In December 2024, the Environmental Law Centre published our report An Endangered Species Act for Alberta: A Draft Bill for Species at Risk Protection in the Province which set out recommendations to establish dedicated Alberta’s species at risk legislation in Alberta. Primarily, our model legislation focused on increased protections for critical habitat of species at risk and a fulsome program to ensure that any legal protections are adequately funded and enforced. Since then, we have been paying close attention to the treatment of species at risk law across the country.
Both Alberta and Ontario recently released changes to their respective species at risk laws. Unfortunately, neither province moved in the direction set out in our Model Endangered Species Act. Instead, these changes will result in diminished protections for species at risk and wildlife in both provinces. Below we will briefly highlight some of the main changes and what we should be watching for as these changes are implemented and have impacts on species at risk.
As background to these updates, we thought it was important to highlight some of the main recommendations stemming from our model Endangered Species Act to act as a measuring stick with which to better understand the impact of these amendments.
Recommendations for a model Endangered Species Act:
| Include a clear and expansive definition of critical habitat and make sure that full protection of these areas is established; |
| Make decisions according to the precautionary principle; |
| Establish substantial opportunities for Indigenous community participation, decision-making, and collaboration; |
| Establish an Endangered Species Conservation Committee to identify species at risk based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List and using both Indigenous knowledge and Western scientific knowledge; |
| Ensure adequate funding for programs throughout the Act; |
| Create the opportunity for Habitat Recovery Teams who can work on multiple recovery strategies at once to focus on ecosystem protection and recovery; |
| Make sure that requirements for a recovery strategy are clear, enforceable, and follow a strict timeline; |
| Regularly review programs established under the Act and ensure that reporting is timely and transparent; |
| Enact prohibitions against harm to a species at risk automatically after a listing has occurred; |
| Ensure limits on permitting options to prevent a degradation of protections under the Act; and |
| Provide for enforcement methods throughout. |
To read the full report you can find it here.
Key Amendments under Alberta’s Bill 41
Alberta’s species at risk are managed primarily through the Wildlife Act which has its roots in British hunting legislation.[1] In fact, it was only updated to include limited species at risk protections as part of the requirements of the 1996 Accord for the Protection of Species at Risk wherein Canada committed to enact legislation to protect endangered species on its territory.[2] Once Alberta signed this accord, the province committed to work collaboratively with other provinces and territories, as well as the federal government, to develop laws and regulations to protect species at risk and their habitat. Rather than create a standalone endangered species law, Alberta chose to amend its existing hunting legislation, the Wildlife Act, to meet the bare minimums required from the Accord.[3] This continues to this day with limited species-at-risk protections in the province.
The Wildlife Act does provide some protection for the nest, house or den of an individual listed as an endangered species.[4] It also enables the creation of recovery plans for endangered species which are designed to help increase a species’ population. However, recovery plans are not required to identify critical habitat[5] nor does the Wildlife Act provide any focus on critical habitat, which is a major part of our Model ESA. Rather, the Wildlife Act includes a significant number of provisions focused on hunting and Bill 41, passed in Spring 2025 continues in this vein.
Bill 41 proposes a list of more technical changes to Alberta’s Wildlife Act. These are primarily concerned with details related to hunting and how hunting can be done in the province. Specifically, Bill 41:
- Expands options for minors to hunt without supervision so long as they are authorized to possess the firearm being used;[6]
- Removes requirements for proper clothing, including hi-vis vests, while hunting;[7]
- Expands the use of dogs for hunting. This includes the use of leashed dogs to track wounded animals;[8]
- Removes wheelchairs from the category of ‘vehicle’ under the Act and allows hunting from a wheelchair;[9]
- Enables hunting from a boat so long as it is not in motion;[10]
- Allows new technologies such as lasers to aid in hunting;[11] and
- Allows for bears and mountain lions to be hunted for food and for parts of the animal to be discarded.[12]
While on their face these changes are minimal, they expand the hunting opportunities present in the Wildlife Act. Nothing is done to expand habitat or protections needed for species at risk.
Changes like those being made to the Wildlife Act by Bill 41 may not have significant impacts on the critical habitat of species at risk but they do signal the province’s priorities regarding species at risk and wildlife more generally. Further, they do nothing to move towards the habitat and species-focused legislation recommended in our Model Endangered Species Act.
Bill 41 received royal assent on May 15, 2025.
Key Amendments under Ontario’s Bill 5
Ontario was once lauded as having one of the best provincial endangered species legislations in the country.[13] However, proposed changes will significantly lower its protective potential. While this provincial law does not have any bearing to Albertan species at risk, the decrease in protections has an impact on wildlife across the country. As the ELC argued in our report Threatened Jurisdiction: Species at Risk and the Constitution, the best protection for species at risk is a harmonized approach that ensures both provincial and federal laws are designed to enhance protection for species at risk and their critical habitat across the country.
Changes to Ontario’s endangered species law are set out in the omnibus Bill 5 which proposes substantial changes requiring a full overhaul of the endangered species legislation in the province. Bill 5 received royal assent on June 5th, 2025, despite significant opposition. Below we highlight a few key changes that will have substantial negative impacts on species at risk in Ontario.
You can also read a detailed response to the Bill from the Canadian Environmental Law Association here.
Bill 5 makes changes to several pieces of Ontario legislation, but we will focus on those that will have increased impacts on species at risk.
- Schedule 9enacts the Special Economic Zones Act, 2015 which creates new areas which will be exempt from certain laws and regulations.
- Schedule 2 sets out major amendments to the Endangered Species Act, 2007, which will ultimately be replaced with the Species Conservation Act, 2025 (as per Schedule 10 of Bill 5).
Given the similarities between the proposed amendments to the Endangered Species Act, 2007 and the new Species Conservation Act, 2025, we will review them together.[14]
Schedule 9: Special Economic Zones Act, 2025
The Special Economic Zones Act, 2025 creates legal designations known as special economic zones, trusted proponents, and designated projects.[15] Special economic zones are areas where requirements under other Acts (including the Endangered Species Act), regulations or other instruments under an Act may not apply or may apply in a different way. Further, once designated, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may exempt a trusted proponent or a designated project from requirements under provisions of an Act or a regulation or similar instrument. This means that projects in a special economic zone may not be subject to protective provisions set out in other pieces of legislation including species at risk legislation. This Act would also enable the Lieutenant Governor in Council to pass regulations modifying the applications of provisions of an Act or regulation to trusted proponents and designated projects in special economic zones.[16] These are significant expansions of power that seem to disregard the regular process required for legislative change including full debate and notice to the public.
While we are not delving into them, we must note that there are also significant issues regarding the duty to consult with Indigenous communities and other infringements upon Indigenous and treaty rights in this part of the Bill.[17] Pushback from Indigenous communities has already occurred and it remains to be seen how Ontario will respond, although some limited amendments have been proposed.[18]
Schedules 2 and 10: Endangered Species Act, 2007 & Species Conservation Act, 2025
Changes to the Endangered Species Act, 2007 and the eventual enactment of the Species Conservation Act, 2025 will make several significant changes to species at risk protections in Ontario. We highlight some of the key changes below.
- Definition of Habitat
- Bill 5 creates a new definition for ‘habitat’. Specifically, these sections limit the definition of habitat to the dwelling-place of a species for the purposes of breeding, rearing, staging, wintering, or hibernating and the area immediately around a dwelling place.[19] This is a significant narrowing of the definition of habitat which will severely impair protections needed for the full life cycle of species at risk.
- Purposes Section
- The purposes section is amended to include a focus on “social and economic considerations, including the need for sustainable economic growth in Ontario.”[20] This moves away from a conservation focus and provides more opportunity for socioeconomic factors to influence outcomes.
- Further, in the proposed Species Conservation Act, 2025 the purposes section only states that the Act is intended to ‘identify’ species at risk and provides no mention of recovery or habitat protection.[21]
- COSSARO Appointments
- Members of the Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario (“COSSARO”) shall be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council upon recommendation of the Minister and the Lieutenant Governor in Council shall designate a chair and vice-chair from among the members.[22]
- Species Listings and Regulations
- The Lieutenant Governor in Council may list species classified as at risk by the COSSARO in regulation but is not required to do so and, importantly, the regulation can differ from the COSSARO’s recommendations.[23] This is a change as listing previously occurred automatically after a COSSARO recommendation was issued. Overall, this severely restricts any opportunity for protections because the COSSARO recommendations do not have legal authority.
- Elimination of Recovery Strategies
- Bill 5 proposes the removal of sections 11-16.1 of the Endangered Species Act, 2007 which are the sections that deal with recovery strategies, management plans, and other reports on the progress of species at risk recovery. As the Canadian Environmental Law Association points out “listing an at-risk species under the amended ESA but committing to no governmental action to bring the species back from the brink is tantamount to admitting a critically ill patient to a hospital but administering no health care to ensure the patient’s recovery.”[24]
- Permits for Activities Affecting Species at Risk
- More open permitting procedure including limits on conditions that may be included in a permit approval and the removal of certain restrictions on the Minister’s ability to issue these permits.[25]
- Changes to the definition of ‘harm’
- In the amendments to the Endangered Species Act, 2007, Bill 5 removes the word ‘harass’ from the section prohibiting types of harm to species at risk.[26] This removes an entire category of actions that, while not causing direct ‘harm’, may still have negative impacts on the species in question.
- Similarly, in the proposed Species Conservation Act, 2025, the entire section 9 prohibition from the original Act is removed. This was the section which provides that no person shall “kill, harm, harass, capture or take a living member of a species”. The Bill also removes the section 10 prohibition on damage or destruction of habitat of a species at risk. Instead, the Bill proposes a section that no person shall engage in an activity that may result in a species no longer living in Ontario and that restricts activities unless otherwise permitted.[27] These are both much more limited restrictions on impacts to species at risk.
What would we like to see moving forward?
While both Bills are relatively new, it is likely that they will have negative impacts on wildlife and species at risk – particularly in Ontario.
In Alberta, the focus should be on the creation of a standalone endangered species law like our Model Endangered Species Act. While expansions to hunting may have negative impacts on species in the province, there are far more risks to species populations due to habitat destruction, pollution, and the impacts of climate change – none of which are dealt with in a fulsome way under the Wildlife Act.
On the other hand, Ontario has moved backwards in its species protections. The decision to repeal the Endangered Species Conservation Act, 2007 and replace it with the Species Conservation Act, 2025 will have lasting and dramatic impacts on species in Ontario. Instead, we should reinstate the protections included in the original 2007 Act and focus once again on critical habitat protection, automatic listing procedures, and strong recovery plans. Unfortunately, these changes are moving us in the opposite direction.
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[1] Rebecca Kauffman, Habitat Law in Alberta Volume 1: The State of Habitat Laws in Alberta (Oct 2019) Environmental Law Centre at 6 online: https://elc.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Habitat-Law-in-Alberta-VOLUME-1-The-State-of-Habitat-Laws-in-Alberta-1.pdf [Habitat Law in Alberta Volume 1].
[2] Habitat Law in Alberta Volume 1 at 12.
[3] Habitat Law in Alberta Volume 1 at 12.
[4] Wildlife Act, RSA 2000, c W-10, s 36(1) [Wildlife Act].
[5] Wildlife Act, ss 6(1) & (3).
[6] Bill 41, Wildlife Amendment Act, 1st Sess, 31st Leg, Alberta, 2025, s 7 (assented to 15 May 2025) [Bill 41].
[7] Bill 41, s 9.
[8] Bill 41, s 12.
[9] Bill 41, s 2(d).
[10] Bil 41, s 8.
[11] Bill 41, s 24.
[12] Bill 41, s 11.
[13] Kyra Leuschen, Habitat Law in Alberta Volume 3: Jurisdictional Review of Habitat Laws (Oct 2019) Environmental Law Centre at 7 online: https://elc.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Habitat-Law-in-Alberta-VOLUME-3-Jurisdictional-Review-of-Habitat-Laws-1.pdf.
[14] Note that the Canadian Environmental Law Association has provided a substantive overview of these changes in “Submissions of the Canadian Environmental Law Association on Bill 5 Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025” (May 2025) and describes some of the more detailed differences between these two options at page 37 [CELA Report].
[15] Bill 5, Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025, 1st Sess, 44th Leg, Ontario, 2025, Sched 9, ss 2-4 [Bill 5].
[16] Bill 5, Sched 9, s 6.
[17] Fatima Syed, “Broken trust and Bill 5: First Nations rally against Doug Ford’s controversial mining bill” (2 June 2025) The Narwhal online: https://thenarwhal.ca/ontario-bill-5-indigenous-backlash/ [Fatima Syed].
[18] Fatima Syed.
[19] Bill 5, Sched 2, s 1(3) & Sched 10, s 2.
[20] Bill 5, Sched 2, s 1(2) & Sched 10, s 1(b).
[21] Bill 5, Sched 10, s 1.
[22] Bill 5, Sched 2, s 4 & Sched 10, s 9.
[23] Bill 5, Sched 2, s 8 & Sched 10, s 10.
[24] CELA Report at 14.
[25] Bil 5, Sched 2, s 15 & Sched 10, s 21.
[26] Bill 5, Sched 2, s 12.
[27] The CELA report clearly points out that this seems to only suggest limitations on activities that would result in the extirpation of a species, at pg 42.