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Canada's Climate Weekly

August 23rd 2024
Feature story

Mighty minnow

Good morning,

The Ford government got what must have been unwelcome news this week: the federal government, after years of dithering, announced formal protections for the redside dace. 

Why would Ontario’s government care that a little minnow got protection? Well, for one thing, it happens to live right in the path of their current pet project, a highway designed to enable GTA to sprawl ever farther into Southern Ontario’s hinterlands. 

The government now has a high bar to overcome in pushing for its promised Highway 413. Under to the federal Species At Risk Act (SARA), “any activity affecting Redside Dace’s critical habitat must comply with SARA and the Fisheries Act to ensure it does not jeopardize the species' survival or recovery,” a Fisheries and Oceans spokesperson told CNO’s Natasha Bulowski this week. 

It’s hard to imagine how a highway through its habitat wouldn’t jeopardize the recovery of a species that has declined 50 per cent over the past decade, according to Ontario’s own assessment of its health. It’s not the only species living along the highway’s route: 11 species at risk would be affected.

The federal government has had trouble stepping in to put the environment above development, however. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled against the government over the constitutional overreach of the Impact Assessment Act late last year — finding that while that law “plainly overstepped the mark,” it still did have the authority to mitigate risks to the environment within the bounds of the constitutional division of powers. That, Stephen Guilbeault has said, is making him reluctant to meddle in Highway 413 on the basis of an environmental assessment. Instead, the two levels of government have been working together on a joint assessment. 

But with the redside dace officially protected, now the question is whether protecting species at risk is one of those cases where the feds have the power to step in. Ontario has its own species-at-risk legislation, which prohibits development that would damage habitat the fish have been shown to live within the past decade (down from two decades after a recent weakening of the law). 

Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, told Bulowski the Species At Risk Act protection will mean the highway’s federal-permit-dependent future has been thrown into question. “It's really hard to see how those permits could be issued with the current configuration of the highway,” he said. 

Redside dace has direct benefits to human life that we already knew about: the tiny fish leap out of the water to snatch bugs like mosquitoes out of the air. As a unique living creature and a member of an unfathomably complex ecosystem, of course, it also has inherent value that can’t be quantified, measured or traded off.

But preventing an increase in the urban sprawl that’s blighting Southern Ontario? That’s a superpower.  

—Jimmy, managing editor

 

TOP STORY 

A look at photos of the world-famous Sudbury Holiday Inn shows a square concrete block – with windows – featuring a kidney-shaped pool that could accommodate dozens of swimmers if nobody tried to swim. David Moscrop writes.

 

Number of the week 

 500 - the dollar amount it would cost builders to make new homes in Ontario EV-ready 

 

MORE CNO READS

🏨It was a Holiday Inn — in Sudbury, for goodness sake

Budgetary pearl-clutching is standard fare in Canadian politics, but last week, the Conservatives took it to absurd new heights when they lambasted the Liberals over their “lavish” retreat. The retreat in question was held at a Holiday Inn. In Sudbury. A look at photos of the world-famous Sudbury Holiday Inn shows a square concrete block – with windows – featuring a kidney-shaped pool that could accommodate dozens of swimmers if nobody tried to swim. It also features the very same low-pile carpet found in literally every other hotel in the world, art you’d find hanging, forgotten, in your grandparents’s guest room, and 2009’s latest USB chargers. In-room lamps are complementary, adding a welcoming “lit” touch to rooms. Toilets are presumably fully functional, featuring a seat and a lever for flushing.

David Moscrop writes

 

🐟An endangered minnow lives in the path of Ford's Highway 413 — and it just got federal protection

A small but important freshwater fish threatened by urban sprawl is finally getting federal protection after 15 years of delays. 

As far back as 2007, federal scientists identified the redside dace as endangered and 15 years later, “this species finally has the protection it's owed on that scientific basis,” said Ecojustice lawyer Reid Gomme in an interview with Canada’s National Observer. “About 80 per cent of its remaining habitat, mainly in and around the Greater Toronto Area, is either already scheduled or has been scheduled for urban development.” 

 

That development includes Doug Ford’s planned Highway 413. If the highway is built, it would impact the habitats of 10 species at risk, including redside dace.

Natasha Bulowski reports

 

🚗Ontario’s Ford government has been going to great lengths to court the electric vehicle industry. But it’s not doing enough to encourage Ontarians to buy and drive EVs. In one particularly short-sighted move, the government voted against making it mandatory for all new homes to rough EV charging infrastructure. This would have cost only about $500 a home, a pittance in the overall pricing. This is a missed opportunity that puts Ontario behind global trends. 

Adam Thorn writes 

 

🏡A spot of good climate news out of Ontario this week with the launch of a new Markham subdivision that will be powered by geothermal heat. Geothermal heating drills deep into the earth’s core which is hotter than the surface and uses a heat exchange system to deliver heating and air conditioning to homes. It’s used widely in some countries like Iceland, but still rare in Canada. The advantage of home heating without the use of fossil fuels, of course, is it does not release greenhouse gas emissions which cause global heating. Props to the federal government and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for backing the project which helped make it happen.

Abdul Matin Sarfraz reports

The roundup