At some point in 2023, Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources pushed through updates to its map of provincially protected wetlands, and 55 hectares in Ottawa’s rural west end were dropped.
Two sizeable wetlands — one on either side of Highway 7 — used to be classified as part of the Goulbourn complex, a group of marshes and swamps that stretch across an area west of the suburb of Stittsville.
Now they are among the first known examples of wetlands to lose their “provincially significant” status since the Ontario government rolled out controversial changes in January 2023 aimed at getting homes built faster.
The moves that the Ford Government have pulled in the last 12 months should be widely known to the international community.
He’s taking Ontario so far back on the environmental front, that it’ll be impossible to get these ABSOLUTELY SIGNIFICANT WETLANDS back once the “shovels are in the ground”.
Environmental groups around the world need to take notice of how a single monster, let loose in politics, can dismantle any and all protections for wildlife, wetlands, and infrastructure designed to help reduce our carbon emissions.