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Organizer Rachel Small explains how NATO-aligned bank will make Canada’s economy reliant on endless war
The post By hosting a global weapons bank, Carney is setting up Canada for war profiteering appeared first on The Breach.
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From pipelines to mines, Canada’s environmental reviews could be transforming. Here’s how
(thenarwhal.ca)
Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal
Summary
- Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government proposed major changes to the federal assessment process for mining, oil and gas and other infrastructure projects.
- The proposed changes include shifting assessments from an agency under the federal environment minister to regulators that report to the natural resources minister.
- Former ministers, First Nations and environmental advocates are criticizing the proposal, some calling it a more significant rollback of environmental law than was seen under former prime minister Stephen Harper.
Last year, Prime Minister Mark Carney established an office tasked with fast-tracking handpicked major industrial projects. Now, he says that’s not enough. He has a new proposal on the table meant to roll out the red carpet for all projects requiring federal approval, including pipelines, mines, transmission lines and other infrastructure.
The proposal, unveiled last week, would create “federal economic zones” where certain developments can be “pre-approved,” and provide exceptions to several rules governing fossil fuel and nuclear oversight, habitat preservation, species at risk protection and major project reviews.
It would fundamentally change the way the country scrutinizes industrial development and consults with Indigenous Peoples, in some cases shifting reviews at an agency under the purview of the environment minister over to federal bodies that report to the natural resources minister.
The government outlined its plan in two discussion papers, but it will need to flesh out the details and formally introduce them as part of new legislation, before they can be implemented in law. The Liberals are now able to pass legislation much easier, after they secured a Parliamentary majority following April’s byelections and the addition of five floor-crossing MPs to their caucus.
The House of Commons is on a two-week break, scheduled to return May 25. Meanwhile, the proposal is open for public comment through June 7.
Here’s what you need to know.
Who wanted this change? Who didn’t?
The government says the alterations are necessary so Canada can better compete with other countries for investment dollars, and strengthen the Indigenous consultation process. It said the process to build things is “often slow, expensive and confusing” and the government must “go further to streamline review and approvals processes.”
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which represents businesses across the country, also believes the government’s fast-tracking regime has “not gone far enough” and is hoping Carney continues to “peel back some of the red tape layers that have been holding back business success.”
Canada’s oil and gas industry has consistently advocated since Carney took office for his government to overhaul environmental assessments to turbocharge fossil fuel growth. Industry executives have personally pushed this position despite the industry enjoying big profits off the war in Iran, and despite the scientific conclusion that carbon pollution, of which the oil and gas industry is the largest contributor in Canada, is furthering destructive climate change that is leading to myriad health problems and premature death for Canadians.
Two former Liberal environment ministers have harshly criticized Carney’s proposal. Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault, who was the federal environment minister from 2021 to 2025, told the Toronto Star Carney’s plan is “worse” than the changes under former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, which resulted in some high-profile legal challenges. Former Liberal MP Catherine McKenna, who held the same post from 2015 to 2019, told the Canadian Press Carney’s proposal will lead to a “lack of trust” and lawsuits, ultimately making the project approval process slower, not faster.
Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault, former environment minister under the Trudeau government, has criticized Carney’s proposal as ”worse“ than the environmental changes made under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, which resulted in significant legal challenges. Photo: Kamara Morozuk / The Narwhal
Ecojustice, an environmental law charity, has described the changes as potentially ushering in “the biggest rollback of environmental protections in a generation.” The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, which represents 63 First Nations in that province, said it raises “serious concerns that Canada is moving toward a system where speed takes precedence over Treaty obligations, environmental stewardship and First Nations consent.”
The government wants tocreate ‘federal economic zones’ where developments are ‘pre-approved’
Carney’s government wants to legalize “federal economic zones” which it says could include areas designated for energy production and transmission, industrial regions, transportation and telecommunications.
Inside these zones, the government would “pre-approve” certain developments, subject to conditions, and exempt projects from requiring individual environmental reviews — instead just requiring one overarching assessment.
It said the zones, and the activities allowed in them, would be “clearly defined.” Consultation with Indigenous Peoples would be a “key part” of the process, it added, including on determining the conditions for development inside the zones. The agreement of provinces is also “essential,” it said.
“This co-operation between federal and provincial governments would allow projects to be fast-tracked under both federal and provincial regimes,” reads the discussion paper.
Sound familiar? Ontario passed similar legislation last year
A provincial regime is already in place in Ontario, after Premier Doug Ford’s government passed Bill 5 last year. The bill established the similar-sounding Special Economic Zones Act. Inside Ontario’s economic zones, the government can select certain proponents and projects, and exempt them from some municipal by-laws and provincial laws, including environmental protections.
Critics have said Ontario’s law threatens wetlands, watersheds, peatlands and endangered species, and the Indigenous communities who rely on them. It’s subject to a court challenge from First Nations, asking for the law to be found unconstitutional.
Ontario’s Special Economic Zones Act, passed last year, allows major infrastructure projects to bypass certain provincial and municipal regulations, including environmental regulations, to speed up development. The act is similar to what the federal government has proposed. Photo: Sid Naidu / The Narwhal
The federal economic zones would be enabled through regional assessments, which are already an approach used by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to examine the cumulative effects of development in a given area.
There is currently an ongoing federal regional assessment in the Ring of Fire, the mineral-rich area in the James Bay Lowlands known as Bakitanaamowin Aki, or “the Breathing Lands,” and Mammamattawa, or “many rivers coming together,” by the First Nations that call it home.
Days after passing Bill 5, Ford said he would designate the Ring of Fire a special economic zone under Ontario law “as quickly as possible.” But in March this year, in a sudden shift in tone, Ford said he didn’t “need” to use these powers anymore to develop the area due to partnerships with several, but not all, First Nations communities in the region.
Wetlands could be put in jeopardy if the federal legislation passes and major projects are pushed through without proper environmental oversight. Photo: Laura Proctor / The Narwhal
The Ontario government has long spoken about the region becoming a major mining hub. But an interim Ring of Fire regional assessment report has pointed to the need for environmental monitoring in the area’s boreal forest and peatlands, and the need for communities to urgently access health care.
The provincial government, meanwhile, has been withholding scientific data and funding as part of the assessment process, and is not at the table with the First Nations and federal government representatives seeing it through, The Narwhal has reported.
New rules would change the role of the federal environmental review agency
Carney’s proposal would remove the ability of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to examine any pipeline projects that cross provincial or national borders, as well as any transmission lines or “offshore renewable energy projects.”
The agency, accountable to Environment, Climate Change and Nature Minister Julie Dabrusin, examines projects for sustainability, environmental protection and Indigenous Rights. It carries out its assessments “grounded in sound science, rigorous process and due diligence,” according to its website.
“Does Canada need to weaken its environmental laws to allow projects to proceed? No,” the agency declares on a frequently asked questions page. “Do federal policies prevent LNG, oil or pipeline projects from moving forward in Canada? No.”
Carney’s government is now of the opinion that issues like “poor coordination between government departments” are slowing down projects like pipelines. The government is proposing to shift assessments of certain projects away from the agency and over to two regulators that report to Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson.
The proposed legislation would remove the power of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to assess cross-border provincial or national pipeline projects’ sustainability, as well as their environmental impacts. Photo: Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press
The job of reviewing all cross-border pipelines, transmission lines and offshore renewables would go to the Canada Energy Regulator, while the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission would handle project reviews related to nuclear and uranium projects.
The government would also have the power to declare major pipelines “in the public interest,” before the energy regulator is required to complete its review of the project’s conditions or where the pipe would actually be laid.
At the same time, the government is proposing that the Impact Assessment Agency become the home of a new “Crown consultation hub” that would “ensure that each Indigenous group affected by a major project goes through one clear and coordinated consultation process for each project.”
It is also proposing to assign the federal review coordinator at the agency the job of ensuring project assessments and federal permits “stay on track.” The government said it would change the law to ensure project reviews and permit reviews “happen at the same time” and that a federal decision would take no longer than one year.
Sound familiar again? Carney isn’t the first leader to try to fast-track industrial projects
Carney’s proposal is reminiscent of a shift that happened under Harper’s government, which tried to accelerate environmental assessments by moving more oil and gas oversight to the energy regulator’s predecessor, the National Energy Board, in 2012.
Years later, the National Energy Board came under scrutiny after the Federal Court of Appeal quashed the government’s approval of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion project, saying the board’s review of the project was flawed. The former Northern Gateway pipeline proposal also had its federal permits overturned by the Federal Court.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government passed the Impact Assessment Act and Canadian Energy Regulator Act, collectively through Bill C-69, allowing the government to consider the impact of natural resource projects on issues like climate change. But a Supreme Court of Canada decision in 2023 found the assessment scheme “largely unconstitutional,” forcing Trudeau’s government to introduce a revised version of the law in 2024.
There will be new exemptions to Canada’s species at risk law and fish permits
Carney’s government wants to change “some federal laws” that it argued can make the regulatory process “slow, repetitive and less flexible.” One of these appears to be the Species At Risk Act, a federal law passed in 2002 that is meant to prevent species extinction and help with population recovery.
The law has a clause known as the “jeopardy test,” that restricts permits for an activity affecting a species or its critical habitat, unless the government believes the activity “will not jeopardize the survival or recovery of the species.”
Carney’s proposal would give the government the power to exempt projects from the application of this test. It said the power would be “limited” and have a “high threshold to be met,” would have to be in the “public interest” and would have to come after the proponent has made “all reasonable efforts” to avoid impacts.
The government also wants to offer more flexibility for permits that impact fish and fish habitat, when it comes to compensating for environmental harm. And it would allow “some early construction activities to start” before the government decides on the merits of a project, “if necessary permits are approved.”
Changes to the Species At Risk Act under the new legislation would make it easier for the federal government to exempt development projects from the act’s environmental protections. More flexibility for permits that impact threatened environments for fish could pose a threat to vulnerable species. Photo: iStock
Carney’s proposal also allows ministers to adjust certain conditions of a project assessment “in exceptional circumstances” and “adjust environmental conditions for projects of national interest, when needed.”
And it would hand the environment minister the power to issue a single federal document for certain projects that would include all federal decisions “required for a project to move forward.” It said experts in different departments would still review the project and provide advice, and enforcement would still be handled by the departments responsible.
The changes come after Ford’s government in Ontario also removed the province’s Endangered Species Act and replaced it with the Species Conservation Act this year. That has had the effect of removing protection from many species.
After Ontario’s change, some threatened fish and birds are now only protected by federal laws.
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.
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On a 2021 podcast, the Alberta premier wondered aloud if privatizing health care would require breaking federal law. Despite learning the answer was ‘yes,’ she’s still going ahead with it
The post Danielle Smith admitted she wants to ‘throw out’ Canada’s public health care law appeared first on The Breach.
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Why critics say changes to B.C.’s freedom of information law could make government less transparent
(thenarwhal.ca)
Chad Hipolito / The Canadian Press
Summary
- As other provinces move to restrict access to public records, B.C. insists its proposed changes are about efficiency.
- Critics say these changes could make it harder for British Columbians to access public records.
- B.C.’s citizens services ministry is receiving fewer FOI requests now than it was in 2020, but those requests are producing more pages than ever before.
Maybe you’ve heard the famous lyric from Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?”
That wistful lament about the environmental impacts of development seems unfortunately applicable to freedom of information systems across Canada these days.
The federal government is mulling shielding some forms of government communications from the public. Ontario’s government recently passed a law that exempts documents created by the premier’s office, cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries from freedom of information requests. The changes are part of the government’s omnibus bill and are retroactive, potentially stopping hundreds of active requests in their tracks. Meanwhile, Alberta enacted a new freedom of information regime last year, one that significantly restricts access rights and gives the government sweeping powers to withhold requested information or reject requests entirely.
The B.C. government’s freedom of information — known as FOI — legislation is different, at least according to Citizens Services Minister Diana Gibson. Since introducing Bill 9, Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act, Gibson has repeatedly talked about other Canadian governments “pulling back” on access to information.
“We are not,” Gibson told reporters. “That’s why these amendments are here, to clarify that we are maintaining oversight and access and one of the strongest FOI acts in Canada.”
Broadly, Bill 9 has two areas of focus. Parts of the bill aim to make it easier for public bodies to share information in response to requests, cutting down on the need for people to contact multiple agencies to get the information they seek.
Citizens Services Minister Diana Gibson says the changes in Bill 9 will make B.C.’s freedom of information system better, not worse. Photo: Province of B.C. / Flickr
Other changes seem geared toward getting more FOI requests rejected, critics say. Currently, the law says an FOI request must give “enough detail to enable an experienced employee of the public body, with a reasonable effort, to identify the record sought.” Bill 9 adds that an experienced employee must be able to identify requested records in “a reasonable amount of time” in “the opinion of the head of the public body.” That potentially gives public sector executives a lot of power to refuse to fulfill requests.
“It degrades freedom of information under the guise of administrative convenience, making the government both judge and juror over what the public can access,” Green Party MLA Rob Botterell said in a statement about the changes. Botterell, who helped draft the original law, which passed in 1992, called Bill 9 an “evisceration of this cornerstone legislation.”
Gibson has accused critics of spreading misinformation and cherry-picking data about B.C.’s FOI system to suit their own narratives.
Let’s unpack the politics and posturing and dig into the current state of B.C.’s freedom of information system and the changes the government is proposing.
What is freedom of information?
Freedom of information is the idea that citizens have the right to access documents and records held by public entities, such as school districts, police forces and government ministries. In Canada, freedom of information rights are laid out in federal and provincial laws. Members of the public can request a range of information from various public entities, from meeting notes and staff communications to databases and documentation about new policies.
Journalists like me can request information to better understand the impact train collisions have on wildlife or uncover a significant equipment malfunction at B.C.’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility.
Most Canadian jurisdictions introduced freedom of information laws around 40 years ago, before the digital revolution. In the years since, the amount of documents public bodies create has grown significantly and many of those documents are subject to freedom of information laws.
How many people actually file freedom of information requests?
B.C. is fielding fewer FOI requests than it once did. In 2020, the citizens services ministry logged a total of 8,347 general requests compared to 4,691 in 2025 — a 44 per cent drop that can likely be at least partly attributed to the creation of a $10 fee for requests implemented by the provincial government in 2021.
Rail companies are supposed to report collisions with animals in B.C., but a freedom of information request filed by The Narwhal revealed reporting is inconsistent and incomplete. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal
But the number of pages generated in response to the average request has increased. The Ministry of Citizens Services says its FOI operations office processed 1.64 million pages in 2020 compared to 2.18 million pages in 2025 — a 33 per cent increase. The average general FOI request filed in 2025 in B.C. yielded 366 pages.
That suggests the public bodies may not be managing information as efficiently as they could be, Mike Larsen, president of the BC Freedom of Information Association, said.
“If we have better ways for people to organize information and if that’s followed consistently, then it shouldn’t be a problem to provide efficient and effective access,” he said. “I think that the minister is not wrong to say that there’s been a shift in the terrain here, but to respond to this with the idea of needing to perhaps curtail access rights in some way, I think, is a step in the wrong direction.”
Larsen also points out that focusing on the quantitative aspects of the FOI system — number of requests filed and pages processed — doesn’t give a complete picture of how well the system is functioning.
An FOI request could, for instance, yield 300 pages, but hundreds of those pages could be redacted, offering no useful information to the requester. In cases like that, knowing the number of pages a public body produced but not how many of those pages contained useful information gives a “totally skewed” impression of the system, Larsen added.
The minister takes issue with the idea that FOI requests are down overall.
“Personal requests are up and those are bigger and more complex,” Gibson told reporters. “Overall, the issue is about sensitive Ministry of Children and Family Development files, where there are multiple parties involved and a lot of sensitive information, thousands of pages. So it isn’t just about numbers being down. Actually, that’s not accurate.”
Gibson is partly right. FOI requests to the Ministry of Children and Family Development — which is responsible for sensitive personal information about adoption, child protection and foster care — have increased. In 2025, the ministry received 2,372 requests, up from 1,858 in 2020.
However, overall requests are still down significantly, from 10,205 in 2020 to 7,063 last year. Citizens Services declined to provide data for the most recent fiscal year, telling The Narwhal those figures are still being reviewed.
How is the government proposing to change B.C.’s FOI law?
Gibson introduced Bill 9 on Feb. 26.
“Taken together, these amendments strengthen [the law] for the future,” she said during her second reading speech. “They protect privacy. They uphold access to information. They enable better services for British Columbians, and they support a more transparent, efficient and people-centred public sector.”
But in addition to the changes aimed at improving information sharing between public bodies, some parts of the legislation broadens the grounds on which public bodies can refuse to respond to requests. That includes allowing a public body to reject requests that “would unreasonably interfere” with its operations or the government’s more broadly. “Abusive” or “malicious” requests could also be thrown out.
Larsen worries public bodies operating with reduced budgets or poor information management policies could use the unreasonable interference language to reject requests “simply because they’re overwhelmed — for reasons that aren’t due to the requester’s actions or the nature of the request in question.”
“If you’re unreasonably resourced, then a reasonable request can look unreasonable,” he said.
If your FOI request is rejected, you can appeal to the FOI and privacy commissioner, Gibson points out.
“The independent office of the privacy commissioner oversees any requests that would be denied,” she said. “What we’re talking about here is things like … death threats or white powder in envelopes. This is about being able to manage that kind of behavior, so that citizens with requests that we want to serve can get served quickly.”
Documents obtained by The Narwhal through freedom of information legislation revealed LNG Canada officials were discussing problems with the facility’s flaring equipment internally — and that they waited approximately four months to tell the provincial energy regulator. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal
Relying on complaints to ensure good requests still make it through the system doesn’t sit well with Larsen.
“That really worries me when people say, ‘We’re changing things in a way that may make it likely that people are dissatisfied, but don’t worry, there’s an appeals process!” he said.
“Going through a review as a way of trying to manage the scope of requests, that’s just completely inefficient.”
The minister did not directly answer questions about whether the commissioner will get a funding increase to deal with the additional stream of complaints Bill 9 could create. Instead, she touted the government’s proactive disclosure policies and promised Bill 9 will result in the release of more information without FOI request.
“This isn’t about making the situation worse,” Gibson told reporters. “This is about making it better.”
So what is proactive disclosure? And how will Bill 9 expand it?
One way governments can reduce the need for members of the public to file requests is to release documents without being asked, a practice known as proactive disclosure. The B.C. government proactively releases 17 types of records, including binders for new cabinet ministers, lists of briefing notes and expense claims and records requested via freedom of information request.
Typically, these records are kept confidential for months before being published, although the timeline can vary. However, as of the publication of this story, the B.C. government has “temporarily paused” proactive disclosures while it develops and launches a new system to publish these records. (The pause has lasted more than a month so far.)
Gibson did not mention the suspension and, when asked about it directly, did not explain why the old publication platform could not continue until the new one was ready to launch.
“We haven’t stopped doing proactive disclosures. What we’ve got is a new and more modernized system that’s going to deliver better on proactive disclosure and also a new proactive disclosure coming in Bill 9,” she told reporters. “But there’s a temporary gap while we move to the new, more modern system, and we’re hoping to have that online as soon as possible.”
The Citizens Services Ministry said the “pause is temporary and technical in nature,” and that the new system is expected to be operational any day.
How many new types of documents will Bill 9 add to the proactive disclosure schedule? Many or none, depending on how you look at it. The new proactive disclosure provisions in the bill apply only to personal information, not records created by the government.
The changes will give government ministries the ability “to disclose personal information back to the individual the information is about, without going through an FOI request,” according to Citizens Services.
Larsen sees value in making it easier for people to access personal information from public bodies, especially with proper privacy protections in place.
“That’s not the same thing as proactive disclosure of public records, though,” he added. “It’s a very different and meritorious thing to do, but it’s important not to conflate those things.”
If — when? — Bill 9 passes, when will these changes take effect?
The B.C. legislature has just nine sitting days left before the summer break. If Bill 9 doesn’t pass by May 28, it will be October before it passes.
The bill is just about to begin committee stage, the point at which opposition MLAs can ask the minister responsible questions about the effect of the changes proposed and put forward changes of their own, though these don’t often end up in the final version.
Gibson has already tabled amendments to Bill 9, ones she says clarify the powers of the information and privacy commissioner.
“I’m really looking forward to committee [stage] where we actually get to speak to the merits of the legislation and have a real debate about the content,” Gibson said. “It’s also a good opportunity to correct some real misinformation and misunderstandings about the bill.”
The B.C. Green and B.C. Conservative caucuses oppose Bill 9 in its current form. Interim Conservative Leader Trevor Halford even tried to have debate on the bill suspended for six months to allow for further consultation, a move that led to hours of late-night debate before the motion was defeated with the support of the NDP caucus and a pair of independent MLAs.
Odds are good Bill 9 will pass this spring, even if the government has to cut debate short to make it happen. Some of its changes will take effect immediately, including the requirement that requests provide enough detail to be located in a “reasonable amount of time.” Most of the others won’t take effect until the ministry has developed regulations to provide more detail about their function.
That process could take weeks, months or more. At least one piece of legislation that passed last spring has yet to take full effect because the regulations are still being developed.
It will likely be a year or more before we know if the changes really will improve B.C.’s FOI system, as Gibson claims. One of her predecessors made similar comments about the bill that created the $10 FOI filing fee, claiming those changes would help unclog the FOI system and result in faster responses to FOI requests. Five years later, we know she was wrong.
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.
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Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal
Summary
- The amalgamation of Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities into nine regional bodies is expected to take effect in early 2027.
- A new directive from Environment Minister Todd McCarthy orders conservation authorities to halt any major decision-making processes, such as changing staffing structures or purchasing property, in the meantime.
- After a meeting between Environment Ministry officials and conservation authority staff on May 6, 2026, one public servant told The Narwhal, “The province has essentially handcuffed conservation authorities.”
On Friday, May 1, Ontario Environment Minister Todd McCarthy sent a letter to all conservation authority heads directing them to halt any “significant financial, asset or employment decisions” as the government begins consolidating the agencies tasked with protecting watersheds.
The letter signals that the work to amalgamate authorities from 36 to nine, and shift oversight to a new government agency that takes direction from McCarthy’s office, has begun.
Five days later, senior ministry officials told authority staff in an internal meeting that this reorganization will be complicated and still contains many unknowns.
The directives “were not easy to write,” a senior official said at the meeting. “I’ll be frank to say that this required us to get into the [conservation authority] business in a way that we as a ministry aren’t typically.”
A recording of that meeting, which included discussion of the consolidation on drinking water protections, was shared with The Narwhal by one participant and independently verified by another. The Narwhal is not identifying the officials who led the meeting by name to respect their privacy as public sector workers with limited authority.
In it, a director in the ministry’s conservation and source protection branch notes the directive McCarthy sent out to authorities was not meant to affect the day-to-day business of conservation authorities, but to “put some guardrails in place that would sort of mitigate against any decision, like extraordinary decisions that would not be to the benefit of the regional [conservation authority].”
Such guardrails are common in government-initiated mergers, the official said, to protect agencies and organizations from decisions that may harm their consolidated form. A staff member from McCarthy’s office, speaking unofficially, told The Narwhal this is “standard operating practice” for any amalgamation, designed to “essentially keep things stable.”
Rhonda Bateman, chief administrative officer of Lower Trent Conservation said in an email to The Narwhal, “It was not a surprise. We were expecting some direction.”
“When businesses amalgamate or are merged, there needs to be a baseline of information available and I believe this is the intent behind the direction,” she said.
Ontario’s transition from 36 to nine conservation authorities will be managed by the government’s new Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency, which has a handful of staff and a five-person board of directors made up of deputy ministers from different ministries. Photo: Laura Proctor / The Narwhal
Along with the recording, The Narwhal was sent a copy of McCarthy’s letter, which was later publicly posted by the ministry. The Narwhal reached out to 10 conservation authority officials for comment, with most saying they were not allowed to comment, could not comment for fear of repercussions or were still trying to understand the implications of the directive. Five people agreed to speak to The Narwhal for this story, all on the condition of confidentiality.
“The province has essentially handcuffed conservation authorities,” one public servant who attended the meeting told The Narwhal. “Conservation authorities are not in control now [of the consolidation], and it seems that they won’t be in control moving forward.”
One conservation authority official in central Ontario said they were “surprised” by the “sweeping” nature of the directive, and felt that the consolidation was “out of our hands.”
Conservation authorities are tasked with protecting Ontario watersheds by safeguarding local drinking water sources and reducing the risks from natural hazards like flooding, erosion and drought. The government’s move to amalgamate them from 36 agencies to nine is the biggest disruption since the agencies were created 80 years ago, and has created widespread concern about their continued ability to preserve access to fresh water for more than 80 per cent of Ontario residents.
The government’s 2026 budget officially greenlit the consolidation and gave the environment minister powers to issue directives as needed. It also created a new Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency, which will oversee the 36 conservation authorities during the transition, under the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks. This agency will work with Hassaan Basit, a longtime conservation authority official who is now the province’s chief conservation executive, and is staffed by a handful of bureaucrats, with a five-person board of directors made up of deputy ministers from other ministries. The agency’s goal is to see resources equally shared among the consolidated conservation authorities.
McCarthy’s first directive on the consolidation restricts conservation authorities’ actions to what has already been set out in their 2026 budgets. That includes making any changes to staff or governance structure, acquiring or disposing of any land, approving any new projects (like wells, for example) or making major purchases without explicit authorization from the government.
The official from McCarthy’s office told The Narwhal they expect conservation authorities to be able to do things that are beyond their budget. “We’ll likely approve it,” they said. “Conservation authorities remain independent.” They also noted that the restrictions don’t apply to land donations, as “they are not an expense.”
The directive notes there will also be exceptions in responding to “an immediate danger to human life, health or property.” The official from McCarthy’s office said, for example, this could be “if the conservation authority has a dam and the dam is on the verge of breaking and they need to make emergency repairs.”
These restrictions are in place until at least Feb. 1, 2027, when the consolidation is expected to take effect. They can be amended any time “at the sole discretion of the minister,” according to the letter.
Ontario’s drinking water is tied up in conservation authority changes but officials have few details
The details of how McCarthy’s directive will affect conservation authorities’ work protecting drinking water remain unclear.
The authorities work closely with community-led source protection committees, which include directors from industries like agriculture, manufacturing and tourism to protect and properly manage drinking water.
The province’s 19 source protection committees were created on the heels of the deadly water contamination crisis in Walkerton, Ont. They are supported by staff from conservation authorities, who provide data and carry out protective actions as the source protection authority.
The Narwhal reported in April on the impacts of consolidation on source protection committees, and the fact that 15 of the 19 committees had vacant chair positions. The government began seeking people to fill the chair positions soon after.
Many source protection staff were in attendance at the May 6 meeting hosted by Ministry of Environment officials after McCarthy’s directive was issued.
In the recording of the meeting, ministry officials are heard assuring attendees that they were happy to keep working with conservation authority staff, and that the government remains committed to preserving drinking water protections. But the officials repeatedly said things are still being figured out, with “a range of scenarios” being considered. They acknowledged the lack of answers was “not terribly reassuring” and “anxiety producing, probably” for conservation authorities.
During the two-hour meeting, ministry officials did not answer direct questions about whether the source protection regions would also be consolidated.
“I think that is probably the first question that needs to be answered, and we can’t answer it,” the official responded. “Obviously, that has to come from the decisions from whoever is making them.”
McCarthy previously told The Narwhal the 19 source protection committees will remain as they are and work with the nine regional conservation authorities, but said their jurisdictions are “a work in progress.” The government has said changes to the Clean Water Act will be needed but hasn’t specified what those changes will be.
“We’ve got eight months to sort out the details,” the official from McCarthy’s office told The Narwhal. “The point is not to rush this. We just started the process.”
During a meeting on May 6, Environment Ministry officials were pressed for details on how the consolidation of the province’s conservation authorities would impact the protection of Ontario’s drinking water sources. Officials could not provide answers. Photo: Laura Proctor / The Narwhal
During the meeting, ministry officials gave two explanations for their inability to answer attendees’ questions. First, they said they weren’t directly part of the decision-making process as the transition is being run by the new Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency, “not the ministry.” And second, they cited cabinet confidentiality, referring to private policy deliberations between Premier Doug Ford, his ministers and senior ministry officials.
“Typically, sometimes the reason you have to, like, back away and stop engaging is because things become cabinet confidential at a certain point,” a senior official said in the meeting. “I’m not allowed, right? Because it’s become a cabinet process.”
They continued that staff in the ministry were working to ensure source protection plans, for example, weren’t being unnecessarily rewritten, though much of the consolidation process was still being sorted out.
“This isn’t a change many people were asking for and want necessarily, and I fully appreciate that I can’t necessarily know what all this means to you,” one official said in the meeting. They added that they hoped to help conservation authorities understand “what our thinking has been around the transition planning.”
“This is a government that is set to do this,” the official said. “This is happening.”
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Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal
Summary
- Canadian law requires provinces to implement a carbon pricing system for major industrial polluters as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- But Alberta’s carbon pricing system isn’t producing the intended results, in part because its effective carbon price is too low to incentivise companies to reduce their emissions.
- It’s a sticking point in Alberta’s and Canada’s negotiations over whether and how to build a new pipeline to the West Coast. The two jurisdictions missed an April 1, 2026, deadline they set for themselves for agreeing on a new carbon pricing framework in Alberta.
Alberta and the federal government have been negotiating for months in an attempt to finalize a memorandum of understanding meant to pave the way for two key projects: a new pipeline to the West Coast and a massive carbon capture and utilization project in the oilsands.
Some elements of that deal have been hammered out, but one issue has proven tricky — an agreement on the industrial carbon price (once again, it’s not a tax).
The deal signed by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney last year called for a new framework on industrial carbon pricing by April 1, a deadline that came and went.
So what exactly are they talking about and what could we expect to see?Here’s a primer on what it all means, from who pays for what to why oil companies really don’t want to spend their own piles of cash.
What is the industrial carbon price?
The consumer carbon price (RIP) is what most people think about when they hear about a carbon tax or a carbon price (it’s truly not a tax, but we’ll call it that, if you insist). That since-deceased mechanism was designed to impose a cost on people to incentivize change. Think about “sin taxes” on cigarettes as one example. Make a tank of gas more expensive and maybe people will drive less.
The industrial price, snappily named the “output-based pricing system” in federal lingo, targets large industrial emitters. Like the consumer version, the price is meant to incentivize emissions reductions. The more efficient a company, the bigger the savings.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government axed the politically unpopular consumer carbon price in 2025. But federal law still requires provinces to price carbon for large industrial emitters. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal
Each province manages its own industrial carbon price scheme. They can design their own, as long as its reduction potential is considered equivalent to the federal version, or they can simply use the federal system.In Alberta, it’s known as the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction Regulation, but everyone just calls it TIER.
Okay, but how does the industrial carbon price work, exactly?
This stuff can get tricky, but let’s start easy.The premise is simple: large-scale industrial emitters (think steel, oil and gas and concrete) create the highest amounts of emissions. To reduce this, the government has put a price per tonne of carbon pollution on a small percentage of emissions these companies produce to incentivize them to adopt cleaner processes that emit less carbon. The money collected from these charges is pooled and distributed back to companies for investments that support this shift in emissions-reduction technologies, like carbon capture and storage.
The government sets a specific price for a tonne of emissions from a company. It also sets a threshold — if you pollute under that threshold, you don’t pay the carbon price, but if you pollute more than that threshold, each extra tonne is priced.
Companies, especially ones with a lot of emissions such as oilsands mines or concrete plants, want to reduce emissions as much as possible to avoid paying too much.
It’s also important to note the price applies to large emitters, with more than 100,000 tonnes of emissions in a year (equivalent to the annual emissions from approximately 22,000 cars).
The federal rules also call for incremental increases to the price to add an extra nudge. Over time, that makes the price of pollution more and more expensive, which is the entire point.
This is a policy designed to reduce pollution. Without it, pollution is free for the polluter, despite its costs to society and the environment.
Carbon pricing is considered by many experts to be the most efficient and least disruptive way to reduce emissions. It’s a conclusion Carney himself came to both in 2015 and 2021.
Recent estimates from the Canadian Climate Institute peg the cost of the carbon price on oil and gas producers at 50 cents per barrel, with low, or non-existent, impacts for consumers across a range of products.
Is carbon pricing all stick? Where’s the carrot?
Glad you asked.
While the carbon price encourages companies to strive to be more efficient to avoid the cost of pollution, they can also reap benefits from going that extra mile.
If a company reduces its emissions below the threshold set by the government, it earns credits. Those credits can then be sold to other companies to bring in real-world revenue.
Specifically, say one company reduces its emissions below the threshold and gathers credits. Another company that is still exceeding the threshold can come along and buy those credits and use them to cover its carbon pricing costs.
In Alberta, carbon credits are trading for prices far below what the federal government mandates. As a result, the system isn’t generating incentives for industrial polluters to reduce emissions. Photo: Spencer Colby / The Canadian Press
Money generated from the carbon price is also reinvested back into research and new technology development.
Win win, right?
Well, this is where things get messy. Especially in Alberta. Because the price is not really the price.
Sorry, the price is not actually the price? What?
The memorandum of understanding between Alberta and Ottawa explicitly calls for an “effective price” of $130 per tonne of emissions. That’s because the price most people know, known as the headline price, isn’t necessarily what a credit will trade for between those two companies we imagined earlier.
The issue is that the Alberta government made changes to its industrial carbon pricing system one week after signing the memorandum that, when announced, flooded the market with credits and undermined their value. It also now allows companies to invest directly in technologies at their facilities instead of paying the carbon price. Those technologies may or may not actually reduce emissions.
Those changes could allow companies to essentially double dip — avoiding the carbon price by investing in technologies directly, and then collecting credits if their emissions drop.
Alberta also froze its headline price at $95 per tonne last year, rather than increasing the price as dictated by the federal equivalency rules. Not only is that a violation, it undermines the stability of the credit market and reduces confidence in the system for companies making decisions based on projected costs and benefits.
There was also a flood of credits from the rapid expansion of renewable power generation.
The end result is that carbon credits were trading as low as $17 per tonne last year. So while the headline price, which everyone understands as the price of carbon per tonne, might be $95, the effective price was, and is, well below. It’s currently trading between $20 and $40 per tonne.
As it stands, it’s very cheap for a facility to buy $20 or $40 credits compared to paying $95, but that’s less good for the efficient facilities selling the credits. And removes the whole point of the carbon price — making it expensive to pollute.
So what’s the plan for the carbon tax?
The agreement between Alberta and Ottawa signed last November called for a framework to increase the effective price to $130 per tonne by 2030 to be finalized on April 1. That didn’t happen.
Both governments say they continue to negotiate a plan, and rumours suggest something coming soon, but there are still no details. Last week, The Globe and Mail reported the speed at which the price will climb is the main sticking point.
One interesting aspect of the memorandum calls for “a financial mechanism to ensure both parties maintain their respective commitments over the long term to provide certainty to industry, and to achieve the intended emissions reductions.”
Translation: that means the agreement could include some sort of financial backstop for the credit market. That could mean the province would guarantee a credit price by offering to buy credits at, say, $130 per tonne.
That would help to stabilize the price and, hopefully, discourage the province from eroding the carbon pricing scheme (again).
So we’re cool then?
The memorandum was framed around building both a new pipeline to the West Coast and the giant carbon capture and utilization project tied to the oilsands, known as the Pathways project.
The Pathways project would get carbon credits, which in turn would make that project more viable and could reduce the amount of public dollars used to build it.
However, the five largest oilsands producers behind the plan have dramatically walked back some of their enthusiasm for investing in emissions reductions.
Canadian oil and gas companies such as Cenovus and Suncor have seen profits soar in recent years. But the Oilsands Alliance, of which both companies are members, says federal regulations are negatively impacting the sector. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Canadian Press
On May 4, the group, which recently changed its name from the Pathways Alliance to the Oilsands Alliance, said it was still interested in carbon capture and storage.
“However, a project of this size requires supportive regulatory and fiscal frameworks, not an uncompetitive industrial carbon tax that no other major heavy oil producing jurisdiction faces, which would limit our industry’s ability to attract investment and grow,” reads the statement.
Jon McKenzie, the CEO of Cenovus, told investors in May the debate around oilsands development has been “myopically focused on the climate agenda,” according to the Canadian Press.
“The result of this myopic dialogue … is that we have created a set of national policies and regulations that make resource development and investment in Canada uncompetitive with the rest of the world,” he said, at the same time he announced an 83 per cent increase in the company’s profits. He also said increasing the carbon price would negatively impact the sector.
Cenovus reported $1.6 billion in earnings in the first three months of this year (McKenzie himself made $10.4 million in salary, stock options and bonuses in 2024). Suncor, another alliance company, reported earnings of $2.1 billion in the same time frame — 50 per cent higher than the same period last year.
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It’s been five years since an atmospheric river dropped a month’s worth of rain on Princeton, British Columbia, in a matter of days. But even with a herculean recovery and rebuilding effort, the impacts of those 2021 floods still mar the landscape.
Hills are scarred by landslides, and buildings are abandoned. Sun-bleached logs sit far from the river as a reminder of how far the water spread. Then, there’s the old train bridge.
Part of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail, a 500-kilometre abandoned rail line turned multi-use trail between Hope and Midway, B.C., the bridge was one of more than 60 locations where the 2021 floods washed out the trail. About 20 metres of steel, concrete and timber on its eastern end were swept away by the surging waters. Today, the Tulameen River flows beneath the gap between Princeton and what’s left, with a faded, graffiti-covered “trail closed” sign standing on the shore.
For years, many Princeton locals were hopeful the bridge and trail would be rebuilt. But in early February, they learned the province was planning to not only scrap the bridge, but to decommission the entire 67-kilometre stretch of trail connecting Princeton to the Coquihalla Highway.
In an announcement, the province said repairing that segment “would cost an estimated $60 million,” while “the cost of decommissioning the damaged Princeton section is estimated at $20 million.”
“The decision to decommission a section of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail near Princeton exemplifies the harsh realities of climate-impacted management,” the Ministry of Environment and Parks explained.
The Tulameen River now flows underneath a section of the damaged bridge that once linked Princeton to the Kettle Valley Rail Trail. Nearly 20 metres of steel, concrete and timber were swept away during a 2021 atmospheric river that dumped a month’s worth of rain on the area in a handful of days. Photos: Government of British Columbia
It’s a decision that’s left locals and outsiders who care about the Trans Canada Trail reeling.
At more than 29,000 kilometres, the Trans Canada Trail is the longest multi-use trail network on the planet. In 2017, it was officially “connected” across the entire country, making it possible to traverse Canada by a combination of foot and paddling trails. The decommissioning of the Kettle Valley segment will be the first permanent break in that connection. That’s a big part of why Stacey Dakin, the Trans Canada Trail’s chief program officer, thinks there has been concern about this decision outside of Princeton.
“With the Trans Canada Trail, there’s a sense of national pride and unity,” Dakin says. “We’ve heard more and more that people are connecting to each other just because they’re on the trail.
To Dakin, the Kettle Valley decision was “shocking.” But it reflects the growing risk that climate change poses to trails across the country, as jurisdictions must weigh the cost of repairs against the likelihood of future disasters.
More than just a trail
For Princeton mayor Spencer Coyne, the town at the confluence of the Tulameen and Similkameen rivers has always been home. A member of the Upper Similkameen Indian Band, he remembers when trains still ran on the Kettle Valley line.
“There was a dirt bike and bicycle trail beside the tracks,” he says. “We would ride our bikes out to Tulameen and go swimming in the summer. It’s just a part of who we are.”
Coyne, who was first elected in 2018, decided to run for mayor after a massive 2017 wildfire opened his eyes to just how vulnerable Princeton was to climate change.
The decommissioning of the 67-kilometre segment of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail linking Princeton to the Coquihalla Highway would be the first section break in the Trans Canada Trail, the longest multi-use trail network in the world.
“We’ve been in a state of emergency every single year since,” Coyne explains. “The trail is kind of a microcosm.”
The decommissioning decision stunned Coyne. Especially given all of the work the community was doing to rebuild and recover after the 2021 floods.
“[I was] super disappointed in the way that unrolled … It took a bunch of people by surprise.”
One of those people is Todd Davidson, manager of the Princeton Museum.
“When the news about decommissioning the Kettle Valley Rail Trail first came out, we were all kind of surprised and shocked,” he says.
He describes the trail as a tourist draw, with visitors using it for day trips and multi-day expeditions. In winter, he says, locals relied on it as a snowmobile route to get supplies from town. He also thinks the trail should be preserved for historical reasons, as the remnants of a rail line that moved minerals, timber and people between the coast and the Interior for nearly a century.
It’s a history that still lives in people like Tom Reichert. He worked on the line for the decade before it was shut down in 1989. Today, he and his wife, Kelly, own Reichert Sales & Service, an off-road vehicle shop in Tulameen. “The closure has definitely had an impact on our business,” he says. “It’s impacted both sales and service.”
Tom Reichert and his wife Kelly say their off-road vehicle business, Reichert Sales & Service, has been affected by the Kettle Valley trail closure. They worry what its closure will mean for the Princeton community. A sign sharing information about an online petition to re-open the trail hangs on the shop’s front door.
They’ve also shut down an off-road vehicle rental program they estimate brought in around $30,000 a year before the floods.
But beyond the business impact, the Reicherts worry what losing the trail will mean for the community. They remember when the trail was busy with hikers, cyclists and all-terrain vehicle users. It’s a big part of why they’ve gotten involved in efforts to oppose decommissioning. Now, there’s a large sign on the front door of Reichert Sales & Service promoting a “Save the KVR” Facebook group and a petition that, as of writing, has more than 12,000 signatures.
The Reicherts, Coyne and Davidson all point out that many of those petition signers have never even been to Princeton, but care because the Kettle Valley is part of the Trans Canada Trail.
Managed retreat
Most of the time, the Vedder River is a calm, azure blue ribbon that flows from Chilliwack into the Fraser River. But when it rises, it transforms into a raging torrent, a pale brown rush of water that inundates the forest and ravages the trails that run along its banks.
“We had three 50-year storms within four months, back to back to back,” Drew Pilling says. “Which really took a toll on our system.”
Pilling, the senior parks and trails operations technician for the City of Chilliwack, is talking about three atmospheric rivers that hit Chilliwack between December 2025 and March 2026, with each one damaging the same stretch of the Vedder Rotary Loop Trail.
“It’s quite a cost,” says Pilling. “It’s a lot of gravel that comes back in, it’s a lot of machine time, a lot of man-hours.”
This wasn’t the first time this trail had washed away. The same 2021 storm that ripped through the Kettle Valley trail also ravaged the Vedder Rotary Loop Trail. And although Chilliwack has so far been willing to bear the cost of repairs, Pilling thinks there may come a point where, year after year, flooding and trail repair become an issue.
“That’s for sure gonna be a topic of conversation with the council and the mayor,” he says. “Depending on their decisions, it might change the nature of the trails.”
Drew Pilling, the senior parks and trails operations for the City of Chilliwack, believes trail upkeep may become an issue for high flood-risk cities like Chilliwack.
This changing nature is top of mind for Thomas Schoen. The chief executive officer of First Journey Trails, Schoen has been building trails across British Columbia since 1998. But it wasn’t until 2017, when a cross-country mountain bike trail he helped build connecting Williams Lake First Nation to the local trail network burned in a wildfire, that the situation really hit him.
“It was a multi-year project,” Schoen says. “We started by training Indigenous trail builders and trail maintenance crews. It was a really successful project.”
For a few years, the trail’s popularity grew, with both locals and visitors from further afield. Then it was engulfed by a wildfire that Schoen says “absolutely destroyed that trail.”
He and others tried to rebuild it, but the landscape was fundamentally different.
“You had tens of thousands of burnt, standing dead trees along this open trail corridor,” he explains. “The amount of tree falls on this trail was, and still is, so significant that it’s almost impossible with volunteer efforts to keep this trail open.”
Losing that trail was “extremely emotional” for Schoen, and changed the way he thinks about trails and climate change.
“Some trails can’t be revived,” he says. “Some trails, we just don’t have the manpower or the financial power to rebuild them or open them back up again.”
Climate policy experts might categorize Schoen’s comments and the province’s decision to abandon the Kettle Valley trail as “managed retreat.”
It’s a strategy for dealing with climate change impacts that a provincial planning document describes as the “strategic relocation of people and structures out of harm’s way, often accompanied by ecological restoration and a permanent change in land use.”
But when done properly, it’s a strategy developed with communities, not for them.
Managed retreat is a planning strategy that involves strategically removing communities from areas at high risk of climate-related emergencies. For cities near water, it can mean neglecting to repair infrastructure like trails that are prone to flooding.
“These decisions cannot just be made by the government or by one ministry,” Schoen says. “[They] need to be made in partnerships between many different groups … First Nations at the table with trail user clubs.”
Hundreds of thousands of kilometres of trails
For Ryan Stuart, community engagement lead with the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC, the biggest issue with the Kettle Valley trail decision was the voices that were left out.
“Where was the conversation beforehand?” he asks. Conversations that he argues are even more important given the growing challenge of maintaining trails in a changing climate.
And the province has a lot of trails to maintain. According to the province’s 2013 trail strategy, the province has at least 30,000 kilometres of formally recognized trails and “hundreds of thousands of kilometres” of informal trails.
And while the strategy didn’t discuss climate change, a 2020 progress report on it listed an “increase in climate-related events such as wildfires and flooding, which can damage the trail systems,” as a top challenge. It’s a sentiment echoed by another 2025 report by Climate Data Canada exploring how climate change impacts trails across the country.
Stuart worries that the cost and effort issues are particularly challenging due to long-standing issues with trail funding in the province.
Among applications to the Outdoor Recreation Fund of BC, a $10-million, multi-year grant to support trail building and maintenance overseen by the Outdoor Recreation Council, he says “lots of the funding requests are for rehabilitation of damaged infrastructure from fires or floods.”
Damage caused by fire and floods is an increasing urgent reality for many communities in B.C. The cost and effort to rebuild after these disasters are high and represent a barrier to full recovery.
And the fund just isn’t big enough to support everything. Earlier this year, the council described the fund as “heavily oversubscribed” and able to “support only about 15 per cent of grant requests.”
And it’s not like the province isn’t aware of the challenges.
“Many of British Columbia’s provincial parks, recreation sites and trails are experiencing a climate-driven transformation,” the Ministry of Environment and Parks wrote in a statement to The Narwhal.“As extreme weather events like the 2021 and 2024 atmospheric rivers become more frequent, the province is navigating a difficult balance between preserving historic recreation opportunities and ensuring long-term environmental and fiscal sustainability.”
Stuart understands “the provincial government is in tough financial shape and needs to look at everything,” but thinks there still needs to be more transparency in how decisions are being made. He points out that the government spent millions rebuilding both the Berg Lake Trail in Mount Robson Provincial Park and the Juan de Fuca Trail on Vancouver Island, while abandoning the Kettle Valley.
“I’ve heard members of the Outdoor Recreation Council ask, ‘How was that decision made?’ ” he says.
The ministry didn’t directly answer questions about those decisions. Instead, they called Berg Lake “a blueprint for ‘building back better.’ ”
“Following catastrophic weather damage, the trail’s multi-phase reopening has a climate resilience focus,” the ministry statement explained. That focus involved moving trails out of vulnerable flood-plains, relocating bridges to places better able to “withstand heavy flow,” and hardening tent pads.
They also said the Juan de Fuca trail would need some of “these same resilient engineering strategies.”
‘No new trails’
How the Kettle Valley decision was made also frustrates people in Princeton.
“What they want to do here is just throw in the towel,” Todd Davidson says. “We feel really quite ignored.”
It’s a sentiment that Coyne understands all too well.
“The fact that the three … main municipalities that were impacted in 2021 didn’t get a lick of funding from the province or from the [federal government] speaks volumes,” he says, referring to Abbotsford and Merritt, which like Princeton were denied support from the federal Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund.
He sees the Kettle Valley decision as a “mirror image of what we’re trying to deal with” around broader flood recovery and climate adaptation. And while he understands the idea of managed retreat, he questions how it’s being applied.
“Ultimately, would we like to look at putting the river back to a more natural state? Of course, but nobody wants to pay for it,” he says. In 2022, Coyne applied for $55 million in federal funding to support a new diking plan for the town. Two years later, that application was rejected.
“Nobody’s coming to help us with that,” he says.
Princeton residents and community leaders feel frustrated by the lack of funding and support the province provided for the city after the 2021 flooding. They see the decomissioning of the Kettle Valley trail as an extension of the neglect. “What they want to do here is just throw in the towel,” Todd Davidson, manager of the Princeton Museum, says. “We feel really quite ignored.”
That lack of funding also worries Pilling. While Chilliwack was able to access some funding to rebuild after 2021, he’s not sure this latest round of trail work will qualify.
“A lot of that funding is for infrastructure that is deemed necessary,” he says. And while trail advocates will argue that trails are necessary, providing benefits for physical and mental health, serving as travel corridors and, in some cases, being used for wildfire resilience, Pilling thinks most of the costs of trail repairs will “end up on the city’s bill.”
For Coyne, this comes with an added sting. While he’s been fighting to try to reverse the decommissioning decision, he’s also been in meetings about marketing Princeton’s outdoor recreation.
“We have a branch of the province actively marketing this entire trail network, and we have other departments that are cutting the funding and cutting the feet out from under them,” he says.
The province released its Tourism Sector Action Plan in March. The plan promised to grow B.C.’s outdoor recreation economy, which it claimed “generates approximately $17 billion annually in participation-based revenue, contributing $4.8 billion to provincial GDP.”But the strategy didn’t include any new funding for trails or recreation infrastructure. That’s a problem not just because of the new challenges posed by climate change, but also because of the province’s long-standing maintenance backlog.
In 2015, BC Parks estimated they had “approximately $700 million of investment in infrastructure that requires maintenance.” The province hasn’t updated this number since it was released, but the ministry did say they have further invested “approximately $200 million in campground expansions, accessibility upgrades and improvements to trails, parking and facilities since 2017.”
For Schoen, this calls for a radical rethink of how we approach trail building.“My philosophy is no new trails, period,” he says. “It’s unbelievable how much money we need for trail maintenance, and that money simply isn’t there.”
An uncertain future for the Kettle Valley
When it comes to the future of the Kettle Valley trail, Coyne is torn. He understands the threat that climate change poses to the region, but he also knows how important the trail is to his community. That’s why he keeps fighting for it, and after multiple meetings with the province, he’s starting to see a path forward.
“We’re not going to get everything we’re asking for, we’re not going to get a total rebuild of the trail,” he says.
But in early April, the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen passed a motion supporting a new regional trails strategy.
What the province will say is yet to be seen, but Coyne feels clear on one thing: if the community wants to keep the trail, the onus will be on them to make it happen.
“At the end of the day, if local government or regional government isn’t willing to shoulder this burden, then your trail is probably going to go away,” he says.
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The Liberal government is trying to give cover to more fossil fuel production
The post Mark Carney and Big Oil are distracting you with a carbon capture scam appeared first on The Breach.
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Illustration: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal
Canada’s vast landscape, which boasts 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water, a quarter of global wetlands and 28 per cent of its boreal forests, is critical to its economy. Natural resource industries — forests, farms, fisheries, mining and oil and gas — together make up approximately seven per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product.
Tension exists between expanding these industrialized sectors and protecting the ecosystems on which they depend. In Manitoba, some worry protecting the Seal River Watershed, which spans more than 50,000 square kilometres in the province’s north, will hinder opportunities in mineral resources and hydro; to the east, critical mineral mining ambitions in Ontario’s Ring of Fire clash with the protection of the Hudson and James Bay Lowlands, the second-largest carbon sink on earth; and in B.C., Coastal First Nations have protested that lifting the large tanker ban through their waters will endanger the protected Great Bear Rainforest.
These tensions make it easy to frame nature as the antithesis of economic activity, if it’s always put in opposition to projects that are described as growing Canada’s wealth, sovereignty and security. But a growing chorus of economic and policy leaders, alongside conservation groups, are making the case for nature to be seen as a critical financial asset — not a barrier, but another opportunity for economic growth.
The federal government’s vision for conservation, laid out in its 2026 nature strategy, is of a nation that “protects, restores, and values nature as a foundation of our economy, sovereignty, and well-being.”
One of the pillars to achieving that vision is “valuing nature and mobilizing capital,” according to the strategy. It estimated the value of “ecosystem services” — the direct and indirect contributions of nature to well-being and quality of life — to be $3.6 trillion, or “more than double our 2018 GDP.” In other words, the government is looking to spur more private sector investment in conservation by showing businesses how valuable nature is to their bottom lines.
The numbers show conservation is comparable with many of Canada’s major industries. While it may not produce the same scale of economic value as major resource extraction sectors like oil and gas — which does not approach the value of sectors like health care or education — it is a significant contributor to Canada’s economy. And the return on investment is high: a recent analysis by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) found every dollar spent on protected areas generated more than $3.50 in visitor spending, helping fuel local economies and generate government revenues.
Like the oil and gas sector, Canada can choose to invest in the potential of conservation and champion it as a cornerstone of our country’s economic future. And as Canadians grapple with the increasingly severe impacts of the climate crisis, the role of intact ecosystems becomes even more valuable.
These nine charts capture some of the value of Canada’s natural environments, and the economic potential of conservation.
Economic contributions from protected areas — by province
Source: Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (2024)
Gross domestic product (GDP) contributions of selected Canadian industries
Sources: Statistics Canada, Canadian Parks and Wilderness SocietyNote: All prices are in chained (2017) dollars. Data is from 2024.
How are the industries defined?+
Statistics Canada tracks economic activity indicators for a wide range of sectors using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), which assigns a code to specific activities and sectors. Industries and government agencies tally these statistics in different ways to determine overall sector impacts.
This analysis uses Statistics Canada’s data, and defines each industry as follows:
Agriculture: Crop and animal production (farming), related support activities and food manufacturing, including mills, bakeries, meat and dairy production.
Fisheries: Aquaculture, fishing, hunting and trapping and seafood product preparation.
Forestry: Forestry and logging, related support activities, wood and paper product manufacturing.
Mining: Mineral mining (ore, non-metals, potash) and quarrying activities, including related support. Also includes mineral product manufacturing and metal manufacturing.
Oil and gas: Oil and gas extraction and related support activities, petroleum and coal product manufacturing, natural gas distribution and pipelines.
Transportation: Air, rail, water, truck and transit and ground transportation (including public transit and taxis).
Utilities: Electric power generation, transmission and distribution and water and sewage systems.
Jobs and compensation
More than 150,000 people work in protected and conserved areas — not far behind the oil and gas and forestry sectors. As the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society points out, many of these jobs are in Indigenous, rural and remote communities, where unemployment rates are high compared to urban areas. In parts of Canada where other economic opportunities are scarce, protected and conserved areas offer the opportunity to create long-term stable employment.
Sources: Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Statistics CanadaNotes: For Statistics Canada figures, the estimate of the total number of jobs covers two main categories: paid workers jobs and self-employed jobs in 2024.
Conservation provides value, but how are conservation workers valued? Compensation for the approximately 150,000 Canadians who work in protected areas is low, compared to other sectors; on average, an oil and gas worker makes nearly four times as much annually.
Sources: Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Statistics CanadaNotes: Compensation is calculated as the ratio between total compensation paid and total number of jobs. Data is from 2024.
Tax revenues and subsidies
Governments collected more than $1.4 billion in tax revenues from parks and protected areas in 2024, most of which stemmed from visitor spending, according to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s analysis. That’s comparable to government tax revenues from the forestry industry, at $1.2 billion. Major resource industries like forestry and oil and gas also create government revenue through royalties and other fees.
But for many of these industries, government revenues can be offset by tax breaks, grants and other subsidies.
Sources: Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Statistics CanadaNotes: Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting combines all farming categories, forestry, wood and paper product manufacturing, fishing and hunting. Numbers are approximate, as Statistics Canada combines industries in its taxation figures.
Governments invested $2.3 billion in parks and protected spaces in 2024, generating $0.62 in revenue for every dollar invested. By comparison, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates the federal government spent $3.17 billion USD (or $4.34 billion CAD) on fossil fuel subsidies — almost $1 billion USD more than the United States spent on subsidies, despite their industry’s far greater output. That number is likely an underestimate, as a lack of clear data and complex incentive structures make it difficult to track how much governments give out to industry.
Environmental Defence, which releases an annual report tracking Canadian fossil fuel subsidies, estimates the government doled out more than $30 billion in subsidies and financing to fossil fuel companies in 2024. Most of that funding came in the form of a $20-billion loan for the Trans Mountain Expansion project.
Source: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Economic Development Canada
Carbon storage
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society estimated the carbon stocks stored in Canada’s existing protected areas by comparing protected area boundaries to data showing the carbon concentration in soil, vegetated areas and seabed sediments.
It found a total 51.4 gigatons of carbon stored in the country’s protected forests, peatlands, wetlands, soil and seabeds.
If this carbon was all emitted as carbon dioxide, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society estimates, it would equate to 188.4 gigatons of emissions.
By protecting these regions from industrial disturbances like mining, logging or draining, that carbon stays in the ground. If released, that carbon comes at a cost.
Canada’s industrial carbon price, which charges businesses for emissions that exceed a predetermined limit, is $110 per tonne as of 2026. A carbon credit — doled out for activities that remove or avoid carbon emissions — is worth the same.
At that price, the carbon stored in Canada’s protected areas is worth $20.7 trillion.
That’s about 10 times the value of Canada’s global mining assets ($352.6 billion), global energy assets ($827 billion) and domestic farm sector assets ($992.4 billion) combined.
Sources: Natural Resources Canada, Statistics Canada, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
Annual carbon capture
Protected and conserved areas remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, a process known as “carbon capture.” Manitoba’s Riding Mountain National Park, for example, removed an average of 108,328 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere between 1990 and 2020. This is significantly less than Shell’s Quest carbon capture and storage project, but it’s also just one of hundreds of parks and protected areas across Canada.
Most parks, like the ones included in this chart, are sequestering carbon each year. However, when parks or protected areas are hit by wildfires, they can become carbon emitters.
Source: Parks Canada, SaskPower, Government of Alberta, Entropy Inc.Note: Park carbon capture data comes from Parks Canada’s 2023 Carbon Dynamics in the Forests of National Parks in Canada series. Carbon storage data for carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects is from 2024.
– With files from Michelle Cyca
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Photo: J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue
This story is part of a series calledShockwave: Rising energy demand and the future of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes region is in the midst of a seismic energy shakeup, from skyrocketing data centre demand and a nuclear energy boom, to expanding renewables and electrification. In 2026, the Great Lakes News Collaborative will explore how shifting supply and demand affect the region and its waters.
Summary
- Wind blowing across the Great Lakes could generate clean electricity for the energy-hungry cities in the region, but there are currently no offshore wind projects harnessing that potential.
- Barriers to offshore wind on the Great Lakes include ecological concerns, regulatory hurdles and economic costs.
- Advocates say easing political restrictions and providing subsidies could kick-start an offshore wind industry in the region, and that ecological risks can be mitigated.
Covering an area the size of the United Kingdom and surrounded by half a dozen large, energy-hungry metropolitan regions, the Great Lakes region, surprisingly, boasts not a single offshore wind energy project.
We know that the resource and the demand are there. But no offshore wind effort has ever taken off.
Past efforts at a demonstration project called Icebreaker Wind, slated for Lake Erie off the coast of Cleveland, Ohio, fizzled out in 2023. In Ontario, which boasts 8,000 kilometres of Great Lakes coastline, a moratorium on offshore wind has been in place since 2011, with the provincial government having to fork over millions of dollars in damages to one wind energy company as a result.
But today, with electricity prices surging around the region, is it finally time for offshore wind to take its place? Do communities even want them?
Here, we speak to advocates for and opponents to offshore wind and investigate the myriad challenges such projects in the Great Lakes face.
What’s changing now?
A perfect storm of events has combined to push electricity prices to record levels for thousands of communities around the region.
Utility companies such as Consumers Energy in Michigan, We Energies, which operates in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and a host of others have embarked on system upgrades that are set to add up to 14 per cent to the cost of monthly electricity bills for consumers, with further rate hikes likely in the years ahead.
On top of that, the U.S. government has mandated that coal-fired electricity plants in Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and elsewhere that were scheduled to be retired now remain open. That means that federal subsidies that are essential for keeping these loss-making plants running are likely to cost ratepayers billions more dollars.
The Port of Cleveland is one of the main backers of offshore wind on the Great Lakes. Photo: Stephen Starr / Great Lakes Now
Then there’s the contentious wave of data centres opening across the region, creating a huge new demand for utility-scale electricity.
All the while, recent years have seen a drive to reach net-zero carbon emissions. Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota plan to reach that goal by 2050.
Ontario aims to get to 80 per cent below its 1990 level of carbon emissions in the same time. New York state has declared an even more ambitious plan, to reach net zero by 2040.
On top of that, with the U.S. government banning offshore wind projects in oceans surrounding the country, there’s been a renewed push to see the Great Lakes — controlled by eight U.S. states and Ontario, rather than authorities in Washington, D.C., and Ottawa — become a new front in the development of the technology.
What is the energy potential for offshore wind on the Great Lakes?
Experts say offshore wind generated from the lakes could provide three times the amount of the electricity used by the eight U.S. Great Lakes states in 2023. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data from 2021 crunched by the Woodwell Climate Research Center found that Great Lakes water generates more wind than anywhere else east of the Mississippi River.
“According to reports done for Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources, Great Lakes offshore wind can be implemented with minimal aquatic impacts. If the turbines are 10 to 15 kilometres offshore, they will be almost invisible,” said Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.
“Offshore wind in the Canadian section of the Great Lakes has the potential to supply more than 100 per cent of Ontario’s electricity needs.”
Icebreaker Wind, the Cleveland project, got as far as securing a 50-year lake-bed lease from the State of Ohio in 2014. Predicted to provide 20 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 7,000 homes, its main goal was to function as a trial project.
But Icebreaker Wind is not completely dead, yet. Last year, a Maryland-based company called Mighty Waves Energy acquired the project, raising hopes among Cleveland leaders and many residents around the region that the first steps towards a lake-based wind energy future remain in place.
Mark Hessels, CEO of Mighty Waves Energy, spoke with Great Lakes Now over the phone, but declined to go on the record to discuss the company’s proposed new offshore wind project, and failed to provide a statement when asked.
What are the big challenges?
And yet, the barriers appear immense.
John Lipaj has been sailing and boating on Lake Erie ever since he was a child.
“I spent every summer out there on a boat. In July and August, when the temperatures rise, the wind would die,” he said, illustrating one of several reasons he and others think offshore wind isn’t suitable for Lake Erie.
“If there’s no wind at exactly the time of year when electricity is needed most, for air conditioning, then what’s the point of building offshore wind?”
John Lipaj, a board member of the Lake Erie Foundation, is concerned about the impact offshore wind turbines might have on birds, such as the bald eagle. Photo: Katherine K.Y. Cheng / The Narwhal
As a board member of the Lake Erie Foundation, a non-profit, that’s not the main reason he and the organization he represents opposes offshore wind on Lake Erie.
“One of the things we were most concerned about is that bald eagles were almost extinct, and they’ve really come back along the Lake Erie shore. Now, they’re thriving,” he said.
“In the winter, they’ll fly out a couple of miles [offshore] looking for fish, especially if there’s ice [on the shoreline]. We’ve got real concerns about the bald eagle population being hurt by the wind turbine out on the lake, because that’s their feeding ground.”
In 2022, a wind energy company was fined US$8 million and sentenced to probation after its wind turbines were found to have killed more than 150 eagles over the course of a decade across ten U.S. states, including Michigan and Illinois.
Some conservation organizations opposing offshore wind have even come under fire. A report by Grist in 2021 alleged that the American Bird Conservancy, a US$30-million non-profit, has been one of the most powerful environment-focused opponents to wind turbine projects across the country, having received around US$1 million from fossil fuel interests.
A request by Great Lakes Now for comment from the American Bird Conservancy was not received by the time of publication.
Wind turbines generate electricity near the shore of Lake Erie. But so far, none have been built on the water itself. Offshore wind has the potential to supply 100 per cent of Ontario’s electricity demand, according to Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. Photo: Matt McIntosh / The Narwhal
All the while, others believe the potential threat to wildlife can be mitigated.
“Some people are unaware that the National Audubon Society supports Great Lakes offshore wind power. The good news is that offshore wind can be done in a bird-friendly way,” said Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.
“We are recommending that the turbines should be turned off from dusk to dawn during the migratory bat seasons (late April and May and mid-July to the end of September) when wind speeds are less than seven metres per second, since bats fly more when wind speeds are low.”
Threats to wildlife aside, for Melissa Scanlan, director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Center for Water Policy, five leading factors have combined to stall progress in offshore wind:
- Jurisdictional fragmentation that prevents states and provinces from combining their efforts;
- Inadequate planning;
- Policy instability at the federal government level;
- Protracted litigation in the case of Ohio; and,
- A lack of sustained political will.
There are other challenges.
“There’s definitely misinformation that circulates about offshore wind,” she said.
“From the research we’ve done, we think you can address that through transparent, science-based planning processes,” said Scanlan. “Without doing a more rigorous science-based planning process, if there’s a vacuum of reliable information, that can allow misinformation to be circulated more freely.”
On top of that, there are reservations around the economic return of such projects. Estimates suggest the cost of offshore wind on the Great Lakes could range from 7.5 to 12.9 cents per kilowatt hour. That’s more than double the cost of onshore wind or utility-scale solar.
But while the costs of delivering offshore wind are not inconsiderable, experts such as Scanlan say there’s also both a dollar and environmental cost of continuing to deploy fossil fuels for electricity generation.
Moreover, interest groups have allegedly been at work to make such efforts difficult to bring to fruition.
The former proprietor of the Icebreaker Wind project, the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp., has claimed that corruption within Ohio’s energy regulatory body and state leaders’ close ties to energy giant FirstEnergy made the project unworkable, and has sued FirstEnergy for up to US$10 million. Restrictions that the project faced, including calling for turbines to be shut down at night for eight months of the year, essentially torpedoed the project.
What would facilitate off-shore wind?
Industry innovators say that an easing of regulations at the state level would make a huge difference to the emergence of offshore wind in the Great Lakes. Investment in the form of tax breaks from state governments, which handle the leases and permits for any offshore wind projects in the Great Lakes, are another way.
And while the cost of producing offshore wind is higher than its onshore equivalent, higher winds offshore combined with technological advances mean that energy production capacity from offshore could be up to 60 per cent more than onshore.
Scanlan of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Center for Water Policy is among the researchers who say offshore wind projects could play a significant role in meeting our rapidly growing energy needs.
“As a society, we need to develop energy resources that are not in conflict with protecting the environment,” she said.
“Offshore wind is no different from that.”
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Doting mates, coddling parents and a touch of tough love; the animal kingdom has a lot to teach us about rearing young.
As a wildlife photographer for 14 years, I’ve had the chance to see these parents in action, and feel the loss of young left to fend for themselves.
I’ve spied a Cooper’s hawk, watching closely as its parents hunt, so it can one day feed its own family. I’ve seen an eagle drop a fish into a river for an eaglet, when their own angling skills weren’t yet up to snuff.
Perhaps the most relatable scene was a worn out male fox, taking an afternoon nap in the grass, as his kits rough-housed nearby.
From the fields, rivers and skies of Ontario, here are some of my favourite family portraits.
As they mature, the eyes of Cooper’s hawks change colour from brown to orange to red. A pair has been hunting in the woods behind my apartment for the past few years, and last year they were joined by a hatchling.
The young Cooper’s hawk spends time watching the adults dart between tree branches to capture mourning doves, mice and even squirrels. This is a skill it will need to survive.
In the seven years I’ve been visiting the Nith River in Ayr, Ont., belted kingfishers have nested in a sandbank. When there are young in the nest, the adult male is busy delivering fish and crustaceans to them. Often he will perch on a nearby tree before deciding to enter the nest — a security precaution, to keep their location hidden from predators.
Two sandhill crane couples I know of return to their nesting areas south of Cambridge, Ont., each spring. Both pairs laid eggs in 2024. One pair’s nest was flooded and abandoned, but this other couple successfully raised a young one, called a colt. They forage close to the nest when the colt is young, but it will eventually be strong enough to fly with its parents.
Each December, sandhill cranes, both young and old, gather in fields along the shore of Lake Erie for migration, although some will remain in Ontario through the winter.
Deer families traditionally include a doe and her offspring from recent years, and they’ll sometimes join with others to form a larger herd. One winter, while wandering across a path, I had the feeling I was being watched. When I turned around I spotted this doe with two fawns.
Another mother and fawn approach the Grand River in Brantford, Ont., for a drink. I would often see them crossing the river here.
Peregrine falcons are the world’s fastest animal, using their roughly 300-kilometre-per-hour flight speed to capture birds much larger than themselves. A pair took up residence on the roofs of two churches in downtown Cambridge, Ont., in 2023 and 2024. They were attracted no doubt by an abundant supply of pigeons and gulls close by.
In the spring of 2024, the pair were joined by one of their offspring, seen on the left, which noisily chased the adults whenever they caught a pigeon. I noticed the adults didn’t like to share, but the young one would feed on scraps until her hunting skills were perfected.
Black bear cubs normally remain with their mothers for roughly a year and a half. This cub was foraging in the woods surrounding Killarney, Ont., with no siblings and no mother in sight. There was an extraordinarily high number of orphaned cubs that year and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources couldn’t possibly rescue all of them. A weight limit of 15 kilograms was set, with cubs believed to be below that number targeted for capture and care at a sanctuary. After sharing my photos with one of the ministry’s bear technicians, this one was deemed to be a healthy weight with the potential to survive the winter on its own. A few weeks later I was told by locals they had seen two cubs scavenging at the Killarney town dump. Hopefully, this one made it through the winter.
In spring, an adult female bald eagle lays her eggs in a nest constructed with moss, twigs and tree branches snapped from nearby trees. She spends up to 35 days on the eggs, only occasionally getting relief from her mate to stretch her wings — always in the vicinity of the nest. The adult male is the constant provider, delivering food to the nest. When the eggs hatch, his hunting activity is frantic, and the eaglets quickly grow.
From what I’ve seen, each year, one of the fledglings will remain dependent upon the adults for food, even after his or her siblings have left the territory to fend for themselves.
Adults will continue to feed this eaglet, dropping food in the vacated nest or on tree branches close to the nest. Once I watched the adult male drop an enormous northern pike into the river below a begging eaglet. It was an illustration of what good parents these eagles are.
A cow moose is a devoted mother and will care for her calf throughout most of its first year — but after that, tough love kicks in. This solitary calf photographed in May 2024 has, in all likelihood, been cast out by its mother so she can prepare to birth another calf.
Over a few weeks of observation, I saw this male great horned owl bring squirrels, birds and half-eaten rabbits back to feed both his mate and one owlet, which was hidden in the trees. The adult waited for me to back away before taking the meal to his offspring, likely to keep its location secret.
The young one was reliant upon its parents as it dared to only fly short distances between neighbouring trees.
Black-capped night herons fish along the edges of ponds and rivers. This adult night heron preferred hunting for small fish in the shadows along the Speed River, in Cambridge. Her two offspring have learned to hunt from their mother, but found it easier near a dam on the river where fish might gather.
Over time the young herons will lose their brown markings and eventually take on the appearance of an adult — white breast, black-capped head and wings.
While his mate was tucked away in a den giving birth and then caring for the tiny pups, the adult male coyote was the sole provider for his family.
Although I suspected the location of their den, near Paris, Ont., I kept my distance. After a couple of months of parental supervision, the three pups began venturing out and exploring the area.
As the pups grew in size, they also answered the calls of their parents to meet down by the Grand River.
Kestrels are the smallest member of the North American falcon family. Fully grown, they are about the size of a mourning dove. Over the month of April 2022, this adult female became used to me standing at the side of the road photographing her each evening as she hunted insects and mice.
I didn’t see her over the following months and realized she was probably nesting somewhere. When she did eventually return it was with three young ones, none of which were as bold as her. They kept their distance.
For much of 2020, a red fox could be seen hunting behind my apartment building. In the summer and fall, two kits turned up, often playing together. Feeding the growing kits was a lengthy and apparently tiring process for the adult male, who would regularly take a 20-minute afternoon nap in the grass undisturbed by the sound of my camera clicking away.
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A bird in the hand: meet the people preserving the scientific practice of bird banding
(thenarwhal.ca)
It’s a windy night and unusually warm for October, as visitors gather at the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory in Milford, Ont., for the “Starry Nights with Saw-whets” event. One barred owl was caught early in the evening, before any of the participants arrived, and is being kept in an owl carrier for closer observation later in the night. But now, word is getting around: it’s probably too warm to see any saw-whet owls, a disappointment to the attendees who have come to see them up-close and learn about nighttime migration monitoring. “South wind,” station manager Ashley Jensen mutters as she checks her phone for radar weather updates. It’s not the right kind of wind current for the migrating owls that are making their way from the north. 
Volunteers gather regularly at the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory in the Prince Edward Point National Wildlife Area in Milford, Ont., to band birds with numbered metal rings — a scientific technique used as a knowledge and conservation tool.
At the observatory, volunteers gather for bird banding, a scientific technique in which a small, uniquely numbered metal ring is attached to a bird’s leg to track movement, migration routes and lifespan. Jensen is the bander-in-chief, while another bander, Ketha Gillespie, has donned a felt owl suit for the public event. Other visitors are humming with excitement despite the unpromising weather.
Prepared with thermoses and blankets, they gather in front of the banding station as Mira Furgoch, the observatory’s vice-president, gives a presentation about the owls and the station’s conservation efforts using a television that will also show live footage of the birds being handled. That is, if any are found.
Visitors at the “Starry Nights with Saw-whets” event at the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory watch a presentation about the owls, hoping to spot one themselves as the evening progresses.
Bird-banding stations like Prince Edward Point collect data and conserve natural spaces that are invaluable habitats. They respond to factors affecting avian populations like disease, climate change, birth rates and more, while engaging the public in the natural world and promoting conservation. As of July 2025, the North American Bird Banding Program database includes 85 million banding records and 5.5 million encounters with banded birds. That includes both encounters reported by the public and recaptures reported by bird banders.
Unlike people, birds cross borders freely, and the program relies on migration data collected and shared by both Canada and the United States. But the stability of American bird-banding efforts is at risk. The 2026 U.S. federal budget proposes eliminating the Ecosystems Mission Area, the parent agency overseeing scientific bird-banding efforts.
Station manager Ashley Jensen holds a banded barred owl that was captured before the ”Starry Nights with Saw-whets” event at Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory in Milford, Ont. Because the barred owl is a predator, it was held in a carrier and released at a distance from the observatory.
Barred owls have larger legs than some other migratory birds banded at the observatory, so they take a specifically large and sturdy band.
The possibility of disruption to scientific efforts in Canada as a result of what’s happening in the United States is real, and it is causing anxiety among some Canadian banding stations. If there were to be a shutdown on the U.S. side, Matthew Fuirst from Birds Canada explains that it would affect the collection of data that promotes conservation efforts. “If there was no U.S. bird-banding program, Canada would lose a crucial part of North America’s migratory bird science. It would really hinder our data availability, past and future, for population estimates, habitat protection and hunting regulations,” Fuirst says.
Despite these looming threats, the mood among the group waiting for owls at the Prince Edward Point observatory is peaceful.
Engaging the public
Under the stars in Prince Edward Point, an audio lure designed to draw in saw-whet owls plays on repeat into the night. To everyone’s delight, one owl is caught before the event ends. A member of the public symbolically adopts the owl, makes a donation to the observatory and spends a few extra moments with it before it is released into the night.
Owl bander Gillespie, who also runs a youth ornithology program that introduces bird observation and banding to school-age children and teens, began her volunteer journey with a casual interest in birds. “I didn’t know a huge amount when I started here. I just came as a volunteer one day and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s so cool,’ and I saw birds I didn’t know.” From there, she started volunteering and “put my mind to learning.”
Station manager Ashley Jensen photographs details of a banded saw-whet owl in a dedicated photo area at the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory. The observatory’s Standardized Photography Lab uses a standard background and lighting as banders quickly take photos of birds in predefined positions to create “digital specimens.” Each photo is paired with a nine-digit band number.
From observing owls’ wings, banders can gain information about their plumage and molt patterns and determine the age and sex of a bird.
She also sees banding as a way to promote conservation, and to enrich the lives of people who live near the bird observatory but might not know about it. This reflects a public engagement challenge for observatories: their remote locations. In the Prince Edward observatory area of Ontario’s Prince Edward County, tourism and wineries play a big part in the local economy. Gillespie sees an opportunity to expose the migrant workers who labour in these industries to bird banding, giving labourers the chance to see new birds as well as birds they may already be familiar with from their home countries.
There have been changes to improve accessibility at the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory, including the addition of walking canes and foldable seats to accommodate mobility needs, and a taxidermied owl display offering a tactile way to interact with bird bodies for visitors who might have limited vision.
Most bird-banding observatories are in remote locations, making public engagement a challenge. But in places like Ontario’s Prince Edward County, which is a popular tourist destination, banders see an opportunity to engage the community in their efforts.
Some banders can recall a negative experience with the public, owing to an unfavourable perception of bird banding that is usually cleared up with education and an explanation of the process. Birds waiting in nets can look alarming to someone unfamiliar with banding, which is why net lanes at bird-banding stations are closed to the public. “They may try to remove or cut the birds from the net if they don’t understand what’s going on,” Jensen says, which adds an extra layer of stress for the bird.
“Once people know what you’re doing and get to see birds up close, or even get a chance to hold a bird and let it go, then they’re really usually pretty good with it.”
A day of banding
On a fall day at the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory in Lion’s Head, Ont., as a beaver swims across the bay, three bird banders take note of bird migration patterns from their temporary home in Wingfield Cottage.
It’s not easy to get here. The location is remote and currently not open to the public, only accessible by a closed unpaved road. But the cabin, perched on the water and surrounded by trees peppered with colourful autumn leaves, is the perfect pit stop for migrating birds, and the banders who stay on-site can expect to interact with a variety of species each season. This is just one of the stations that bring people together to monitor migrating birds in the fall and spring, deepening their knowledge of the natural world.
Volunteer Michaela Parks extracts a bird from a mist net at Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory in Lion’s Head, Ont. Birds will fly into the nets, where they are removed by volunteers and placed in small cloth bags to be processed.
The banders at Bruce Peninsula wake up before sunrise, put up the mist nets and wait for birds to fly into them. Weaving through well-trodden but narrow forest trails, they check to see if any birds have been caught before carefully extracting them, placing them in a small cloth bag and carrying the birds back to a small shed for processing.
During processing, the bird is identified and its data recorded: species, weight, wing-span, age and sex (where possible) and the date and location of capture. To determine the amount of fat the bird is carrying, banders blow lightly on its chest to separate the feathers for observation. Lastly, a metal band is attached to the bird’s leg before it’s released to continue its migration.
A volunteer extracts a golden-crowned kinglet from a net before taking it to be banded at the observatory.
Volunteer Annika Wilcox, who is a trained scientist, extracts a bird for banding at the Haldimand Bird Observatory in Dunnville, Ont.
In between net checks, banders cast a trained eye for birds. A small shuffle in a faraway bush might catch everyone’s attention: in moments, they’ve identified a bird that an untrained eye may not even see. “Junco.” “Hermit thrush.” They peer through binoculars.
The banders also take census on observation days: a walkthrough at the start and end of the day, slowly and attentively, identifying as many birds as they can.
Volunteer Catherine Lee-Zuck looks through binoculars to identify birds at the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory. Volunteers have managed to identify birds that untrained eyes may not see.
Bruce Peninsula’s bander-in-charge and station scientist, Stéphane Menu, has been doing this for nearly 20 years. His colleagues Michaela Parks and Catherine Lee-Zuck bring their own set of skills: Parks is also a photographer who donates her work to the organization, and Lee-Zuck is an ornithologist who has been banding for three years. They share the work of observing, documenting and banding birds during the fall migration season.
Menu describes the importance of the information being gathered: “We provide a lot of data that we think is very useful for not just general knowledge, but also for the government to make management decisions on the cheap.”
Bander-in-charge Stéphane Menu holds and weighs a blue jay during processing at the Bruce Peninsula observatory. Menu says the work banders do is useful not just for general knowledge, but to help inform government decisions, saving money in the process.
Much of the bird-banding labour is done by volunteers, who may receive a small daily food stipend like they do at the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory. In more remote areas, some locations offer accommodations, but banding stations in more urban areas allow for volunteers to come and go for their shifts. During my visit to Bruce Peninsula, locals come by the banding station to offer their help on a stonemasonry repair that needs to be done. It’s all in the spirit of collaboration.
Bird banders Michaela Parks, left, Stéphane Menu, centre, and Catherine Lee-Zuck, right, pose in the bird-banding shed at the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory in Lion’s Head, Ont. Though some volunteers will get involved with banding out of a passing interest, many are bird enthusiasts who want a closer look at the birds they love.
Reference books guide bird banders‘ work and are readily available at the volunteers’ cabin at the Bruce Peninsula observatory.
The banders’ cabin is full of bird reference books and sunlight. There’s a large stone fireplace in the living room, a big open kitchen where Menu makes pancakes between net checks, and a couple cozy rooms — including one with bunk beds — that give the place an atmosphere of bird summer camp. Parks shows me some of the nature photography she has made during her stay at the observatory. Later, Menu describes the wildlife: “We have black bears, we have rattlesnakes, we have beavers here on a daily basis. You can see otters. I feel very privileged to be here.”
Even though she’s sharing a space with her fellow banders, Lee-Zuck describes the period at the end of the banding day as her “me time.” Looking out over the bright blue bay in the sunshine, it makes sense.
Though volunteers at Bruce Peninsula share space with their fellow banders, it’s easy to sneak away for some quiet contemplation along the shore of Wingfield Basin.
“Birds don’t see borders”
Some Ontario station managers and banders are concerned about the political instability in the United States and its potential impact on cross-border collaborations. “It would be super unfortunate not to have that level of connection, getting band returns and sharing information back and forth with our American colleagues would be really unfortunate,” Jensen, the station manager at the Prince Edward Point observatory, says.
Matt Fuirst of Birds Canada explains what such a loss would mean. “If there was no U.S. bird-banding program,” he says, “Canada would lose a crucial part of North America’s migratory bird science.” It would hinder data availability, population estimates, habitat protection and hunting regulations. “It would kind of force Canada to determine a new system for regulating and tracking migratory bird data.”
A map shows banded bird recoveries dispersed over different countries in the Americas. As funding cuts threaten bird-banding programs in the United States, the loss of knowledge-sharing weighs on Canadian programs.
Unused bird bands and banding equipment on display at the Long Point Bird Observatory in Port Rowan, Ont.
“The Canadian Wildlife Service is committed to the bird-banding program in Canada,” Fuirst says, adding they plan to “continue operations as normal, continue bird banding, be maybe more conscious of reporting encounter data, or maintaining accurate band inventories.” The aim is to collectively stay on top of potential shortages of physical bands, which are manufactured in the U.S., while continuing data collection. He says the service has been “taking precautionary measures to ensure a mitigation plan.”
Canadian bird-banding programs are taking precautionary measures in case funding cuts do shut down U.S. programs and threaten data collection and sourcing of materials like bands.
At Bruce Peninsula, Menu says he tries not to think about losing the collaborative relationship between nations. “It’s not just bird banding, it’s a service that’s been done since the late ’60s. Sixty years of breeding-bird surveys gone, and it’s done by volunteers. The organization and the collection of the data and the analysis of data is done by a federal agency, but the running of it is by volunteers.”
Different places; same mission
Rick Ludkin, the co-founder of Haldimand Bird Observatory in southern Ontario, says birds are “telling us very clearly that our environment is declining in quality.”
Birds also show the impacts of good conservation practices, according to Ludkin. After soybean fields were replanted with prairie grass at Haldimand Bird Observatory, the number of birds banded increased from 90 to 450 birds in one year.
Ludkin says the observatory has been getting rid of buckthorn, “a terrible invasive plant,” and also thinning out the walnuts. “Both of those species inhibit the growth of native shrubs and trees, and the impact of that has been pretty astounding.”
Jason Smyrlis, who has one year of banding experience, camps at the observatory when weather permits as a way to cut down on travel time. With the early mornings associated with banding, that creative solution to no on-site accommodations makes plenty of sense, even when it requires a double sleeping bag and multiple layers. “The light levels at night are tremendously reduced. It truly is a fabulous place to spend time,” he says.
Grackles — small black birds native to North and South America — fly over the Haldimand Bird Observatory in Dunnville, Ont.
Different bird-banding stations have their own look and feel to them, but there are some common threads. For one, there’s the bander’s tools: the bands themselves sit on strings of wire before they’re attached to birds. Special rulers to measure the wing-spans sit on wooden desks; in some places these desks are doodled with highly accurate bird cartoons.
There are also scales to weigh the birds, and small cylinders that house the birds while they are weighed. Different stations get creative with these containers in their own ways. At one place, empty Pringles cans suggest a love for snacks that conveniently supports science. At others, there are empty tennis ball canisters. At another, an empty tube that once carried a whiskey bottle.
Volunteer and scientist Jason Smyrlis extracts a bird from mist netting at Haldimand Bird Observatory in Dunnville, Ont.
Different bird-banding stations get creative with the tools they use, but many of the common elements remain: stations use mist netting to catch birds, cloth bags to store them before processing and cylinders to house the birds while they are weighed.
What makes a volunteer?
To someone who isn’t familiar with the process, bird banding may seem almost like a secret club. “People that have been here will talk to other people about it,” Ludkin explains. “I kind of like the way we’re doing it, because you get people that really are interested and want to be here.”
To become a bander, the first important thing is the ability to identify birds by sight and sound. Volunteers can receive training to become banders but, says Jensen, “If they ever want to get to the point of being an independent bander, you have to be able to ID every single bird before you put the band on it. You cannot band a bird until you know what the species is.”
Bird banders must be able to identify birds by sight and sound; while volunteers can receive training, if they want to become independent banders, they must be able to identify any given bird before banding it.
A sparrow emerges out of the tube it’s kept in while weighed at the Haldimand Bird Observatory.
With some popular banding sites like Long Point receiving more volunteer applications for banders than there are positions, finding a place to volunteer can be competitive. According to Menu, “It’s competitive because there are not a ton of positions but there are also not a ton of people with the skills. And then not just the skills but the desire to do this kind of work.”
At Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Bird Research Station, located on Lake Ontario, volunteer positions are given by priority to those with a genuine passion for birds and those who intend to pursue a career in ornithology. Bander-in-charge Shane Abernethy says it’s important for volunteers to know how to handle animals, drawing comparisons to those with experience as vet techs or pet groomers. Even something seemingly random like playing a wind instrument, he says, can be a valuable asset at a banding station, as it can help with blowing on a bird’s chest to evaluate fat.
Haldimand Bird Observatory co-founder Rick Ludkin releases a banded bird from the plastic tube in which it was weighed in Dunnville, Ont.
Banding volunteers are often carefully selected for their passion and ability to handle animals. The programs can be competitive, with limited volunteer openings available.
There is also a lifestyle factor: you must be willing to work according to migration season hours, often in isolation and with no days off save for the occasional weather day. “If you’re gone for two months in the spring and almost the same or more in the fall, it’s not necessarily a life that works well with what you can call a normal lifestyle,” Menu says.
All volunteers follow bander’s ethics: guidelines set out by regulatory bodies such as the North American Banding Council that are meant to guide people through the best ways to handle and interact with birds while conducting research. The code prioritizes the well-being of birds and the standardization of data collection and accountability.
A volunteer holds a banded blackpoll warbler before its release at Long Point Bird Observatory in Port Rowan, Ont.
A banded golden-crowned kinglet is held in the “photographer’s grip” — photographic standards ensure the public image of bird banding promotes safety.
For stations that publish photos or share content on social media, photographic standards ensure the public image of bird banding promotes bird safety. “It’s admittedly very easy for the public to see a photo of a bird and think what we’re doing is bad. It happens more than you would realize,” explains Bird Canada’s Fuirst.
Birds and people are a double act
Thilini Samarakoon, a volunteer bander who just completed her third season, started out as a birder in Sri Lanka at the age of 13. Through a youth exploration society at school, she became very interested in birds and butterflies.
Now she lives in London, Ont., and with her husband who is also a bander, she travelled to the Long Point Bird Observatory in Port Rowan, Ont., Canada’s oldest birding station. There, they met another bander visiting from Peru, and used an online translator tool to communicate.
Birders must be willing to work with the migratory seasons, and often spend long periods of time in isolation. It’s a lifestyle choice for many.
There can be a special camaraderie among banders – after all, they spend time together hunkered down in some beautiful strips of nature, united by a common interest. Some return every year to these locations. Fuirst describes Long Point Bird Observatory as “a migration of people in addition to birds.”
At the Long Point Bird Observatory in Port Rowan, Ont., volunteer Sam Lewis holds a ruby-crowned kinglet.
“People from all across the country are spending their winter at home, and then spring comes, and the birds return. And the people also make this migration to a very specific spot. You know, this one trail that I love to walk every year. And it’s the same thing as what the birds are doing,” Fuirst says.
The interconnectedness of the birds and their environments is hard to ignore. Banders, whether they be volunteers or trained scientists, share stories about a love of nature and passion for wildlife that spans many years, often starting in childhood. It’s a deep passion for many, and one that quite literally moves people across borders.
For many bird banders, a love of nature and a passion for wildlife and birds began in childhood. It’s what motivates them to do the challenging and sometimes uncertain work.
Faced with uncertainty about what the future of scientific collaboration may look like with the United States, the day-to-day reality of bird banding in Ontario bird observatories is quite normal. The NatureCounts database, which is an open data platform by Birds Canada that collects, interprets and shares biodiversity data, is running as usual. Volunteers, who have always been willing to give their time and expertise in exchange for some closeness with birds and time in beautiful natural settings, are still motivated to contribute their skills.
Birds migrate. People migrate, too. Scientists and bird enthusiasts travel, sometimes internationally, to visit banding stations during migration seasons in order to earn banding experience, deepen their knowledge, receive training, get credentials, complete university studies, conduct research, make friends.
“For me, I like birds but I also like migration. Birds connect the world,” Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory’s Menu says. “They don’t really see borders.”
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