The Ford government buried 20 pages of sweeping changes to Ontario’s Endangered Species Act in Thursday’s omnibus housing bill, amendments that wildlife experts say would gut protections for the province’s at-risk animals and plants.

Bill 108, the “More Homes, More Choice Act,” would weaken classification criteria, allow the environment minister to delay protections for up to three years, and provide developers, industry and others who impact the habitat of endangered species with a suite of options to continue their activities, including a fee-in-lieu fund derided by critics as “pay to slay.”

“It really is a doomsday scenario for endangered species in this province,” said Kelsey Scarfone, program manager at Environmental Defence Canada.

“It’s basically been whittled down to nothing. They might as well have just cancelled it,” she said.

Lindsay Davidson, a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, said Ontario is committed to ensuring “best-in-class” protections for endangered and threatened species.

“The proposed changes … will enhance government oversight and enforcement powers to ensure compliance with the act and improve transparent notification of new species’ listings,” Davidson said in an email.

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In January, the ministry launched a review of the 12-year-old act, which protects endangered Ontario species such as boreal caribou, barn owls and wood turtles. In April, after consultations, Environment Minister Rod Phillips announced a suite of proposed changes, including a new fund that would allow developers, municipalities and others to pay fees rather than carry out activities that directly benefit species. The changes met with immediate uproar from Ontario’s conservation community.

Bill 108, if passed into law, would officially establish that fund and create a new agency to administer it. It would provide funding for activities that are “reasonably likely” to protect or recover a species, or “support” protection and recovery.

“It really is very deferential to exactly those threats that are affecting species at risk today,” said Justina Ray, president and senior scientist of Wildlife Conservation Society Canada. “I’m very concerned that at the end of the day, we kind of have an empty shell of an act.”

Other critics said there is no connection between species that are being impacted and where the fund-supported activity would be directed, and no mention of monitoring or oversight.

Ministry spokesperson Davidson said “a board-governed provincial agency would make informed, unbiased and expert decisions on how to best employ the funds to support strategic, co-ordinated and large-scale actions that assist in protection and recovery for species at risk,” and added that applicants would still have to seek a permit, consider alternatives to their activities, and take steps to minimize adverse effects.

Wildlife biologists and conservation policy experts were most alarmed by a provision that requires the committee of scientists that recommends species-at-risk listings to the ministry to look beyond Ontario’s borders at how the species is faring elsewhere. If considering the condition of the species outside Ontario would result in a lower level of concern — for example, a “special concern” designation rather than “endangered” — the committee must use the lower classification.

Critics called the change “scary” and “irresponsible” and warned that if passed into law, the amendment could result in the delisting of many of Ontario’s endangered species.

A disproportionate number of the province’s endangered species persist in the narrow band of Carolinian forest that covers southern Ontario. It is the northern tip of an ecosystem that stretches south into the U.S., and some species that are struggling in Ontario are faring better in the southern reaches of their geographic ranges.

Scientists say animals and plants at the edge of their geographic ranges often carry special adaptations that are particularly important for long-term survival of the species as climate change rapidly alters ecosystems. It is particularly important to conserve habitat along the northern edges of species ranges as they increasingly shift to cooler latitudes to escape warming, they say.

Lastly, the planet is in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, with skyrocketing extinction rates. Endangered species’ habitats need to be conserved everywhere, experts say — we can’t shirk our responsibility, or rely on other jurisdictions.

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“Nature and biodiversity around the world is declining at an unprecedented rate, so now is not the time to be weakening our legislation,” said Emily Giles, senior specialist for species conservation at WWF-Canada.

Davidson, the ministry spokesperson, said “species assessment and classification decisions will continue to be made by an independent scientific committee.”

Bill 108 would also allow the minister to suspend protections for newly listed species for up to three years if certain conditions are met, and to send listing recommendations back to the independent scientific panel for reconsideration with no set timelines for delivery of a second opinion.

“There’s very little left that actually protects species,” said Scarfone.