It took an amendment to the original motion, and time running out to come up with a compromise where North Bay City Council agreed to add all public presentations, written and video, to its submission to the province commenting on “10th Year Review of Ontario’s Endangered Species Act.”
During weeks of presentations to council and a separate public consultation process, one thing was made abundantly clear, the public wanted its voice to be heard and for their comments to be part of the report prepared by city staff.
A motion to do just that was put forward by City Councillor Johanne Brousseau, with the deadline for submissions to the province just days away.
“We’ve had three regular council meetings where we’ve had passionate people do presentations on the endangered species. There is a video of those presentations, and one from a citizen from the public consultation meeting February 13. So those, and any written comments that were given to the city at any time are to be attached to our report,” said Brousseau.
“In retrospect, all those citizens that wrote comments could have personally sent them to Toronto on their own. This way they’ll all be attached together and it is all from North Bay.”
Lena Ross was one of a number of presenters Monday night, asking elected officials to append all of the public consultation documents to the report prepared by staff.
“My hope is that this will help more accurately reflect where the people of North Bay stand in terms of the 10th year review of the Endangered Species Act,” said Ross.
“I’m very glad Councillor Brousseau made the amendment. The report in general, I’m not entirely satisfied with the overall process, but I’m very thankful to her for attaching that amendment.”
Yan Roberts has been very vocal about his concerns over proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act, as well as to Provincially Significant Wetlands.
He presented to council one last time before councillors voted unanimously to send the report to the province.
“It is great that council is going to include the public’s comments, it is unfortunate that it had to be asked with so much effort tonight. It should have just been included as promised. Ultimately this is coming down to them deciding that timeline is more important than being careful and cautious about what we’re actually saying. Timelines are important to meet, but extinction lasts forever,” said Roberts.
City Councillor Mark King filed a motion of reconsideration on the two original motions voted on by council dealing with the Endangered Species Act, and the Provincially Significant Wetlands.
“Often those motions of reconsideration don’t work, but at least it gives time for thought. And in this case, they really did a complete change of the overall thought process of council, that happened over a four week period,” said King.
“I think we really shouldn’t even have gone down this road, but we did and we were into it and we had to finish it. So, I think it is reasonably well done.”
Councillor Mac Bain said the unanimous vote by council allows the report to be sent to the province inside the 45 day window set aside for the consultation process.
“I believe that we are one of the municipalities that did the most work in regard to stakeholder consultation and connection with our community. The package we’re sending doesn’t just tell the province our story, it also tells the story of those engaged in the processes and sharing passionately what they thought we should be doing moving forward,” said Bain.
“In the past 10 years where the habitat has been moved, it was done scientifically, and it was done without any negative impact to the species. That’s the landscape of what we are in today. We weren’t asking for anything special, other than we wanted just one process. We don’t want a developer to have to deal with something with the official plan and the species at risk. Let’s have one process that protects the environment and there is less cost impact to the developer, especially in Northern Ontario, where we don’t have thousands of homes being built every year.”
It has been suggested that if things are to move ahead more efficiently, they need to be streamlined.
“There’s a planning act that has been around forever, and then 10 years ago they did the Endangered Species Act, but they never talked to the people who enforce the Planning Act, so they don’t mesh,” said Councillor Brousseau.
“The people that plan municipalities, would like to have the Endangered Species Act meshed with the Planning Act so everything is done at the same time. And also, in a faster timeframe because sometimes the MNRF is slow at doing their thing and the development stays idle for months. And that costs the developers.”
Councillor Chris Mayne is looking forward to seeing the province’s final report.
“If there was any doubt to how much value people put on the endangered species, I think that has been made very clear. Although we seek a balance in terms of trying to clarify with the province what are the rules around development and the planning process of endangered species areas, that’s all the city is trying to do. We’re not trying to avoid or overturn or negate the Endangered Species Act, it is clarifying what are the planning rules around it,” said Mayne.
“The one side of it that I did not support is the encroachment on provincially significant wetlands in the area. Primarily anywhere from Laurier Woods down to Parks Creek to Gauthier Marsh. Those areas are specifically recognized as wetland habitat, and I hope those will be recognized and protected in the future as well.”
