Statement By Phil Pothen, Counsel and Ontario Environment Program Manager

Toronto | Traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat – Ontario’s government MPPs have forced passage of its unpopular plan to strip Provincial Park status and safeguards from the critical endangered species’ habitat on the celebrated Wasaga Beach shoreline. Removing Provincial Park protection is the first step of the government’s plan to sell off this habitat along with other parts of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park totalling 60% of its celebrated beachfront land. The selloff plan is intensely unpopular: Environmental Defence has been copied on more than 15,000 constituent letters to government MPPs demanding that they block it. However, the government deterred the kind of caucus revolt that forced it to reverse its giveaway of Greenbelt lands by burying the removal in a “budget measures” bill – so that any MPP who spoke out about the bill would be vulnerable to punishment for disloyalty to the party.

Environmental Defence is calling upon Canada’s federal government to order emergency Species at Risk Act protection for all those portions of Wasaga Beach that are used by Piping Plover. Thanks to the protection and support of the Provincial Park and its staff, these areas are by far the best remaining habitat for the fragile Great Lakes population of Piping Plover, which is recognized under Canada’s Species at Risk Act as an endangered shorebird species. The removal of this habitat from the park makes it much more vulnerable to destruction. Piping Plover habitat could be destroyed, particularly through the planned operation of destructive grooming machines by the town and through the removal of driftwood and other natural cover on the pretext of “cleaning up” the beach.

ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.

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For more information or to request an interview, please contact:

Karishma Porwal, media@environmentaldefence.ca