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“With each passing year, the extent of this failure becomes more clear — the ministry has reduced what should have been a robust system for protecting species at risk to what is largely a paper exercise,” her report says. “The MNRF is failing to not just protect species at risk as intended under the law, but also to lead effective recovery programs. In the best case, the MNRF has created a system that leaves itself with a minimal role to play; in the worse case, it has a created a system designed to fail.”

Photo by Hugh Wesley/Postmedia News

We’ve got two major problems, in Saxe’s view, both dating to 2013 when the province simplified approvals.

First, we stopped requiring tailored permits for each case of species-bothering, in favour of a system of “permit-by-rule.” Instead of laying out your case to the natural-resources ministry and negotiating the details, in most instances you can just register your plans and go ahead. We went from about 175 comparatively detailed permits issued in 2011, the busiest year under the old system, to more than 600 registrations in 2015. Nearly half of them now are for infrastructure work of some kind — roads and bridges, power lines, water systems.

It might be, Saxe allows, that before the 2013 changeover, a lot of construction work harmed species on the sly. But rubber-stamping damage instead of being unaware of it is not a great improvement.

The ministry eyeballs these registrations in a database but doesn’t send anybody out to check. Only ministry enforcement officers, a small subset of its workers, have the necessary authority under the Endangered Species Act, Saxe reports. Their branch “does not have any inspection targets or protocols” in this field.