Nature Canada

Ontario Environment Ministry turns its back on birds . . . again . . . says Environment Commissioner

Ted Cheskey  Senior Conservation Manager – Bird Conservation, Education & Networks

Ted Cheskey
Senior Conservation Manager – Bird Conservation, Education & Networks

In 2013, then Ontario Environment Commissioner Gord Miller stated that industrial-scale wind energy projects should be excluded from Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBA). Since then, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) approved two major projects in extremely well-known and highly significant eastern Ontario IBAs – one on Amherst Island and a second on the south shore of Prince Edward County. Another wind energy project at Ostrander Point, also located within an IBA with globally rare alvar habitat and rich in threatened species such as Blanding’s Turtle and Whippoorwill, may also be approved soon.

The MOECC has done it again with its shoddy treatment of another serious bird conservation issue, attracting the ire of the interim Environment Commissioner Ellen Schwartzel. The issue this time is birds colliding with windows in Toronto. Environment Canada studies estimate that 25 million birds die annually from collisions with windows in Canada. The Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) has documented the toll of migrating birds by buildings in Toronto for decades.toronto-412354_1920

This issue is the MOECC handling of a March 2014 request by two applicants under the Environmental Bill of Rights, 1993 (EBR), to investigate their allegation that bird collisions caused by reflected light at two Toronto buildings was a contravention of the Environmental Protection Act (EPA). In making their case, the applicants pointed to a February 2013 decision by the Ontario Court of Justice which found that the reflected light from buildings is responsible for bird deaths and is considered a “contaminant” under the EPA.

The Commissioner’s Report called Small Things Matter – By the Numbers, includes a section “Fatal Attraction: When Birds Hit Buildings,” in which the Commissioner is highly critical of the MOECC’s handling of the EBR request. The Commissioner has “several major concerns” with the MOECC’s handling of case, calling the MOECC’s disregard for EBR guidelines (a five-month delay for no apparent reason) “inexcusable.”

The Commissioner took exception to the MOECC’s reasons for denying the request. “This implies that the Ministry does not consider the adverse effects caused by reflected light (both in general and in the specific alleged contravention) to be serious enough to warrant an EBR investigation. The Commissioner disagreed with such a position; the death and injury of thousands of birds, particularly endangered and threatened species, is a serious issue. The significance of this threat was established in the Ontario court’s 2013 judgement in the bird death case: “to be clear, I do not view the death and injury of hundreds if not thousands of migrating birds as a matter of merely ‘trivial or minimal’ import.”

Another concern raised by the Commissioner was with the MOECC’s underlying message in its decision to deny this application that the MOECC will not actively regulate the impacts of reflective buildings on birds. Instead, it appears that the MOECC’s preferred approach is to ignore its regulatory responsibility and leave it up to property owners and managers to voluntarily follow guidelines and suggested strategies. In other words the MOECC seems to be saying that the fact that there are voluntary guidelines available is enough. Whether anyone is using them or not doesn’t matter.

Artuso_Canada Warbler_8027_imm

Photo of a Canada Warbler by Christian Artuso

The Commissioner goes on to say that “the bigger, underlying problem . . . is that the Ontario court decision created a regulatory gap that the MOECC has failed to address. . . . If the MOECC had undertaken an investigation, it could have thoughtfully worked through the most appropriate and effective means . . . to address any adverse effects caused by reflections from the buildings named in the application.  . . . . Given the scale of bird mortalities caused by building collisions, the MOECC unequivocally has a role to play in addressing this serious problem.”

The Commissioner concludes with this recommendation: “The ECO recommends that the MOECC publicly clarify how it will regulate reflected light from buildings to protect birds, now that an Ontario court has ruled that it is a contaminant under the Environmental Protection Act.”

The Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change should be standing up for nature and defending the public interest. In this most recent case, as well as the industrial wind projects on Prince Edward County’s south shore and Amherst Island, the MOECC is sitting down. The victims of their decision are the threatened species of birds, and the people of Ontario whose interests they should be defending.

To read more on the Environment Commissioner’s thoughts, click here.

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