensive study would be required to ensure that the carbon dioxide could be stored safely by proponents.”

The same report notes that “stronger, more proactive oversight” would be needed to protect people and the environment. 

But oversight has been a problem with Ontario’s existing oil and gas wells. Last year, then-auditor general Bonnie Lysyk found the province is failing to identify and inspect high-risk wells. Some of those high-risk wells have caused real public safety problems in southwestern Ontario, where many are concentrated: a few in Wheatley, Ont., are believed to have caused an explosion in 2021, levelling buildings and sending seven people to the hospital. An investigation by The Globe and Mail found the Ontario government failed to act on warnings about leaks from the wells.

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13. Ontario begins manifesting its electric vehicle battery bonanza — with more to come

In March 2023, German automaker Volkswagen announced it had picked St. Thomas, Ont., a former auto-manufacturing city, as the location of its first overseas manufacturing plant. The decision came after the Progressive Conservatives rushed through a bill that consolidated 1,500 acres of farmland to form the site of the facility, land that was previously split between St. Thomas and the neighbouring township of Central Elgin. 

This was the fifth electric battery facility the government has announced, alongside partnerships with Stellantis and LG Energy Solutions in Windsor, Umicore in Kingston, Ford Motor Company in Oakville and Magna International in Brampton. Canada’s first full-scale electric vehicle manufacturing plant — a General Motors facility that was retooled to build 50,000 electric vehicles — also opened in Ingersoll in December. 

Despite these developments, construction on the plants has been slow, and delayed in some cases. After cancelling electric vehicle rebates and ripping out chargers in 2018, the government announced brand new funding for 1,300 charging stations in November 2024.   

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14. Ontario launched a plan and funding for emergencies, including natural disasters

In its March 2023 budget, the Progressive Conservatives committed more than $110 million over three years to improve emergency readiness. This includes creating a new emergency preparedness grant for community organizations and a fund for municipalities to provide urgent relief. On budget day, provincial officials said the emergency funding could be used “for a wide range of emergencies,” such as floods, wildfires and extreme heat. 

The funding commitment comes after Ontario launched its first-ever Provincial Emergency Management Strategy and Action Plan in February, an attempt to create a uniform and detailed approach to everything from immediate evacuations to rehabilitation after a natural disaster. Part of the plan includes enhancing flood mapping to understand flood risk, which is projected to increase as the climate changes, and creating a First Nations Emergency Response Association to find best practices for community safety.

The funding and plan are much needed. In 2022, 58 community and provincial emergencies were declared in Ontario, and more than 1,900 members from four First Nations communities were evacuated due to extreme flooding. New legislation to strengthen emergency management was passed in December to create a more coordinated and community-led approach to disasters. The province has also created Ontario Corps, a volunteer group to respond to natural emergencies.

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15. Ontario has opened a new provincial park and conservation area — and promised new Muskoka campsites

The Progressive Conservative government first pitched the idea of creating a new provincial park in its 2020 budget — and every one after that. But its plans started to crystalize in 2023, when the province revealed it would be located east of Toronto in Uxbridge. It’s located on a leafy section of provincially owned land on the Oak Ridges Moraine, a rocky landform that’s part of Ontario’s Greenbelt. Speaking to reporters on budget day 2023, Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy denied the Uxbridge park was a response to criticism over the government’s since-reversed decision to open Greenbelt land for development. 

About a year later, Uxbridge Urban Provincial Park became a reality: its gates opened for some limited public access in July 2024. Hiking, biking, skiing and snowshoeing are already allowed on trails through the 532-hectare green space, but its operations are limited while Ontario Parks consults the public about its final plan for how it will manage the land. 

In 2023, the Ontario government also teased the idea of upgrading Bigwind Lake Provincial Park near Bracebridge, in the Muskoka region north of Toronto. Bigwind Lake is already a provincial park, but not an operational one, meaning it doesn’t have facilities like bathrooms or campsites. Now, the government plans to add 250 campsites and up to 25 cabins, and will staff the park, keeping it open year-round.

The government originally said it would begin upgrade work in fall 2024, with designs set to include low-energy buildings and wildlife-friendly design. But an environmental group has raised concerns about whether development within the park would cut through important wildlife corridors, and as of August 2024, the province said site planning wasn’t done and it wasn’t clear when construction might start.

In July 2023, one month after the Bigwind Lake announcement, former environment minister David Piccini also unveiled Monarch Point Conservation Reserve on the south shore of Prince Edward County, east of Toronto. The area, which spans 1,618 hectares (4,000 acres), had been designated as Crown land and was already used for a variety of outdoor activities. The province said turning it into a conservation area would give the land stronger protections. The south shore area is known as a hotspot for birds and for having one of Canada’s three monarch butterfly reserves.

Plans for another new protected area closer to Toronto remain fuzzy. In its 2022 pre-election budget, the government repeated a promise to “support a large near-urban provincial park at East Humber Headwaters in King Township,” just north of Toronto. But it has not given an update on that pledge since.

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16. Ontario has abandoned a cornerstone of its environment plan, the Carbon Trust

The Ontario Carbon Trust was a central pillar of the Progressive Conservatives’ 2018 Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan — but it has never materialized. It was meant to be a $400-million fund to encourage private investment in clean technologies. But it hasn’t been included in a single government budget since then, and as of right now, there’s no indication the Tories will follow through.

Ministry of Finance officials did not directly answer when The Narwhal asked about the Carbon Trust at a briefing for reporters for the 2023 budget. (They didn’t answer when The Narwhal asked about it in 2022, either.)

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17. Ontario restored some — but not all — of the funding it cut from its Environment Ministry

Soon after taking office in its first term, the Progressive Conservatives slashed the Environment Ministry’s budget by a third. Previous governments had already underfunded environmental measures for decades, and the added cuts compounded long-term problems caused by that lack of resources, according to Ontario’s auditor general. 

The 2023 budget, however, showed the Environment Ministry’s funding climbing back up. 

The previous Liberal government gave the Environment Ministry $909 million in the fiscal year ending in 2018. The Progressive Conservatives cut it to a low of $612 million by 2020, but have gradually bumped it up every year since. The government’s 2023 budget projects it’ll spend $742 million on the Environment Ministry this fiscal year and sets aside an additional $40 million for it the year after. That would bring the ministry’s budget to just over $782 million.

Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy didn’t answer directly when The Narwhal asked him on budget day 2023 to explain the Environment Ministry’s funding. However, it appears some of that increase came from extra spending for COVID-19, and some is likely due to inflation.

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18. Ontario is under fire for its approach to protecting woodland caribou

Towards the end of its first term, the Ontario government inked an agreement with the federal government aimed at protecting the province’s quickly dwindling woodland caribou. That agreement was roundly criticized by environmental groups and First Nations, who said it failed to address the ways logging, road building and other industrial activity hurt the iconic but endangered species.

It nearly fell apart less than a year later. Ontario announced plans in March 2023 to invest $29 million over four years in woodland caribou conservation — a move the Progressive Conservatives touted as the largest single investment in caribou in the province’s history — and federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault sent the province a letter to warn it wasn’t enough.“It is my opinion, based on the information available, that some of the critical habitat for the boreal population of woodland caribou (boreal caribou) located on non-federal lands in Ontario is not effectively protected,” Guilbeault wrote in the letter, as reported by the Canadian Press.

Guilbeault also said he was recommending the federal government issue a protection order for woodland caribou in Ontario, which would allow him to impose stricter protections for the species on land that’s normally under provincial jurisdiction.

This power hasn’t been used before, though the federal government has in rare cases used a similar mechanism. The prospect of Guilbeault making use of it in Ontario sparked backlash from the forestry sector, which said the move would be devastating. 

Lately, however, there hasn’t seemed to be much chance Guilbeault will issue a protection order in Ontario anytime soon. The two governments appear to have sorted out their differences in spring 2024, announcing they had once again agreed to “significant collaboration on caribou conservation.” Ontario, meanwhile, has come under fire for giving some of its caribou conservation funding to a forestry industry group. Experts say the loss of caribou habitat, which forestry contributes to, is a main factor in the decline of the species.

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19. Ontario made more sweeping changes to convert land into suburbs

The Ford government continued its dramatic rewrite of urban development rules in April with a massive overhaul of the provincial policy statement that has long provided principles for making land use decisions. 

The government said its goal was to simplify and streamline its systems to encourage the construction of more homes. But the changes were contradictory. Some were aimed at high-density development near transit and in downtown cores, which discourages emissions-intensive car travel. Others, however, made it easier to build sprawling, single-family homes pretty much everywhere else, which can have the opposite effect.

The rewrite also made it easier for residential development to happen on prime agricultural land — a move critics took issue with because farmland naturally mitigates floods and sequesters carbon.

The province later promised to drop some aspects of the changes, but so far has not done enough to allay concerns of farmers and experts. 

Documents released through freedom of information legislation in the fall revealed that changes to the provincial policy statement were made by the housing minister’s office to ensure protected land would be opened to development.  

The province issued the final policy statement on Oct. 20, 2024.

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20. Ontario made its controversial land zoning orders even stronger — while reversed some previous orders

In urban planning, municipal zoning rules lay out how different pieces of land can be used. Anyone who wants to change the zoning of their land — from agricultural to residential, for example, which would enable housing development — usually has to go through a lengthy process with their local government. But the Ontario government has a way to override that with minister’s zoning orders, or MZOs, which give the province the ability to instantly rezone a piece of land.

The orders don’t instantly make construction happen, but they do speed up the process. They also cannot be appealed. Previous governments used them about once a year on average, mostly in special or emergency situations, but Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have used them 114 times from 2019 to 2023. Though Ford has touted them as a way to rapidly greenlight housing construction, his government has come under fire for using them to override environmental protections and fast-track projects proposed by Tory donors. 

The Progressive Conservatives already made the power stronger during their first mandate. Then they did so again in April 2023, allowing the government to hand down minister’s zoning orders even if they clash with other provincial rules, like those that protect wetlands and farmland. 

Critics at the time said the move would concentrate power in the hands of the minister of municipal affairs and housing, who holds most of the responsibility for the zoning orders, and likely allow them to ignore a raft of environmental protections. Two months later, the Ford government bestowed minister’s zoning order powers on a second minister: Kinga Surma, who oversees the Infrastructure Ministry, including responsibility for the redevelopment of Ontario Place in Toronto. 

But the government seemed to cool on the concept after the Greenbelt scandal in 2023, which brought the resignation of longtime municipal affairs minister Steve Clark. His successor, Paul Calandra, started reviewing a bunch of Clark’s decisions and rolling back several — including some of the orders. 

In fall 2023, the government passed legislation to give itself immunity from lawsuits over any minister’s zoning orders it might take back, sparking backlash from developers. Then Calandra started pulling the plug, revoking a batch of six minister’s zoning orders in April 2024. He also yanked one more — which had involved a development lobbyist from the Greenbelt scandal — in November 2024 after its owner put it up for sale. 

Calandra has also said he’s keeping a close eye on 14 more housing projects that received zoning orders, and might revoke them if developers don’t make significant progress by mid-2025. Half of those 14 zoning orders were given to projects spearheaded by one of the companies that saw their land removed from the Greenbelt in 2022 and added back in a year later.  

In April, Calandra brought in a new protocol to make the process of requesting a minister’s zoning order more consistent, as the government didn’t have a set of criteria before. But the process wasn’t enough to stave off a rebuke, and new Ontario auditor general Shelley Spence delivered a scathing report on the Progressive Conservatives’ use of minister’s zoning orders in December 2024. The audit echoed the Greenbelt scandal, pointing to similar problems and even some of the same characters: it showed senior staff in Clark’s office giving developers preferential treatment, and in one case even passing a developers’ exact wording for a zoning order to bureaucrats. The report also found heaps of other issues, like a lack of due diligence on handling requests from developers.

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21. Ontario scrapped plans to reform its lagging recycling system

Ontario overhauled its blue box recycling program in June 2021, during the Progressive Conservatives’ first mandate. The new rules, aimed at standardizing more than 200 local programs — and shifting responsibility to the companies that produce materials like plastics, metal, glass and paper — were meant to be phased in from 2023 to 2025. 

But that rollout has had hiccups, with environmental groups and industry alike saying the program is complicated and difficult to understand. The province quietly rewrote the plan last spring to remove some of the most controversial sections. And now one component of it, a program that would have seen producers of non-alcoholic beverages like pop and juice pay recycling fees, has been paused.  

The program, which was meant to be operated by the Canadian Beverage Container Recycling Association, was originally supposed to launch on April 1, 2023. But the industry group pushed that back after Piccini said they wouldn’t be able to download costs to consumers, and then the association suspended the program entirely.The Ontario government was poised to make another attempt, assembling a working group to explore how a different kind of recycling program could work, according to a letter obtained by CTV News Toronto. The plan, according to the letter, was to spend six months considering what’s called a “deposit-return program,” where consumers pay a recycling fee at the cash register but get money back if they return cans or bottles, similar to the program Ontario already has for beer cans and bottles. But in July 2024, with no advance notice, the province shut down the working group and scrapped the deposit-return plan entirely in a move critics said bowed to pressure from big grocery companies. 

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22. The Progressive Conservatives are redeveloping Ontario Place — without an environmental review of the spa they want to build there

The Ford government has made a mission out of redeveloping Ontario Place. The provincially operated waterfront venue and green space in Toronto was a theme park until a previous government decommissioned it in 2012. But the province’s plan, which involves the construction of a large private indoor waterpark and spa, is under fire from people concerned about its environmental impact and how it could affect public use of the large, publicly owned space on Lake Ontario.

The province has said the redevelopment will be a net benefit for the environment and will include more green space, a new public beach and wetlands. Although plenty of people still use Ontario Place as a park, Progressive Conservatives have pointed out that the site is in need of major repairs.

Critics, however, have argued the government’s environmental study for the project didn’t account for the planned 65,000-square-metre, seven-storey private spa building, and have raised concerns about the process.

The Ontario Place site is currently home to several species at risk, including birds, and some people have said the construction work will disrupt their habitat. The province’s limited environmental study concluded those species would likely find “alternative habitat” in other nearby parks. 

In the last months of 2023, the government moved to pass a law exempting Ontario Place from a batch of land-use rules. Among other things, the change means most of Ontario Place won’t be required to undergo a formal environmental assessment, though other studies looking at environmental impacts are still required. The law also gave Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma, who oversees the redevelopment, the power to issue minister’s zoning orders — something that could allow the province to accelerate Ontario Place and skip over local planning requirements.

The province started demolition at Ontario Place in summer 2024 and has continued despite public backlash. That includes a December 2024 report from auditor general Shelley Spence, who found the push to redevelop Ontario Place was “not fair, transparent or accountable,” and that its cost had quietly skyrocketed by $1.8 billion. 

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23. Doug Ford has delayed stronger green building standards 

As the federal government readies a national strategy to ensure buildings are energy efficient, documents obtained by The Narwhal in 2023 revealed the Ford government is holding up the process. The holdup is Ford’s pledge to build 1.5 million homes by 2031. Notes from federal officials show that, in discussions between the two levels of government, Ontario expressed concern that stronger green building standards would “affect their goal” by increasing costs for the development industry. 

The need for strong, effective green building standards is great: buildings are the third largest source of emissions in Ontario, accounting for 24 per cent of the province’s total emissions. Ford voted in favour of green building standards as a Toronto city councillor, but as premier, he has done little to prioritize climate-conscious building. 

In February 2023, former municipal affairs and housing minister Steve Clark sent a letter to municipalities speaking of “preliminary plans to commence discussions” about a “consistent province-wide approach” to green building standards. At least three local officials told The Narwhal these meetings had yet to be scheduled by September 2023. In fact, Clark asked Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe to delay city council efforts to push for stronger standards; in May of the same year, the city council voted to delay implementing new green building standards.

In 2024, the government released a revised building code that comes into effect on Jan. 1, 2025. It does not codify green building standards.

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24. The Ford government is proposing to exempt companies that transport hazardous waste from scrutiny 

In Ontario, large-scale industrial and commercial companies are required to obtain a permit from the Ministry of Environment to ensure their planned operations pose minimal risk to the environment. That includes companies that operate waste disposal sites and transport hazardous waste — including asbestos, industrial liquids, biomedical, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and naturally occurring radioactive material. To get a permit, companies have to prove there will be no environmental harm and have a “financial assurance,” or a contingency fund to clean up any spills. 

The Ford government wants to eliminate these licensing requirements: in an August 2023 statement on the Environmental Registry of Ontario, it stated the goal was to “reduce delays on projects that matter most to Ontario communities, such as new housing and job-creating businesses,” without detailing how oversight of hazardous waste causes such delays. The government is also removing the need for financial assurance, asking instead for an insurance policy that covers $500,000 in liability costs — even though legal experts say spill cleanups are estimated to start at $1 million. 

Without these licensing requirements, there will be no proactive environmental scrutiny of many industrial operations. But the 2021 annual report by the auditor general said Ontario’s oversight is already insufficient, finding the Environment Ministry doesn’t disclose enough information to the public about the quantity and harms of hazardous spills. 

The Ontario government consulted the public about the proposed changes in fall 2023 but hadn’t made a final decision by December 2024.

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25. Doug Ford wants to ‘streamline’ stormwater management to help developers

Everything that is built in Ontario — commercial, industrial, residential — requires a system to prevent rain and melted snow from causing floods, and divert it away from drinking water sources. There are rules that dictate how much groundwater can be removed or moved before a site is dug up for construction and how much a stormwater system can carry. 

Developments are only greenlit once these stormwater plans have been reviewed by technical staff at the Ministry of Environment, to ensure water resources, which are finite, will not be reduced in quantity or compromised in quality. 

But a proposal from 2023 suggests relieving many developers of this requirement, including those that build all residential buildings other than big towers, as well as the builders of gas stations, commercial and industrial warehouses, malls and hospitals. 

The new proposed rules also suggest developers be able to use as much groundwater as they want during construction. The current threshold is 400,000 litres per day, as required by the 2005 Great Lakes St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement signed by Ontario, Quebec and eight American states that surround the lakes. 

The province consulted the public about the proposed changes in fall 2023, but as of December 2024 it hadn’t made a final decision about whether to go forward.

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26. Ontario imposed a pollution price on industries

After losing a Supreme Court battle against the federally implemented carbon price, the Ford government was forced to introduce its own levy that met national standards. On Jan. 1, 2022, Ontario’s Emissions Performance Standards took effect on industrial polluters, setting a price on carbon and creating a market for carbon credits. 

Companies that produce less than their limit earn credits, or “emissions performance units,” that can be sold to heavy emitters, which are defined as companies that produce 50,000 tonnes or more of carbon dioxide annually. Companies that emit more than this benchmark must buy these credits, or pay a price per tonne of carbon dioxide. Details of the program are sparse but, per reporting from the Toronto Star, the province has collected more than $146 million annually from this levy.Despite past laments about what Ford incorrectly dubbed the “job-killing carbon tax” — and repeated denials of the federal program’s climate benefits, including through a $4-million sticker campaign that an Ontario court ruled unconstitutional — the government has already signalled that its pollution price will increase in lockstep with the federal carbon price, and the money collected will go towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to its September 2021 regulatory proposal, Ontario’s price per tonne of carbon for industrial emitters will increase from $65 in 2024 to $80 in 2025, and up to $170 in 2031.

Updated Dec. 19, 2022, at 1:45 p.m. ET: This article was updated to reflect that the Ford government has finalized changes to the boundaries of the Greenbelt.

Updated March 29, 2023, at 10:46 a.m.: This article was updated to add items 11 to 19, as well as update some older items.

Updated Aug. 2, 2023 at 2:21 p.m.: This article was updated to update some older items and add five new ones.

Updated Jan. 23, 2024, at 9:35 a.m. ET: This article was updated to update some older items and add three new ones.

Updated Jan. 2, 2025, at 5:38 p.m. ET: This article was updated to bring existing items up to date, add one new item and add a table of contents.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

When many Canadians think of the Prairies, they envision beautiful endless landscapes of agricultural fields stretching across the horizon, perfect for a photo-op on a cross-country road trip. But what is missing from this imagery are the once-ubiquitous pothole wetlands, a defining feature of the region.

In the Canadian Prairies, wetland drainage has resulted in the loss of more than 40 per cent of natural wetlands. The impacts associated with this drainage are largely unmitigated.

Wetlands are key ecosystem features that provide numerous services, like water purification, that are integral to social and ecological systems. Because wetlands occur largely in depressions, they regulate stream flow by acting as reservoirs for snow and rain, and many are places where groundwater can be replenished.

In the prairie climate, the presence of water lends these systems to being a crucial habitat for many organisms.

Drainage and agriculture

Wetland drainage is a long-standing practice that takes many forms. Wetlands are drained during road building and urban expansion, but on the Canadian Prairies, wetland drainage is most widely used as part of a suite of agricultural practices to manage surface water.

Beginning in the late 19th century, provincial governments played a key role in using drainage as a tool to increase the land available for agricultural production. Today, individual values along with social and economic pressures can drive decisions to drain wetlands.

Notably, crop producers have faced increasing economic pressure to drain wetlands, in part due to the increasing size of farm equipment that makes it difficult to work around “nuisance” wetlands, but also because of policy goals to increase crop production. Wetland drainage is ongoing, but this comes at a cost.

Drainage impacts

Our research presents the most current and comprehensive synthesis of western scientific understanding of impacts of wetland drainage in the Canadian Prairies. Our findings show that impacts are numerous and widespread, but also dependent on local context.

The removal of wetlands through drainage reduces the capacity for water storage on the land, and can increase the magnitude and frequency of downstream flooding. These impacts may be exacerbated in the future, as more intense weather events become increasingly common.

Perhaps equally important in this region are the impacts to groundwater — many residents rely on shallow groundwater supplies for potable drinking water for human consumption or animal husbandry. Draining wetlands, particularly small ones where water collects temporarily in the spring, breaks the connections by which groundwater reserves are replenished.

Wetland drainage effectively short-circuits the biophysical system, quickly routing water that would be returned to the atmosphere by evaporation or stored in groundwater, to downstream bodies of water. This increases nutrient export to these downstream systems.

Loss of nutrient retention capacity provided by wetlands exacerbates water quality challenges, and algal blooms resulting from nutrient enrichment in lakes and reservoirs are on the rise. Ultimately this impairs drinking water treatment, can lead to fish kills and reduces opportunities for recreational enjoyment, among other effects on these water bodies.

Biodiversity and wetlands

Loss of wetlands from the prairie landscape also has severe impacts on biodiversity, as these features are biodiversity hotspots. Pollinator habitat loss is an important consideration in light of evidence that habitat for key pollinators can increase crop yields.

Loss of biodiversity is likely the largest impact of wetland drainage. The habitat provided by wetlands, particularly vegetation at wetland margins, provides an important refuge that can mitigate against the extremes in climate possible in the region.

The costs and benefits of wetland drainage are many, and vary based on both the land’s characteristics and local agricultural practices. Society loses valuable ecosystem services when wetlands are drained, and shares the cost, including increased flooding, aquatic nutrient pollution and loss of biodiversity.

The choice to drain or not rests with individual agricultural producers who can benefit economically from wetland drainage. At present, there is insufficient incentive provided for individual landowners to conserve wetlands, despite the societal benefits of wetland conservation.

Towards resilience

Stewardship of social-ecological systems requires acknowledging that they are rarely static. This is especially true in the Prairies, where the last 10 years have seen the wettest period on record and, more recently, some of the worst drought conditions.

Resilient social-ecological systems have a high capacity to respond to diverse disturbances and a wide range in conditions associated with natural climate cycles. Diversity is a prerequisite to this ability to respond to stress, and it has been argued that a move towards more sustainable systems should embody these natural cycles.

Homogenous landscapes have less ability to adapt during inevitable periods of stress, threatening the resilience of natural prairie systems. Continued wetland drainage in favour of landscape homogenization is a pitfall.

In this region, where agriculture has transformed the landscape into one of the most heavily managed in the world and the impacts of wetland drainage are widespread, there has been a push from decision-makers to answer the question: “Which wetlands must we keep?”

Answering the question above is a complex one and inevitably involves value judgements. With impacts of wetland drainage and associated costs to society well-documented, and a large proportion of wetlands lost to date, it is important to conserve wetlands of all sizes and types, and in sufficient number.

The precautionary principle, seven-generation thinking practised by Indigenous people and the need for resilient social-ecological systems prompt us to instead ask: “Which wetlands can we possibly afford to lose, while maintaining critical food production, biodiversity, water, water quality and limiting the risk of floods?”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This story is part of Carbon Cache, an ongoing series about nature-based climate solutions.

It’s a brilliant spring day in the flat, big-sky country near Iron Springs, Alta., an hour north of Lethbridge, where John Kolk farms 4,000 acres with his wife, son, two daughters and a small staff.

“The ducks and geese are making a racket and everyone is excited for spring,” he tells me when I call him to talk about new federal funding for farmers tackling climate change.

Spring is a busy time of year, and Kolk is making plans for the rest of the season. He’s got two quarter sections — about 320 acres — of corn planned this year, and it’ll be out of the field by August. He has a decision to make: does he plant a cover crop for the fall?

Cover cropping involves the planting of a secondary crop for the off-season instead of leaving a field bare. It’s what Kolk calls leaving “a bit of a jacket on the field through the winter.”

The practice has numerous advantages: preventing erosion, retaining soil moisture and acting as a carbon sink. 

A 2019 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found sequestering carbon dioxide from the air will form a significant part of the world’s efforts to mitigate the climate crisis, and noted agricultural lands can play a sizable role. 

“When you’ve got live roots,” Kolk explains, “you’re taking carbon out of the air.”

But seeding a cover crop is not without its challenges. To really be effective in the region, the new crop has to be seeded before the old one dies off. Kolk has planted cover crops before, on four quarter sections of beans. “You don’t want to go drive on good beans in order to put a cover crop in,” he says. So farmers turn to aerial solutions.

His corn crop will grow to nine feet tall but won’t be gone until November, when new seeds would no longer germinate. Planting new seeds on two quarter sections covered in nine-foot corn stalks requires hiring a helicopter that needs to be equipped with expensive specialized equipment. 

New federal funding announced in Monday’s budget could mean Kolk and other farmers will  have the access to the funds to move forward with cover cropping and other carbon-reduction practices.

“If I know I’m going to get partly funded for that I will [seed that cover crop] this August,” he says. 

“Of course I won’t be the only one,” he adds. “So then all of a sudden, there’ll be a demand for that service. And then the opportunity for more people to use cover crops.”

That’s the plan according to this week’s federal budget, which includes $200 million in new funding for increasing the adoption of climate-friendly practices like cover cropping, nitrogen management and rotational grazing. It also allocates $10 million over two years to facilitate a transition to clean energy from diesel-fueled farm equipment and earmarks another $60 million for the preservation of existing wetlands and trees on farmlands.

It’s what Farmers for Climate Solutions, a coalition of farming organizations across Canada, described as “unprecedented” funding.

“This is one of the largest investments we’ve ever seen for agriculture in the federal budget,” Karen Ross, the director of Farmers for Climate Solutions, tells The Narwhal. “I was thrilled.” 

For agriculture advocates, the budget signifies the government is recognizing the industry’s potential to combat the climate crisis using already-accepted farming practices.

“Agriculture can play, and is playing, a big role in climate change mitigation,” Chris van den Heuvel, a vice president with the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, says by phone.

“Agriculture needs to be recognized … as one of the sectors that can help in the solutions for climate change,” he added.

Making climate-friendly decisions economically viable for farmers in Canada

Four thousand kilometres across the country, Cedric MacLeod has 120 head of cattle — “beating hearts” as he calls them — on his 400-acre farm near Centreville, N.B.

Included on that farm is a wetland formed from an old dugout that he’s been considering filling in for more grazing land. The other, more expensive, option would be to leave it and allow a wetland habitat to flourish.

“Those are the kind of decisions a lot of producers are facing,” he says by phone from Fredericton, where, he tells me, the sun has finally come out on a cool spring day. 

Expanding the wetland and allowing native milkweed to grow, he says, could help create habitat for monarch butterflies, along with local songbirds, migratory birds and amphibians. Wetlands also act as a carbon sink. A 2017 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that the preservation of ecosystems like wetlands, forests and grasslands could add up to more than one-third of the emissions reductions needed under the Paris Agreement.

But preserving wetlands on a farm can be an economic decision — one that can be difficult in a sector already facing tight margins.

Areas like the Lomond Grazing Association lease in southern Alberta preserve untilled native prairie and wetlands. The recent federal budget earmarked funding for farmers and ranchers to preserve existing wetlands, as well as trees, which are well-known carbon sinks. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

The new federal funding for agricultural climate solutions could make those decisions a little easier.

The allocation of $60 million of federal funding over the next two years for protection of wetlands and trees on farms could potentially help make his decision an economic one as well as a climate-friendly one, MacLeod says. 

Helping farmers square good climate decisions financially is something people working in agriculture say is the best way forward when it comes to reducing the climate impact of the industry.

It’s “the first time that there’s been a deliberate attempt to incent good agronomic practices that will help to capture carbon,” Kolk says. “So we know a lot about it, we’ve heard a lot about it, [now we’re] putting the whole piece together.” 

“I think that when you start incentivizing it, it’ll start to happen.”

‘Agriculture is 10 per cent of the problem and 20 per cent of the solution’

The agriculture industry has long been lambasted as a significant contributor to Canada’s carbon pollution — it produces between eight and 10 per cent of the country’s total carbon emissions —  but this year’s budget aimed to turn that idea on its head. “Farmers are major players in Canada’s fight against climate change,” it reads.

And that recognition is welcome news to those in the farming community. 

Farming advocates like Ross, herself a vegetable farmer in Ontario, acknowledges that agriculture is responsible for a large chunk of national emissions. “We only have nine growing seasons left [until the 2030 Paris Agreement goals],” she says. “And for farmers to be part of the solution we of course need to meaningfully reduce these emissions.” 

“But the thing is, in order to shift our practices to ones that reduce emissions, there are often high upfront costs,” she added. That’s where Farmers for Climate Solutions has been advocating for federal funding.

With “public support to help us kind of manage those upfront costs, or share those upfront costs,” she says, the government is acknowledging the “role of farmers to be part of our climate solution.”

Macleod, the beef farmer in New Brunswick, agrees.

“We’ve always maintained that agriculture is 10 per cent of the problem and 20 per cent of the solution,” he says.

Agriculture has long been lambasted a significant contributor to Canada’s carbon pollution but the industry — and the federal government — is adamant agriculture is poised to be a leader in reducing emissions, particularly with public support in place in the form of financial incentives. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Fertilizer waste isn’t just bad for the climate, ‘it’s just wasted money’

Among the other climate-friendly farming practices highlighted in the recent budget is nitrogen fertilizer management.

Fertilizer has been pegged as a significant contributor to the climate impact of agriculture. Some 70 per cent of crop farms apply fertilizer, according to Statistics Canada. 

When fertilizer is applied in the wrong quantity or wrong location, it can end up as runoff.

When nitrogen fertilizer is lost as runoff, it ends up as a greenhouse gas. It has been estimated that as much as 20 per cent of nitrogen fertilizer is lost as runoff, which can end up being a significant contributor to carbon pollution.

“Nitrogen waste is bad for the environment, but it’s also bad for the farmer,” Ross tells me. “It’s just wasted money.”

Federal funding aims to help farmers reduce nitrogen runoff. One of the key ways farmers can pinpoint ways to reduce waste is to hire an agronomist who can come up with a tailored, specific plan for when, how and what rate fertilizer is applied, based on crop needs and soil conditions. But that costs money.

And for many farmers, these sorts of decisions will come down to what’s “good for the bottom line,” Paul Thoroughgood, who farms 2,000 acres of canola, green lentils, flax, spring wheat and winter wheat just south of Moose Jaw, Sask., says.

“Fertilizers are our largest expenses on the farm,” he says. “We recognize that there is a greenhouse gas implication to that. So by making the most efficient use of that fertilizer, it’s a double win.”

New federal funding to help reduce nitrogen fertilizer runoff could enable farmers to hire agronomists who can help identify the proper timing, rate and location of fertilizer application. It’s been estimated that as much as 20 per cent of nitrogen fertilizer is lost as runoff, which means increased carbon pollution. Photo: Shutterstock

Decarbonizing farm machinery has a ‘longer timeframe’

Part of the recent budget includes earmarking $10 million for programs that will move toward “powering farms with clean energy and moving off diesel.”

That’s a big task.

According to a diesel industry group, diesel powers more than two-thirds of all farm equipment and is used to transport 90 percent of farm products in the United States. 

“Right now, the number of diesel engines that we have running on a daily basis is very high,” Thoroughgood says, noting “a combine is awfully high horsepower, and it runs for an awfully long day, day after day.”

Decarbonizing such heavy machinery is challenging, he says.

But, he adds, “you never want to say never because, gosh, the advancements we’ve seen in my farming career are phenomenal.”

Thoroughgood points to recent moves from long-haul trucking companies to move toward electric or hydrogen fuel cell systems. If long-haul trucks can move to clean fuel, he says, farm machinery may well be on that path too — eventually.

Paul Thoroughgood’s farm in Saskatchewan relies heavily on diesel-powered machinery, as is the norm in North American agriculture. He doesn’t foresee that being phased out across the board in the immediate future, but is watching the adoption of clean technology in other carbon-intensive sectors, like long-haul trucking. Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

“That’s probably going to take a little bit longer timeframe,” van den Heuvel says of a large-scale move away from diesel. “But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.”

He points to opportunities for farmers to use biodiesel in tractors or to switch to clean-powered grain dryers.

But, he adds, “the technology and the infrastructure has to be there in place and and ensure that whatever happens in the end ultimately doesn’t end up costing us too much.” 

As many farmers are quick to point out, they compete in international markets on prices and feel they have little ability to pass additional costs down to consumers.

As part of the federal budget, the government has moved to address one longstanding concern of many in the agriculture industry: what they see as the financial punishment of carbon pricing. 

The budget acknowledges that farmers require natural gas and other fuels affected by carbon pricing in their operations, and announces that the government intends to return a portion of funds brought in through carbon pricing directly to farmers, to the tune of an estimated $100 million next year. The return of carbon price proceeds will only apply to jurisdictions without their own carbon-price schemes, including the Prairie provinces and Ontario.

‘Culture change’ needed across all Canadian farm types and sizes

Like all government plans, van den Heuvel of the Canadian Agriculture Federation says, “the devil is in the details.”

Thoroughgood compares the recent budget announcements to other government programs created to incentivize what are known as beneficial management practices through grants. 

Those grants, he says, “generally appealed to small farms, and didn’t do a great job of appealing to the larger firms, because their spending cap was so low that it was almost a rounding error for many people’s balance sheet.”

He wonders how the government will allocate the tens of millions of dollars it has earmarked to climate-friendly farming incentives.

“I hope that the government … looks at how they can make those funding programs relevant to a 30,000-acre farm, or a 50,000-acre farm — you know, something that’s really at scale that will really make a difference on the landscape,” he says.

“Figuring out how to make those programs attractive so that all farms find them interesting — not just the ones that are smaller scale — I think is absolutely critical if Canada wants to make a real impact on the agricultural landscape.”

Farmers and advocates say that the details of how new federal funding is allocated matter, and can’t be targeted to one specific size or type of farm operation. Photo: Sara Hylton / The Narwhal

Van den Heuvel agrees.

“There’s a depth and range of firm sizes, from very small operations, that might only be an acre or two in size, up to those firms that are tens of thousands of acres in size and larger,” he says from outside a barn on his fourth-generation dairy farm in Cape Breton, N.S.

“We just have to make sure that whatever [the government does] put in place is representative of the entire sector.”

Kolk is leery of targeting funding to one size farm or another, noting both approaches would come with potential pitfalls. Farmers, he says, will be responsive if there’s an incentive regardless of the size of their operation.

“If you drag a $20 bill through the gutter in Picture Butte, you watch how many farmers will grab it,” he says with a chuckle.

But at the end of the day, he believes what the government is aiming to do is about more than any one climate-friendly practice adopted by an individual farm. 

“This is a culture change,” he says. “And culture is everybody, from running the three-acre market garden to the 50,000-acre Hutterite colony.”

The Carbon Cache series is funded by Metcalf Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input into the articles.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A group opposed to a peat moss mining project south of La Ronge hopes to raise awareness through an online speaker series.

The group is holding an online speaker series featuring Elders and Indigenous conservation activists from northern Saskatchewan. They hope to raise awareness about the importance of peat bogs, or muskeg, to traditional ways of life and land-based food sources.

Quebec-based company Lambert Peat Moss Inc. raised the ire of some La Ronge area residents when it went public with a proposal to extract peat moss from four locations near the Lac La Ronge provincial park.

Eleanor Hegland, an educator at the Lac La Ronge Indian Band’s Bell’s Point Elementary School, spoke with the Northern Advocate on location in the muskeg south of La Ronge.

Hegland said the loss of muskeg caused by peat moss mining would disturb the ecological balance of the region and rob her descendants of their ability to live off the land.  She said she was ripped away from her home in the bush as a child and taken to residential school. Mining in the muskeg would be a repeat of the same colonialism that took her away from her land and put her in residential school as a child, she said.

“For us, we need this to survive. We still have lots of medicine in the muskeg that we use to keep us healthy,” Hegland said.

“For me, even being put in a residential school and taken out of my trapline as a young girl and I was sent to Prince Albert. In the Little Red River Park, that’s where I got my ability to think of home. The trees, the flowers and the different seasons. To me it was so powerful.”

Lambert sent a letter to La Ronge area residents last fall as part of the consultation process. The project would last 80-100 years and would be done in sections.

“It is important to note that an entire area is not all harvested at once. Rather, small areas are harvested and then reclaimed as the next area would be harvested,” the letter said.

“Lambert has developed procedures that increase peat productivity, while reducing the potential effects on the environment… Lambert will implement a progressive restoration process that will aim at restoring peat fields soon after they are no longer needed for the project.”

The company promised to implement a restoration plan that would “aim to re-establish vegetation cover and restore the movement and distribution of water” that Lambert said would lead to the return of peatland to its natural state.

Read more: The battle for the ‘breathing lands’: Ontario’s Ring of Fire and the fate of its carbon-rich peatlands

But residents who use the muskeg on a regular basis say they can’t wait that long. Nor do they believe that Lambert will be able to fully restore the area once it is mined.

One of the parcels of land intended for development is near Potato Lake, which is abundant in wild rice and is also used for recreation, fishing, trapping and the gathering of ingredients for medicines used by traditional healers.

WSP Consulting is conducting an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for Lambert.

Janna Foster-Willfong, a team lead in environmental impact assessments at WSP said in an email on Jan. 15 that the EIA cannot be submitted without a completed consultation and engagement report.

The report would need to show what activities were undertaken by Lambert, what input was received and how Lambert addressed or accommodated any concerns that were raised, she said.

“The wildlife and wildlife habitat, caribou, vegetation and socio-economic chapters are still underway. It will be a long while before the EIA will be finalized because there remains a lot of consultation and engagement to be completed,” Foster-Willfong said.

“Online consultation and engagement has been challenging and face-to-face meetings are so much better; therefore, much of the consultation and engagement is awaiting the return of in-person meetings.”

Local author and conservationist Miriam Korner, who runs her dog team and forages near Potato Lake, started a group called, For Peat’s Sake – Protecting Northern Saskatchewan Muskegs.

A Change.org petition launched by Saskatoon resident Chantal Barreda in October to oppose the project now has over 20,000 signatures.

“Feb. 2 was world wetlands day. The most important thing to realize is how important the wetlands are on a global scale. So if something in northern Saskatchewan is threatened it does not only concern the people in northern Saskatchewan. It concerns us all because this is a very effective and simple way to have a carbon sink,” Korner said.

“I think we need to start to look not just regionally in our areas but start to have an understanding of how our actions locally influence things on a global level. The peat has the ability to capture carbon but if that peat is taken it will actually be a carbon producer.

It turns from a carbon sink to a carbon producer and while that process is happening the peatlands are drying out. What that means for northern Saskatchewan is a higher risk of forest fires.”

For youth worker Shane Bird, spending time in the muskeg is an opportunity to strengthen his connection with the land. Photo: Michael Bramadat-Willcock / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Shane Bird, a youth worker at the Northern Lights School Division and member of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, rediscovered his connection to the land and his roots by spending time in the muskeg. Now he takes youth out on the land to make that same connection for themselves.

Bird spoke with the Northern Advocate while preparing a fire to make muskeg tea with a plant that grows in wetlands and is called maskêkopakwa in Cree.

“It’s to empower the youth with that knowledge so that they can pass it on to their future generations,” Bird said.

“I think it’s important because it’s our lost identity, it’s our connection to mother earth and to the land; to the water, the fire, the sun and the earth. It’s something that we have lost along the way through intergenerational trauma.”

One of the youths in Bird’s group is 19-year-old Tyrell Tremblay. Tremblay said that he has been coming to the muskeg since he was a boy with his family.

“This is where we do a lot of hunting and a lot of our medicines come from the muskeg. I want my kids to experience it and to hunt on these lands and to gather medicine from it. There’s a lot of flu going around and we need our medicine,” Tremblay said.

“They are taking our medicine away and affecting our people’s mental health. Keep in mind that you’re affecting a whole community, you’re affecting a lot of people when you destroy this. It would disconnect me from my land and my way of life. This is all medicine right here and it helps with your mental health being out here. It’s therapeutic.”

Reconnecting with her traditional way of life through the muskeg helped Hegland heal from her experience in residential school. She wants youth like Tremblay to maintain their connection to the same land that she was so violently taken away from.

“It’s so important that the youth learn this and we want our future generations to have the same inherent right that we had to the heritage of the beautiful land, clean water, muskegs and the birds and the animals so that they’ll be able to sustain themselves,” Hegland said.

“I’m here because it’s my heritage to protect the land. It was left to me clean and it provided all the things I needed. So I want to protect the environment and the water and to teach the young people that the land provides for us and the planet earth is for all of us.”

To attend the speaker series you can visit the group’s Facebook page called, For Peat’s Sake – Protecting Northern Saskatchewan Muskegs.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

An independent panel is urging the Yukon government to develop a wetlands policy to protect unique streams, bogs, fens and peatland from mining because there are no known ways to fully restore these sensitive ecosystems once disturbed. 

Wetlands filter water, provide habitat to species and sequester carbon but are quickly being lost to development worldwide — an issue drawing attention on World Wetlands Day Feb. 2. 

“Some wetlands are 6,000 years old in the Yukon,” Jamie Kenyon, Yukon manager of Ducks Unlimited Canada, told The Narwhal. That puts the formation of some Yukon wetlands at roughly 4000 B.C.E., coinciding with the Bronze Age and the development of human civilization’s earliest writing practices.

In a recent mineral development strategy report to the territorial government, the panel emphasizes how sensitive wetlands are, urging Yukon to finalize a wetlands policy “founded on the recognition that wetlands cannot be returned to a pre-disturbance state within seven generations.”

Yukon has no framework to specifically address the impacts of mining on wetlands, which are predominantly affected by placer mining operations that involve digging up wetlands, streams and river beds in the search for gold. 

Placer mining claims have grown significantly in Yukon over the last decade, particularly along the Indian River near Dawson City, where decades of extraction has dramatically harmed waterways, threatening wildlife and the Indigenous Rights of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation.

The absence of a wetlands protection policy has “created uncertainty” for miners, according to the Yukon government. It has also stoked concern that industry is running roughshod over wetland areas due to few checks and balances.

The territory could be on the cusp of a significant change, however, with the Yukon government slated to release the territory’s first wetlands policy later this year. Onlookers are calling for stronger baseline wetland protections that prioritize conservation and Indigenous Rights over industrial interests.

Reclamation of Yukon wetlands insufficient

The government’s goal should be to ensure new policy results in far more protection for wetlands, Randi Newton, conservation manager with the Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, told The Narwhal.

The need for protections that will prevent wetlands from being destroyed is evident in the panel’s warning that wetland reclamation practices are not effective, she added.

“The language in the mineral development strategy really signals that the wetlands policy really needs to set us up to make cautious decisions, recognizing that there’s these irreversible trade-offs that come with development,” Newton said. 

“The policy should prioritize avoidance of development in wetlands versus half-measures like reclamation.”

The panel also recommends the Yukon government earmark funding to encourage innovative technologies that could introduce new “rehabilitation practices” in wetlands, which include fens, bogs and swamps.

This likely revolves around the fact wetland reclamation in Yukon is “completely unproven,” Kenyon said.

“There’s no tested way to replace a fen with a fen, a bog with a bog,” he said.

The wetlands of the Indian River watershed, south of Dawson City, Yukon, have been impacted by decades of placer mining. Photo: Malkolm Boothroyd / CPAWS Yukon

There are some examples of wetland reclamation strategies that have been used in southern Canada, such as the “moss layer transfer technique,” which involves the reintroduction of peat — a spongy, organic soil-like matter made up of partially decomposed vegetation unique to bogs and fens — combined with the spreading of mulch and fertilizer and several stages of watering. According to a peatland restoration guide developed by the Université Laval Peatland Ecology Research Group, this technique has been used in more than 100 peatland restoration projects in Canada.

But restoration techniques used elsewhere may not work in Yukon, where wetlands are particularly unique because they are “inextricably linked” with permafrost, which itself can take thousands of years to form, Kenyon said. “It’s very difficult to tease apart one from the other,” he said. “The permafrost allows water to collect at the surface, which allows the wetlands to form vegetation — that peat — which allows the permafrost to not melt.”

According to a best practices strategy document from the Klondike Placer Miners’ Association, an estimated five per cent of streams in Yukon have been impacted by placer mining and that in order for operations to take place in rivers and streams, “the disturbance or destruction of these wetlands usually cannot be avoided.” Permafrost is also impacted, as miners must thaw the ice-laden sediment to successfully mine for gold.

“There is very limited information regarding the restoration of northern wetlands, particularly those in permafrost areas,” the document states.

Carl Schulze, secretary treasurer with Yukon Prospectors Association, a mining advocacy group, told The Narwhal that placer miners are able to restore wetlands to a point where they can once again sustain wildlife.

“You can restore it to a productive level, where you can start getting poplars and willows, little ponds where the ducks move back in,” he said. “The animals move in pretty quick, so as far as that goes, it’s productive, meaning that animals can benefit from it — they can find food, they can re-establish habitat.” 

“It doesn’t look like it did before anybody got at it, but, in a way, it doesn’t matter because it’s not a detriment to wildlife.”

Placer mining involves digging in wetlands for gold. Although industry is required to remediate disturbed wetlands, there are no remediation techniques capable of restoring bogs, fens and peatlands to their natural, pre-disturbed state. Research shows peatlands are crucially important to carbon storage — but only when left undisturbed. Photo: Malkolm Boothroyd / CPAWS Yukon

But Kenyon said when placer miners restore wetlands, they tend to take an entirely different form — a depression in land with water in it that, over time, allows some vegetation to grow back.

A problem, however, is that a key ingredient is lost in the process: when placer miners work a claim that includes a wetland, they tend to stockpile peat off to the side where it essentially dies, Kenyon said. An October 2020 study published in Environmental Research Letters found that peatlands cover only about three per cent of the planet and act as a rich carbon deposit, but only if left undisturbed. Drying and dead peatlands can release large amounts of emissions into the atmosphere for decades or centuries, the researchers found. According to a 2017 report by the Boreal Songbird Initiative, Canadian boreal peatlands hold at least 147 billion tonnes of carbon, equivalent to 736 years of Canada’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions. 

Kenyon noted that peat stockpiled and set aside for mining reclamation projects can be permanently damaged.

“Once peat starts drying out and is exposed to oxygen, it starts decomposing at a much faster rate, so you can’t just, five years later, throw it back … and think it will come back to what it was before,” he said.

Modernizing Yukon’s mining legislation could provide greater protections for wetlands, Indigenous Rights

Placer mining is regulated under legislation first written in 1898, well before the ecological impacts of mineral extraction were understood.

The panel found that over the last 122 years “a patchwork quilt of amendments have rendered the Yukon’s mineral resource legislation unresponsive to evolving industry circumstances and difficult to enforce.”

To fix this, the panel has recommended a major overhaul of mining legislation, setting a deadline of 2023 for that work to be completed. But some are concerned those changes aren’t coming quickly enough to protect wetlands in imminent danger from placer mining. 

This is the case for wetlands in the Dawson region, where the majority of Yukon’s placer mining operations take place. 

Darren Taylor, the director of natural resources for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation in whose territory the Dawson region lies, told The Narwhal the ongoing destruction of wetlands is undermining his nation’s rights.

“Mining has a big impact on our traditional territory and obviously an impact on Aboriginal Rights and Title,” Taylor told The Narwhal. “You know, [Aboriginal] Rights exist throughout our traditional territory and there’s a constitutional obligation for Yukon and the federal government to ensure that development, whatever they might be, doesn’t adversely affect our right to utilize our traditional territory for traditional purposes.” 

Water and wetlands are an important component of those rights, Taylor said, noting wetlands in his nation’s territory are crucial for biodiversity and provide fish and moose habitat that his community relies on for food.

“Through the erasing of the land and water, and our ties to that land and water, we are losing ourselves … from the land.”

The Yukon Water Board, the independent body responsible for issuing water licenses to placer miners, recently held virtual public hearings on placer mining in wetlands. The findings of those hearings will help inform the Yukon government’s upcoming wetlands policy. 

During those proceedings, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation representatives, including Taylor, spoke of the devastating impacts placer mining has already had on wetlands in the Indian River watershed. For several years the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation has asked for mining to be stopped in wetlands that cannot be reclaimed to their natural state. 

“With the increase in activity levels and lack of reclamation and destroyed habitat, I don’t feel as comfortable with harvesting down there anymore,” he told the board. “I don’t even want to drive down there for leisure. It’s too depressing.”

“Through the erasing of the land and water, and our ties to that land and water, we are losing ourselves … from the land,” he said.

Taylor told The Narwhal that remaining wetlands urgently need to be documented. “All we’re saying is we need to identify the wetlands, their functions and which ones you can mine and which ones you can’t.”

The impacts of placer mining are very visible in the unnatural pilings running throughout the Klondike Valley near Dawson City, Yukon. Before the Gold Rush, the Klondike River was one of the healthiest spawning rivers in the Yukon Watershed. However, placer mining throughout the Klondike devastated the salmon run in the region. Only in recent years has the river seen a return of Chinook salmon. Photo: Peter Mather

The Yukon chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society recently called on the water board to stop issuing water licenses until reclamation standards are established and disturbance thresholds are set, or until land use plans are in place. 

The Yukon government has refused calls to halt placer mining in the region while the development of the Dawson Regional Land Use Plan is underway. 

According to a regional resource assessment report conducted by the Dawson land use planning commission, 10 per cent of the Dawson region is made up of rare wetlands that are ecologically important.

Several of the independent panel’s recommendations to the Yukon government seek to ensure Indigenous Rights are upheld in the new legislation — that the acts align with modern treaties, the Canadian constitution and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), as well as acknowledge the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent. 

Were the Yukon government to act on the panel’s recommendations it could strengthen the involvement of First Nations when it comes to placer mining in wetlands, Taylor said. 

Newton, of Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said mining in wetlands has already reached an unsustainable level, with that way of doing business set to continue.

“The Yukon doesn’t have a good way to right now to protect important ecosystems for cultural sites from development while we wait for land use planning,” she added. “There are lots of places that would have been protected had land use planning got there first.”

There are places in Yukon where mining is getting close to unsustainable levels for local ecosystems, Newton said, “so bringing in legislative changes could help us get off that treadmill of development that leads to those situations.”

Newton added that neither the Yukon’s new mining legislation nor a new wetlands policy will offer a “silver bullet” solution to the impacts of mining in wetlands. But she is encouraged that the development of these new laws and policies could leave a positive mark. 

“We’re at this interesting moment where real change is possible.”

The independent panel’s final strategy document is expected to be submitted to the Yukon government and First Nations in March. Yukoners are invited to comment on the draft version until Feb. 22. 

Editor’s note: a report cited in this story, on Canadian boreal peatlands, was published by the Boreal Songbird Initiative, an organization which provides financial support to The Narwhal. Per our editorial independence policy, The Narwhal maintains a firewall between news coverage decisions and all sources of revenue.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This is the eighth part of Carbon Cache, an ongoing series about nature-based climate solutions.

Gail Chmura, a professor at McGill University, had recently joined the school’s geography department in the late 1990s when some of her colleagues were trying to solve a mystery. They were looking at global carbon budgets, and the numbers weren’t adding up. There was a missing carbon sink, sequestering a whole lot of carbon, and nobody knew what it was. They wondered if Canada’s peatlands were part of the missing sink.

Meanwhile, Chmura was sampling salt marshes in the Bay of Fundy, which spans between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Few people had paid salt marshes any attention as carbon sinks because the data showed pretty low levels of carbon at a first glance. But Chmura had a lightbulb moment.

Researchers had been looking at the percentage of carbon in salt marshes by weight. In peatlands, this makes sense because they are almost entirely made of organic matter, which is where carbon is stored in soil. But salt marshes contain a lot of clay and silt, which are much heavier than organic matter — what if the heavy clay and silt had made the amount of carbon look deceptively low?

She adjusted her measurements to be based on the actual weight of carbon contained in the soil rather than on the percentage of weight and was struck by her findings: salt marshes stored lots of carbon. They could even store more than peatlands.

“I didn’t think anyone was going to believe me,” she said with a laugh.

But she was right. Over her years of researching the Bay of Fundy, she found the bay’s salt marshes contain more than 14.2 million tonnes of organic carbon, which it has been accumulating for 3,000 years. That’s equivalent to emissions from over 106 million barrels of oil being consumed.

The Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick sequesters millions of tonnes of carbon. Photo: Jay Yuan / Shutterstock

The carbon stored in ocean and coastal ecosystems like marshes, seagrasses and mangroves was dubbed “blue carbon” by environmental non-governmental organizations in 2009, and Chmura has gained a reputation as a blue carbon expert.

The ocean’s vegetated habitats (like mangroves and salt marshes) cover less than two per cent of the ocean floor, but they hold over half of the carbon stored in ocean sediments. A 2009 report, Blue Carbon: The Role of Healthy Oceans in Binding Carbon, estimated preserving and recovering these ecosystems could offset three to seven per cent of global fossil fuel emissions over the course of two decades.

Instead, like so many ecosystems The Narwhal has explored in the Carbon Cache series, coastal ecosystems have continued to be desecrated over time. Wetlands are threatened by rising sea levels, warmer oceans, erosion and pollution. The Blue Carbon Initiative estimates 340,000 to 980,000 hectares of blue carbon ecosystems are destroyed each year, releasing their stored carbon into the atmosphere.

The Bay of Fundy, where Chmura focuses much of her research, has lost about 85 per cent of its salt marshes due to development, including the construction of dikes. The bay is considered one of the seven wonders of North America and sees the highest tides in the world. The average tidal range around the world is about one metre, but the Bay of Fundy’s range can reach up to 16 metres. The bay floods with 160 billion tonnes of sea water twice a day.

Despite its degradation, Chmura says the Bay of Fundy is exceptionally well-situated to withstand climate change. The bay and the St. Lawrence River, which is also abundant with wetlands, are more resilient to sea level rise since they already experience such high tides.

“These northern marshes may be the future of salt marshes because [marshes] are highly threatened in the United States to the south,” Chmura said.

Still, a lot of work must be done to accurately measure how much carbon is stored in Canada’s marshes, Chmura says. Estimating a single marsh’s carbon stock requires measuring three metres deep into the soil in multiple locations while being careful not to compact the soil in order to get an accurate measurement.

“It’s nearly impossible to go out and measure every single marsh … it’s very expensive to do,” she said. “We have to find ways to calculate the stock that’s there and ways of calculating its future.”

‘You can have your marsh and eat it too’

Earlier this month, the first blue carbon standard was introduced into the global carbon market by Verra, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that issues verified carbon credits. This means projects restoring or conserving blue carbon can begin accessing carbon markets.

The challenge is measuring and proving the amount of carbon being stored.

Chmura and her students are working to establish parameters to accurately estimate carbon stocks. She hopes this will eventually enable landowners that preserve wetlands to sell offset credits on the carbon market, which she says offers a lot of opportunity for farmers.

For example, Chmura co-authored a study that found a salt marsh on the St. Lawrence River continued to store carbon at the same rate when it was grazed by sheep. Not only that, salt marsh lamb — l’agneau de pré-salé — is a highly sought-after meal in Europe.

“It’s supposed to be very tasty,” she said.

Tide pools and salt marsh cordgrass on Cape Sable Island in Nova Scotia. Photo: Shutterstock

One day soon, Chmura said, perhaps farmers could raise sheep on salt marshes and earn income from selling meat in addition to carbon credits, once they can prove how much carbon is still being sequestered. Chmura believes there are opportunities for ecotourism, as well.

“You can have your marsh and eat it too,” she said.

On a national scale, the federal government is also in the midst of developing its own carbon offset standard, which will set the parameters for a variety of carbon credits.

Re-flooding diked salt marshes to save communities

In the face of climate change, restoring salt marshes may in fact be one of the best ways to protect agricultural land by creating a buffer zone. Many of the Bay of Fundy’s salt marshes disappeared due to dikes being built so the nutrient-rich soil could be used for agriculture. But as sea level rises and dikes erode, those lands are now at high risk of flooding.

Danika van Proosdij, a professor in the department of geography and environmental studies at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, was lead author of a study that found 70 per cent of dikes in the Bay of Fundy were highly vulnerable to overflooding by 2050.

With funding from Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s coastal restoration fund, van Proosdij has been leading efforts to strategically reflood areas the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture has identified as being cut off from tidal flows due to dikes and at risk of being flooded anyway. Instead of building the dikes up higher, reflooding restores salt marsh habitat.

The change can be quick. Her team reintroduced tidal flow at one site in the Bay of Fundy in 2018, and salt marsh plants and shore birds have already returned to the area.

Re-introducing these marshes creates a buffer that can absorb water, decrease wave intensity and provide more space between the dike and land that’s being used for other purposes like agriculture. It also gives people like van Proosdij the opportunity to measure how much carbon is stored in the marshes and how that changes as they evolve and grow.

High tide in the salt marshes of the Fundy coast. Photo: Shutterstock

“We’re definitely not taking down all dikes in the Bay of Fundy to reflood the land,” she said. “We’re strategically realigning in certain areas to make the land more resilient to withstand climate change impacts by creating a buffer in front of the dike.”

“It’s about building smarter and working with nature and building up natural processes.”

That’s exactly what some communities in B.C.’s Lower Mainland — where a major coastal flood could result in losses of $19 billion — plan to do. Two cities, Surrey and Delta, and Semiahmoo First Nation have partnered to build a “living dike” as part of a pilot project. They are preparing to deposit sediment in a salt marsh to raise its elevation and create a natural dike that can survive sea level rise.

The living dike “will enhance biodiversity, reduce wave energy … [and] enhance blue carbon sink functionality of the mud flat,” according to the City of Surrey’s flood adaptation strategy.

“We know we just have to try it and see if it works,” Matt Osler, the city’s program manager for disaster mitigation, said in a previous interview with The Narwhal.

“Maybe with climate change, we have to do things differently. We at least have to be asking the question of how we can do it differently.”

The salt marshes in Boundary Bay are being conscripted in a fight against climate change-induced sea level rise as part of a novel ‘living dike’ solution. Photo: City of Surrey

A need for seaweed

Bill Collins likes the taste of seaweed so much, he has been known to pluck a fresh piece straight from the water and pop it in his mouth. He said it’s not slimy or salty like people expect.

“It tastes … green. And crunchy,” he explained, looking for the right words.

“A little bit of a clean taste, like a cucumber … but it’s not like a cucumber. But it’s that refreshing feeling, that same sensation.”

Collins said he’s a big meat-eater, but he loves this plant (though it’s not actually a plant, it’s macroalgae) — so much so, he plans to grow 1,000 hectares of seaweed along the B.C. coast over the next 10 years as chairman of the company Cascadia Seaweed.

Blue carbon: the climate change solution you’ve probably never heard of

Bill Collins, chairman of Cascadia Seaweed, a company with plans to grow 1,000 hectares of seaweed along the B.C. coast over the next 10 years. Photo: Cascadia Seaweed

The company says seaweed is the food of the future, and the only way to possibly feed people as demand for food rises in the coming decades. Some estimate the world needs to increase food production by 60 to 100 per cent by 2050 to feed a growing population.

Cascadia plants its seeds in December and harvests in April, and leaves 10 per cent of the crop in the water. In part, Collins said this is to selectively breed the strongest, healthiest seaweed that will survive rising ocean temperatures. But he said it’s also so the company can monitor the remaining seaweed to learn more about its potential for carbon sequestration.

Marine vegetation can sequester up to 20 times more carbon than terrestrial vegetation. Macroalgae could sequester almost 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide globally every year, equivalent to taking over 55 million cars off the road.

“Some people talk about planting trees, we talk about growing seaweed,” said Erin Bremner-Mitchell, the company’s communications manager.

Cascadia Seaweed plants their crop in the fall of 2019 in Barkley Sound, on Vancouver Island. Photo: Cascadia Seaweed

Some scientists debate whether seaweed should be included in blue carbon. It grows on the nearshore, but as seaweed sheds, it can be carried out to the deep ocean and permanently sequestered on the ocean floor, so some are concerned carbon from seaweed could be double-counted. Scientists have found seaweed fragments in abundance up to 4,800 kilometres from the nearest coastline.

But seaweed is definitely storing carbon, and it may mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in another surprising way: by reducing methane in cow burps.

Scientists have found that adding small amounts of asparagopsis taxiformis, a type of red seaweed, to cow feed can reduce the animals’ methane emissions by 50 to 90 per cent.

According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, in one year a dairy cow can produce the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as a mid-sized vehicle driven for 20,000 kilometres.

Some researchers have expressed doubt seaweed can be grown on a big enough scale to make a significant dent in cattle methane, but Collins believes that B.C.’s 25,725 kilometres of coastline can grow enough seaweed to make a difference for Canadian cattle.

Cascadia Seaweed is releasing its first products for humans next year and is not yet prepared to grow seaweed for cattle. But Collins is still excited by the prospect of becoming North America’s biggest seaweed producer. He believes it could help the country go carbon neutral.

It sounds ambitious, but according to one estimate, farming seaweed in just four per cent of federal waters on the California coast could neutralize emissions from the state’s entire agricultural industry.

Ryan Cootes, Erin Bremner-Mitchell, Bill Collins and Mike Williamson haul in a seaweed harvest for Cascadia Seaweed. Photo: Cascadia Seaweed

A partnership of five Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations was exploring its own ventures into seaweed when Cascadia formed, and they’re now working in concert to get seaweed farms planted.

Anii-tsa-chist, also known as Larry Johnson, is president of the Nuu-chah-nulth Seafood Development Corporation. He said aquaculture, including kelp farms, will help establish sustainable local economies.

“We want to attract an economy in a host of First Nations to draw people back home,” he said.

The corporation aims to approach seafood management with three sacred Nuu-chah-nulth principles: Hish-uk-tsa-walk (everything is one), Iisaak (a greater respect with caring) and Uu-a-thluk (to take care of). These same three principles have guided Indigenous Peoples on the coast for thousands of years and will guide the way to cleaner economies, Johnson said.

“By eating our seafood, you’re coming on a journey with us that has spanned the test of time,” he said.

Cascadia Seaweed has two hectares of seaweed farms and plans to acquire an additional 20 hectares over the next year. A lot of work lies ahead before it has its 1,000 hectares. But Collins has high hopes that seaweed will have its moment, and one day the macroalgae, instead of being thought of as a slimy nuisance, will be recognized as a delicious snack — as well as a carbon sink and cow burp kryptonite.

The Carbon Cache series is funded by Metcalf Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input into the articles.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This is the first part of Carbon Cache, an ongoing series about nature-based climate solutions.

Well, it’s 2020 now and the techno-fixes are, rather unfortunately, not in. 

No promise to geoengineer the skies or seed the ocean with iron or suck carbon out of the atmosphere has really come to fruition. 

Yet, all along, Canada’s seaweed, dirt and trees have managed to do something that’s seemed impossible for the world’s most advanced technocratic nations: provide a legitimate, ongoing and cost-effective climate solution.

It’s with no irony that the world’s foremost scientific institutions are now recommending that to save nature what needs to be done is, well, save nature.

Perhaps the biggest boost to the idea of these so-called ‘nature-based climate solutions’ came in late 2017 when a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the simple act of preserving wetlands, forests and grasslands could provide more than one-third of the emissions reductions needed to stabilize global temperature increases below 2 C by 2030 under the Paris Accord.

For countries looking to make quick climate gains, the idea of these nature-based climate fixes created quite the buzz.

Those findings also thrust Canada — home to 25 per cent of Earth’s wetlands and boreal forests, as well as endangered prairie grasslands and the world’s longest coastline — into playing a vital role in the global fight against climate change.  

Indigenous-led approaches to conservation

In early 2020, before the pandemic hit, hundreds of people from across the country gathered in Ottawa to discuss what a pivot to nature-based climate solutions in Canada might entail. 

In a cavernous, bright conference room — booked and rebooked several times as numbers expanded from dozens to more than 400 attendees — Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson delivered the keynote address.

“Nature-based solutions give us the opportunity to tackle the challenges of climate change and biodiversity at the same time,” Wilkinson said to the more than 400 attendees.

In addition to its global climate commitments, the federal government has also set a goal of protecting 30 per cent of lands and oceans by 2030.

As part of its 2019 election platform, the federal Liberal Party pledged to spend $3 billion on nature-based climate solutions, including the planting of 2 billion trees and other land-use projects that naturally sequester carbon. 

But at the conference another voice emerged to urge Canadians to think beyond the terms of “land-use” when it comes to nature’s role in the battle against climate change. 

“Land relationship planning,” Steven Nitah, Dene leader and former Northwest Territories MLA, pitched to the crowd. 

“Think of the phrase ‘land-use planning,’ ” he challenged the audience. “Land use — how we use the land. That doesn’t talk about land relationship planning.”

Nitah was the chief negotiator for Łutsel K’e Dene First Nations during the creation of Canada’s newest national park, the Thaidene Nëné National Park Reserve. The protected area, which covers 26,525 square kilometres of lakes, old-growth boreal forests, rivers and wildlife habitat, was uniquely designed with Indigenous land management in mind.

Steven Nitah, the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation lead negotiator for Thaidene Nene National Park. Photo: Pat Kane

Nitah argued the concept of “land relationship planning” should enter the collective vocabularies of Canadians as the country imagines pathways forward for nature-based climate solutions. 

It’s a phrase that got stuck on the tongues of the crowd for the rest of the conference as various experts pooled around tables and in the halls to discuss Indigenous protected areas and undervalued grasslands and how farmers are reimagining their relationship with soil to be better carbon stewards. 

For climate solutions in particular, reimagining the relationship between humans and the land has never been more urgent.

Earth has regulated its own carbon cycle for eons, and it has only taken humanity 150 years to throw that cycle out of whack. Fortunately, the systems that balanced carbon in the atmosphere, in soil and the oceans, in living beings and inert rocks, still exist and still have the potential to recover. But doing that requires space.

“The capacity for nature to bounce back is incredible,” said Lara Ellis said of ALUS Canada, a national charity that works with farmers on projects that restore and benefit the natural landscapes, such as wetlands or good habitat for pollinators. 

A shrinking window for climate solutions

Protecting a forest is easier than recreating an entire forest, which itself is easier than building a machine to suck an equivalent amount of carbon from the air and store it. But the result, less carbon in the atmosphere, is the same.

The same holds for wetlands: artificial, built wetlands are both 150 per cent more expensive and significantly worse at storing carbon than simply protecting a wetland to begin with.

As climate change intensifies, many of the opportunities to harness nature’s own climate regulation systems are dimming. 

Canada’s forests have begun to emit more carbon than they store as wildfires, droughts, pests and diseases rage within them. Coastal wetlands are shrinking and flooding, while inland ones are facing droughts and fires. 

A map created by WWF-Canada for its 2019 wildlife protection assessment indicates the levels of forest biomass across Canada. Map: WWF-Canada

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that as many as 30 per cent of the planet’s species could be at risk — even in an optimistic 1.5 C temperature rise scenario. 

Because of the urgency of the climate emergency, it is necessary to rethink conservation efforts not just under the banner of preservation but of restoration.

The United Nations has already declared the years between 2021 and 2030 as the “decade on ecosystem restoration” in the fight against climate and the growing threats to human survival.

“There is still time to work with nature, not against it,” said Patricia Fuller, Canada’s ambassador for climate change, standing before the Ottawa conference.

“But the window to do so is shrinking rapidly.”

In that shrinking window, scientists, Indigenous leaders, experts and policy advisors have begun identifying the most critical regions in Canada for the implementation of nature-based climate solutions. 

Canada’s secret weapon: the boreal forest

The concentration of carbon in the soil follows the boreal forest almost perfectly as it swoops across Canada, dipping from northern Yukon east around Hudson Bay and spilling out to cover much of Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador. It’s a globally significant store of carbon that holds almost twice the carbon of the planet’s tropical forests.

A map created by WWF-Canada for its 2019 wildlife protection assessment indicates the levels of soil carbon across Canada. Map: WWF-Canada

But with that storage comes the potential for release when the land changes: as much as 15 per cent of global carbon emissions come from deforestation. Destruction of peatlands accounts for 10 per cent as well, while farming accounts for another 10 per cent.

“The boreal forest is one of the largest intact forests in the world,” James Snider, the vice-president of science, research and innovation for World Wildlife Fund Canada, told The Narwhal.

“That establishes us in an important place to be leading the charge to show how nature-based climate solutions ought to be implemented.” But the boreal’s effectiveness at storing carbon has to do with what’s happening to its landscapes — logging, climate change and wildfires have all emerged as threats to the boreal and its carbon storage potential. 

Canada’s boreal forest is a globally significant store of carbon that holds almost twice the carbon of the planet’s tropical forests. Photo: Stand.earth

Protecting those lands delivers other benefits to humans too. Forests purify the air, stabilize soil and provide places for recreation. 

Wetlands are exceptional water filtration systems that also provide habitat for birds and amphibians, while absorbing excess water, thereby protecting land from floods. 

Grasslands are home to the pollinators that keep agriculture alive. As an added bonus, the places that hold the most carbon are often the places that support the most biodiversity.

Building Canada’s resilience to climate change

Protecting an area isn’t always enough, if climate change and its impacts are coming for the landscape and its wildlife regardless.

The solution, Snider says, is to make sure those ecosystems have the protection they need to be more resilient. He points to the Hudson and James Bay Lowlands, an area five times the size of New Brunswick on the southern edge of Hudson Bay. On a map of the richest areas of carbon storage in Canada, the Hudson and James Bay Lowlands is clearly outlined in the deepest possible shade.

“That’s an area that’s accumulated carbon over thousands of years,” Snider says. “How do we avoid that becoming future emissions?” 

Canada is home to the world’s largest peatland carbon stores, with peatlands covering about 12 per cent of Canada’s total land area. The area is also mineral rich and being eyed for future mining projects.

Nature as part of Canada’s COVID-19 recovery

A big part of the protection required for Canada’s carbon-rich landscapes is likely to come from Indigenous protected and conserved areas, something the Cree Nation is working toward establishing. 

To date, the nation has protected 15 per cent of its territory in northern Quebec, which is home to vast tracts of boreal forest, and is seeking to reach 30 per cent. Such big protected areas create resilience by having interconnected systems that protect one another.

Looking for opportunities to work with communities on the landscapes they already inhabit is key to coming up with practical, workable nature-based climate solutions, Graham Saul, executive director of Nature Canada, said in a webinar months after the Ottawa conference.

“We can ground people who care about climate change in their own landscapes,” he says, adding that efforts to build buffers against climate change can actually restore people’s relationship to the land. 

This has become all the more important in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic devastation, Saul says.

A poll, released Tuesday and conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights for the International Boreal Conservation Campaign, found 70 per cent of 3,019 respondents across Canada want to see conservation of nature included as part of the economic recovery. The poll also found 72 per cent of respondents believe the government should invest in Indigenous stewardship as part of the economic recovery. 

Inspired by the Great Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps in the U.S., some are asking for the establishment of a corps of workers dedicated to nature-based climate projects as part of federally funded relief programs.

Others are calling for Indigenous-led conservation efforts to be recognized as part of coronavirus resilience and recovery efforts. 

“How do we ensure that nature is part of the recovery process?” Saul asks.

In the coming weeks, The Narwhal will look at the role of Canada’s natural landscapes in the fight against climate change. This Carbon Cache series is funded by Metcalf Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input into the articles.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

On Thursday, a joint review panel — representing the federal and Alberta governments — released its recommendations on whether a massive new open-pit mine in the oilsands should proceed.

It recommended Teck’s Frontier Mine get the green light, despite finding it will have significant and permanent impacts on the environment. 

The decision now moves to Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine Mckenna, who has until February to issue a decision.

Environmental concerns flagged by the panel include the removal of old-growth forests, the destruction or permanent alteration of fish habitat, the release of a large amount of carbon pollution and the loss of wetlands and areas of “high species diversity potential.” 

But, overall, the panel found these impacts were outweighed by economic benefits, saying “the project is in the public interest.”

Here are 10 things you need to know about this proposed new mine.

1. It’s really, really big. 

The Frontier mine would be the furthest north in the oilsands, just 25 kilometres south of Wood Buffalo National Park. It would cover 24,000-hectares (roughly double the size of the City of Vancouver) and would produce 260,000 barrels of bitumen each day at its peak, making it one of the largest oilsands mines — if not the largest — to ever be built in Alberta. This would take up about half of the additional volume created by the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Bison in Wood Buffalo National Park. Photo: Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC

The mine is expected to have a 41-year lifespan, taking us to 2081 by the time it’s completely shut down. By then, scientists have predicted that climate change will have already had far-reaching effects on Alberta — including dramatically shifting the average temperatures in Canadian cities.

2. The Frontier mine will make it super difficult for Canada to meet its climate commitments.

At the Paris climate conference in 2015, Canada reaffirmed its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent (compared to 2005 levels) by 2030 and by 80 per cent by 2050.

What that means in reality is that the entire country can emit 150 megatonnes of emissions by 2050. The Teck Frontier mine is expected to produce four megatonnes per year, equal to three per cent of all of the emissions allowed in Canada in 2050. 

“The oilsands are Canada’s fastest-growing source of emissions,” Gordon Laxer, a political economist and professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, told The Narwhal last fall. “Their growth is going to make it virtually impossible to meet our 2030 Paris climate targets.” 

Last fall, The Narwhal asked Jeff Rubin, former chief economist with CIBC World Markets and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, whether new oilsands mines make sense in the face of global climate change and changing world demand for oil. 

Rubin told The Narwhal that meeting climate commitments “would require not only do we not see business-as-usual growth in world oil demand … but that we would see anywhere from a 20 to 50 per cent decline in world oil demand over the next 30 to 40 years, which would shut-in productions in places like the oilsands … because their cost of production would no longer be supported by oil prices.”

“If the world does avert the worst consequences of climate change, whether that’s 1.5 or 2 degrees, we’re going to see a significant reduction in world oil demand,” Rubin said.

Teck’s Frontier mine is proposing operations through 2066.

3. Nearly 3,000 hectares of old-growth forest will be cut down to make room for the mine.

The area where the proposed mine will be built is wild — wetlands, peatlands and forests of jackpine, aspen, spruce and poplar. Some of these forests are over a century old. 

Approximately 2,598 hectares of these old-growth forests will be removed for the mine to be built. 

Old-growth takes a long time to re-establish itself, even with extensive reclamation efforts, because it’s, um, old. 

The panel’s report says “there may be a loss of habitat for many species reliant on such forests, including species at risk, for at least 100 years following closure in 2081.”

4. The predicted economic benefits of the project are based on oil prices not seen in years.

In projections for the economic benefits of the project, the company used “an average long-term real oil price of US$95 per barrel for West Texas Intermediate” — a price not seen since 2014 — to calculate its base case for the economic impact of the project.

“Prices are forecast to be US$80 to US$90 per barrel by 2020, and increasing thereafter,” Teck said in a 2016 submission. 

In its low-price scenario, Teck assumed an average WTI price of $76.51 per barrel and a high-price scenario of $115 per barrel. As of this writing, the price for WTI crude oil was under $60 per barrel — and has only reached $75 once since November 2014.

“The panel understands that there is considerable uncertainty regarding forecasts for future oil prices,” the report states. Nevertheless, the panel reiterated Teck’s prediction that the project will yield “$55 billion to Alberta in taxes and royalties.”

“The Frontier project will provide significant economic benefits for the region, Alberta, and Canada,” the panel concluded.

5. The company itself seems unsure if the mine makes sense.

It seems Teck has its own doubts about whether the project makes economic sense.

The company’s 2018 annual report, released this February, says “there is uncertainty that it will be commercially viable to produce any portion of the resources” to be mined at the proposed Frontier site.

Other oil executives have expressed similar sentiments. At the Fort Hills grand opening, now-retired Suncor chief executive Steve Williams told reporters that “it’s unlikely there will be projects of this type of scale again.”

6. The mine will mean “irreversible” loss of 14,000 hectares of wetlands.

According to the review panel’s findings, wetlands cover nearly 45 per cent of the area studied, amounting to 14,000 hectares.

The Frontier project will remove all wetlands from the project development area, something the panel acknowledged is likely not reversible. “A substantial amount of wetland and old-growth forest habitat will be lost entirely or lost for an extended period as a result of the Frontier project,” the panel’s report states.

Far left: Wood Buffalo National Park salt plains. Centre and right: Aerial view of Wood Buffalo National Park’s famed wetlands. Photo: Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC

The loss of this amount of these areas is an impact the panel describes as “a high-magnitude and irreversible project effect.”

7. Nobody’s quite sure how or when the site will be cleaned up.

The ability of companies to pay for cleanup once resources have been extracted has ignited a debate over mind-boggling environmental liabilities in recent years — and whether taxpayers might ultimately end up footing the bill.

“There are uncertainties associated with final reclamation outcomes.”

The panel’s report highlights some of the difficulties associated with Teck’s reclamation plans. 

“Some habitat types cannot be reclaimed (e.g., peatlands),” the report states. 

Over 3,000 hectares of peatland will be destroyed by the mine’s construction — “an irreversible loss” according to the panel’s report — accounting for 10 per cent of the project area.

The report also warns that cleanup may take a long time for sensitive areas, noting “reclamation will not occur or be complete for many years.”

In its report, the panel acknowledges the long-term cleanup is not guaranteed, though it also writes “this is expected at this stage of the process.” 

“There are uncertainties associated with final reclamation outcomes,” the panel wrote.

8. The Frontier mine is owned by a company mainly associated with coal mining.

The Frontier mine would be the second major foray into the oilsands for Vancouver-based Teck Resources.

The company has coal, zinc and copper operations across North and South America, but recently made its big debut in the Alberta oilsands with a 21 per cent interest in the Fort Hills Energy Limited Partnership, which owns the Fort Hills open-pit mine.

Fort Hills had its grand opening last fall.

Teck says on its website that “responsible environmental management is an integral part of who we are as a company,” but the company has faced criticism for its environment record in the past. Last winter, The Narwhal investigated long-term selenium pollution at one of the company’s B.C. operations.

9. Teck agreed to give up leases on Crown land so a new park could be created.

Teck was one of three companies that voluntarily gave up leases on crown land earlier this year so that a new wildland provincial park could be created in the area.

The 161,880-hectare Kitaskino Nuwenene Wildland Provincial Park was created in response to requests from Mikisew Cree First Nation to allow for a buffer zone around Wood Buffalo National Park. The new wildland provincial park will allow for traditional activities to continue without the threat of further oilsands encroachment.

Wildland provincial parks are less developed than provincial parks, and the government of Alberta says on its website that Kitaskino Nuwenene Wildland Provincial Park will enable Alberta to contribute to the largest contiguous boreal protected area in the world.

10. Teck says the mine will be best-in-class. Even the federal government disputed that.

Part of Teck’s submission rests on the idea that the Frontier mine will be “best-in-class.”

Teck told The Narwhal last fall that it “will have a lower carbon intensity than about half of the oil currently refined in the United States.” Documents filed by the company claim the “project represents best-in-class for greenhouse gas emissions from oilsands developments.”

But in Environment and Climate Change Canada’s submission to the review panel, the agency wrote that “while Teck indicates its intent to make the Frontier Mine project best-in-class with respect to [greenhouse gas] emissions intensity, it is in fact 24 per cent more carbon intensive on a per-barrel basis than the best project.”

Jan Gorski, an analyst with the Pembina Institute, told The Narwhal last fall that “projects that are anything but best in class shouldn’t be approved.” 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Perhaps the most appealing environmental policy change proposed by the federal Liberals — besides acknowledging climate change is a real and destructive force, of course — is its commitment to invest in green infrastructure and public transit.

During the election, the Liberal government promised to put $125 billion on the table for infrastructure investments in the next decade — representing a doubling of the $65 billion pledged by the previous government. Of that, some $20 billion has been earmarked for public transit funding, with another $20 billion promised for other green infrastructure projects.

Light-rail transit, wastewater facilities, electric vehicle charging stations, wildfire protection, renewable energy projects, climate impact analysis — you name it, and it was probably on the list of ideas forwarded by the party during the marathon 78-day election that eventually crowned party leader Justin Trudeau as the next prime minister of Canada.

But now comes the very tricky part: translating very lofty rhetoric about greening the country into reality.

We asked experts across Canada to break down where the funds are needed and how Trudeau and his cabinet can get the best bang for their buck in terms of mitigating climate change.

1) Build Smarter Cities

Public transit is a fascinating subject but often gets left out of grand-scale sustainable city planning.

Anthony Perl, professor of urban studies and political science at Simon Fraser University, says while the Liberal platform features an admirable commitment to transit funding (as mentioned, $20 billion over 10 years) it fails to discuss issues such as land-use, sustainability planning and the construction of mixed-use communities that promote walking, biking and transit use.

“This could be either a real catalyst for building those more sustainable communities or it could be disconnected and actually work against that by putting the transit in and having to retrofit it later,” Perl says.

Perl points to Toronto’s Line 4 Sheppard subway route as an example of what happens if a city doesn’t retrofit land-use as well as they could have, resulting in underwhelming ridership. He suggests such problems could be averted by requiring municipalities to “get their act together in advance” and plan to house more people along transit corridors in “complete communities where they can walk to the rapid transit and not need cars.” Land-use planning is ultimately a municipal issue, but such funding conditions could provide the right incentives for change.

2) Grant Cities More Financial Power

Municipalities are legendarily hamstrung when it comes to raising revenue.

“Municipalities are responsible for construction, operations and maintenance for 53 per cent of our nation’s public infrastructure, but collect just eight cents of every tax dollar paid in Canada,” the Canadian Union of Public Employees notes.

Cities can’t run deficits and are usually forced to rely on an unpopular combo of property tax and user fees.

Alan Broadbent, author of Urban Nation: Why We Need to Give Power Back to the Cities to Make Canada Strong and chairman of Maytree, a civic advocacy charity, says such a reality makes it very difficult for cities to construct forward-thinking infrastructure, especially since provincial and federal funding for infrastructure projects tends to arrive sporadically which forces cities to play catch-up.

“They really haven’t done anything that you call a structured, focused agenda with long-term funding or anything like that,” he says. “They certainly have not done anything in terms of transferring tax points or creating a greater ability for municipalities to be able to raise their own revenues.”

Project-specific funding has filled the gap. Perl says such a strategy can work for a time but a broader framework —a national urban transportation strategy, for instance — is required to make the most of the available money.

n the provincial domain, the new government could also encourage premiers to re-evaluate how municipalities can raise revenue (think a municipal sales tax, or more revenue sharing, or granting more authority to cities to decide what money is spent on).

3) Introduce a Home Adaptation Audit Program

As demonstrated in the summer of 2013 (most notably in Calgary and Toronto), heavy rainfall can result in rapid and destructive flooding. Basements often get hit the hardest. That’s why Blair Feltmate, chair of the Climate Change Adaptation Project at the University of Waterloo, recommends the launching of a “home adaptation audit program,” a tool that would help lower the probability of flooded basements when the big storms occur (and which will increase in frequency in coming years).

Feltmate notes that more than half of claims for property damage liability insurance in Canada come from water-related damage, mostly flooding. Feltmate previously wrote that this trend has resulted in the creation of “uninsurable areas” — that is, regions that insurance companies won’t touch because it’s too risky. " A shrinking insurance market will negatively impact the mortgage market, because to qualify for a mortgage, you need house insurance,” he wrote.

Pilots for such programs have been executed in Kitchener/Waterloo and Calgary: Halifax's Ecology Action Centre concluded the pilot was "a huge success" and for every dollar spent on an audit "the homeowner avoids an average of $7.50 in flood damage risk over 10 years." The federal government could easily create and fund a national program.

4) Conserve Urban Forests and Natural Areas

In mid-2014, TD Bank published a study that suggested Toronto’s urban forests (made up of 10 million trees) account for $7 billion worth of value — or $700 per tree. If such a figure seems high, consider the ecosystem services that trees provide: buffering rainfall and snow which reduces strain on soil and stormwater systems ($5.28/tree), removing air pollutants ($1.87/tree) and providing natural shading ($0.63/tree). TD calculated that such “assets” save the average Toronto family $125/year.

However, a whole host of issues plague urban trees: insect infestations, loss of topsoil, salt pollution. And, of course, urban sprawl.

Dupras says policymakers in Montreal's metropolitan area want to protect 17 per cent but there’s only 20 per cent left.

“There’s a lot of pressures from traditional developers for typical urban sprawl development,” he says. “We really need both ways, from top-down and bottom-up actions: voluntary actions and more restrictive development within a legal framework.”

Of course, issues pertaining to the regulation and protection of urban forests falls to municipalities and provinces. But Dupras argues the federal government “can really give a strong signal by reviewing the infrastructure program” and redirecting more money from the general infrastructure program (recall, $125 billion over 10 years) to the green infrastructure program ($20 billion in the same window). In the end, natural area conservation is just like anything else: it takes money.

5) Protect Wetlands from Further Destruction

Wetlands are the superstars of the natural world. In natural states, they can mitigate flooding, house greenhouse gases, filter sediment and toxins from stormwater and foster astounding levels of biodiversity.

Unfortunately, more than70 per cent of wetlands near major Canadian cities have been damaged or destroyed due to drainage for urban sprawl.

“The most pressing issue is the wetlands. Numbers are challenging because we don’t know on what historical basis to work, but for sure in the last decade we lost over 80 per cent of the wetlands,” said Jérôme Dupras, assistant professor in natural sciences at University of Québec, about Montreal's metropolitan area.

Back in 2005, Thomas Mulcair — then serving as Quebec’s environment minister — called for a moratorium on wetlands destruction. Dupras notes the proposal was shot down by then-prime minister Paul Martin for undetermined reasons.

A decade later, there’s a lot of catch-up to be done. Dupras says there’s an urgent need to review laws and regulations about protection and restoration.

A national campaign to maintain wetlands wouldn’t just save a few mallard ducks (although that’s indeed a very noble cause). Left intact, wetlands could serve as natural green infrastructure, protecting major cities situated in floodplains (as most Canadian cities are) from the worst water-related manifestations of climate change.

6) Update Floodplain Mapping

A highly related issue is that of outdated floodplain mapping. Canada is way behind the times on the subject.

Feltmate says the country doesn’t even have an adequate understanding of floodwater patterns for 2015, let alone 25 or 50 years from now (a problem given storms and flooding are anticipated to grow in magnitude in the span of that window).

As a result, many municipalities simply don’t know how increased precipitation or runoff will impact rivers or current systems. Feltmate gives the example of stormwater channelling into sewers, backing up and flooding part of a city due to inadequate infrastructure. Rigorous calculations are required to create present-day and future-focused maps, he says. Without such forward thinking, investments in green infrastructure the new government makes may end up dead-on-arrival.

“The federal government would work with the provincial governments to find out what their needs are in the area, producing flood-plain maps through either one of those two forces, and providing the funding to do so,” he advises.

7) Come Up With Way, Way, Way More Money

The figure of $125 billion over a decade seems sizable. But when one crudely breaks it down, it seems a lot less impressive: some $12.5 billion per year divided into 30 “large urban” centres (with most split between Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver) leaves a mere few hundred million per year for an average-sized municipality.

For reference, Vancouver’s recent transit overhaul (which was voted down in a regional plebiscite) was expected to cost a whopping $7.7 billion.

Perl says the Greater Toronto Area could absorb the entire $20 billion allocated for public transit and “still not be where they need to be.”

“It sounds like a lot but Canada’s an awfully big country and we’re now an urban country,” he says. “If we’re serious about moving beyond auto-dependence, that means there’s a lot of catching up to do.”

New revenue sources have been announced such as an increase of personal income tax on highest earners and the cancelling of income splitting. But real change may not truly arrive until a “city agenda” is prioritized.

Broadbent says the federal government hasn’t focused on municipal affairs in any significant way, really since the days of Pierre Trudeau. However, the department of urban affairs that he created was a “short-lived experiment much reviled by some of the provinces,” in the words of Dalhousie University professor Jennifer Smith in her book Federalism.

Despite such facts, Broadbent’s optimistic: “I think we have a group in Ottawa now that really kind of gets these issues in a way that previous governments didn’t,” he says. “I think we’re going to see something significant in a better, more thoughtful approach.”

Image: Canadian Urban Transit Association

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.