Ontario’s 2026 Budget, A Plan to Protect Ontario, arrives with familiar promises of economic resilience and infrastructure growth. But beneath the surface, a persistent gap remains: meaningful investments in nature. Similar to last year’s budget, the province continues to ignore the importance of biodiversity and nature to economic resilience, community well-being and Ontario’s long-term prosperity.

Recommendations Still Being Ignored

In 2025, Ontario Nature raised concerns that the provincial budget put nature at risk by prioritizing development while weakening environmental protections. These concerns were echoed and expanded in January 2026, when Ontario Nature and 64 partner organizations called on the province to increase investments in conservation.

The unified message was clear: protecting and restoring nature is not a barrier to economic growth but is a foundation for it. Yet the 2026 budget does not meaningfully respond to these recommendations. Our recommendations presented a clear path forward – strategic investments in nature can strengthen our economy, protect communities and reduce long-term costs.

Investing in Protected Areas Creates Jobs and Boosts the Economy

Ontario remains well behind the pace required to meet the national goal of protecting 30 percent of lands and water by 2030. With just over 11 percent currently protected, the province risks falling further behind without a significant redirection in its course. A clear solution remains unprioritized: investing in protected areas is not only an environmental imperative, but an economic strategy. A coordinated annual investment of $60 million to expand Ontario’s protected areas network, particularly on Crown land, would help close this gap and support regional land use planning to protect high biodiversity and cultural value areas from industrial development.

Expanding protected area networks invests in nature-based recreation job opportunities, boosting our economy alongside protecting valuable areas. Across Canada, nature-based recreation creates over one million jobs and generates $101.6 billion in economic activity annually, not including the many additional ecosystem services that nature provides such as absorbing carbon, offsetting flood risks and improving air quality.

Wetlands: Ontario’s Built in Flood Protection

Conserving and restoring wetlands is a direct investment in public safety and affordability. Natural wetlands reduce flood damage, lower infrastructure costs and reduce costs to taxpayers. A University of Waterloo study found that maintaining wetlands can reduce flood damages by 38 percent, while other research shows that benefits of wetland protection can far exceed costs, with benefit-cost ratios reaching as high as 35:1.

Despite these benefits, the 2026 budget does not significantly expand investments in wetland conservation, leaving communities exposed to rising costs.

Nature Pays Us Back

Public support is not the barrier either. Ontarians overwhelmingly back increased conservation efforts and recognize their benefits for climate resilience, health and the economy.

Ontario’s 2026 budget speaks the language of resilience and protecting Ontario, but it fails to invest in the natural systems that make resilience possible. It seems that most Ontarians are not convinced the government is “protecting Ontario” based on recent polling. Until this changes, the province will continue to take on higher costs, greater risks and missed opportunities.

Take Action

While provinces across Canada begin implementing meaningful conservation plans, Ontario is falling behind. Rather than weakening environmental protections and shifting the costs of conservation onto communities, the provincial government must commit to sustained, long-term investments in nature.

Protecting nature protects all of us. Stay informed, contact your MPP, and demand better protections for Ontario’s lands and waters. You can also take action today by signing one of Ontario Nature’s Action Alerts.

Since 2018, Ontario’s nature protections have been repeatedly weakened. While a few stories such as the ongoing changes to Conservation Authorities or the Greenbelt scandal made headlines, dozens of major changes have flown under the radar, buried deep inside massive government bills. It has been a lot to track, even for us.

Today, Ontario Nature is releasing a comprehensive new resource: Tracked Changes: The Decline of Ontario’s Legal Protections for Nature since 2018. We tracked every single piece of legislation that weakened legal protections for nature and biodiversity from the first term of the current provincial government to today. We broke it all down in plain language, cutting through the legislative jargon to reveal exactly how our environmental laws have been rewritten.

What We Found: A Disturbing Pattern

Our review, detailed in the full report, catalogs the changes made bill-by-bill and schedule-by-schedule. Over the past seven years, key environmental laws, built over decades, have been systematically dismantled.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been a primary target. Changes began with Bill 108 in 2019, which created a “Species at Risk Conservation Fund.” Critics called this a ‘pay-to-slay’ scheme, allowing proponents to pay a fee instead of being legally required to provide an “overall benefit” to the species they are harming. This process culminated in 2025 with Bill 5, which fundamentally rewrote the ESA to prioritize economic considerations over science-based recovery and even created a new law, the Species Conservation Act, to eventually replace it entirely.

Conservation Authorities (CAs), our frontline defenders against flooding and protectors of wetlands, have been substantially weakened. Bill 229 in 2020 forced CAs to issue permits for developments authorized by a Minister’s Zoning Order, even if those projects would be denied under their own standards for flood protection. The Auditor General criticized this move for shifting environmental decision-making from qualified professionals to political processes.

Public oversight and democratic accountability have been sidelined at every turn. The independent Environmental Commissioner of Ontario was eliminated in 2018 through Bill 57. The government has repeatedly circumvented the Environmental Bill of Rights, sometimes passing legislation before public comment periods on those very proposals have even closed, as happened with Bill 150 in 2023.

The Strategy: Buried in Omnibus Bills

Few of these changes got the headlines they deserved. Nearly all of them were buried inside massive omnibus bills. These are bills that bundle dozens of changes into a single piece of legislation.

For example, Bill 5, the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025, was a single bill that:

• Repeals the Endangered Species Act.
• Cancelled environmental agreements for the Eagle’s Nest mine project and exempted the Chatham-Kent waste site from certain approvals. 
• Centralized mining authority in the Minister, enabling fast-tracked permits. 
• Removed public consultation rights for permits related to the Ontario Place redevelopment. 
• Established Special Economic Zones where selected projects can be exempted from provincial and local laws, including environmental protections. 

This strategy of putting so much into a single bill ensures that major changes to environmental protections pass into law with little media coverage or public awareness. Our new resource cuts through this volume, separating each schedule so you can see exactly what changed and how.

Why This Resource Matters

These changes didn’t happen all at once, and taken together, they systematically dismantle many of Ontario’s most significant legal environmental protections.

This report is designed as a tool for advocates, journalists, and anyone who wants to understand what has happened to nature protections in Ontario over three terms of the current government. We hope this will make it easier for people to see the full picture and understand not only what laws have changed, but how these changes have circumvented democratic transparency.

You can read the full report here.

Wasaga Beach Provincial Park is one of Ontario’s most beloved natural places and provides habitat for endangered piping plovers. Stretching 14 kilometres along the Georgian Bay shoreline, it attracts more than one million visitors annually. Wasaga Beach is the most visited provincial park in the province. Beyond the crowds, the park protects dune ecosystems and habitats that are vital to other at-risk species like the eastern hognose snake, Hill’s thistle and the monarch butterfly.

Now, the Government of Ontario has removed provincial park protections from a significant portion of the beach and intends to transfer the lands to the Town of Wasaga Beach. This would weaken long-standing protections for these fragile habitats, and the piping plovers that depend on them.

The Plan: Develop Lands for Tourism

The news came in May 2025, when the Government of Ontario announced the transferring of lands to the Town of Wasaga Beach to develop the waterfront for tourism.

In June, the government posted a proposal on the Environmental Registry (ERO #025-0694) to amend the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act. The proposal would remove several parcels of land from Wasaga Beach Provincial Park (roughly 60 hectares). Four of the park’s eight beach areas, including Areas 1 and 2, New Wasaga Beach and Allenwood Beach are included in the transfer. These areas are the most important piping plover habitat at Wasaga Beach.

At the end of November, the Government of Ontario passed Bill 68, Plan to Protect Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2025 (No.2), which included a schedule removing these lands from regulation under the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act.

Public response to the proposal was overwhelmingly opposed, with approximately 98 percent of comments objecting to the removal of beach areas from the park. Key concerns focused on potential environmental impacts, legal and governance issues, and implications for public access and equity.

Despite this feedback, no changes were made to the proposal, citing the Town of Wasaga Beach’s commitments to maintaining public access, and avoiding development on the beach. Lands removed from the park will remain subject to Ontario’s environmental protection laws.

While the province has stated the beaches will remain public, what remains unclear is how these lands and their ecological integrity would be managed once they are no longer under provincial park legislation. These changes come at the hills of over 100 species losing protection under the province’s new Species Conservation Act.

Piping Plovers Could Lose Critical Protections

The changes to both land ownership and species at risk laws significantly heighten the endangerment to piping plovers at Wasaga Beach.

Piping plovers are small shorebirds that nest directly on open sand, making them especially vulnerable to disturbance. In Ontario, they are listed as endangered under federal law, and Wasaga Beach has played a critical role in their population recovery. Successful nesting depends on a healthy dune ecosystem, undisturbed beaches, and careful seasonal management – conditions that can be easily disrupted if the lands are developed for tourism.

With decisions about shoreline use, tourism infrastructure, and beach “maintenance” now under municipal authority, activities like beach raking could threaten nesting piping plovers and weaken the dune systems that naturally protect the shoreline from erosion, storms, and climate impacts.

The replacement of Ontario’s Endangered Species Act with the Species Conservation Act narrows the definition of protected habitats, potentially leaving dunes and foraging areas outside nesting sites unprotected. In addition, the Government of Ontario intends to de-list migratory birds all together to “remove duplication for species already receiving federal protections.” To date, the federal government has been reluctant to implement the Species at Risk Act on non-federal lands, which is why complementary provincial legislation was always necessary.

In a 2025 media release, Ontario Nature’s Conservation Policy and Campaigns Director Tony Morris said transferring these areas to the town puts both wildlife and long-standing conservation efforts at risk.

Under municipal ownership, decades-long dune restoration and habitat protections, carried out by Ontario Parks, could disappear. Without the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act in place, Morris says the town would not be required to manage the land for ecological health.

Federal Emergency Action Sought

In response to the loss of provincial protections, Ecojustice has filed a formal request on behalf of Environmental Defence and Ontario Nature, calling on the federal Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Nature Julie Dabrusin, to recommend an Emergency Order under the federal Species at Risk Act.

The emergency order request seeks immediate protection for critical piping plover habitat at Wasaga Beach. With the nesting season approaching, conservation groups are calling for action by March 1, 2026, noting that further delays could have serious consequences for the species’ survival and recovery in Ontario.

What You Can Do

Call or email your MPP, and elected officials from the Town of Wasaga Beach to ask what they are doing to ensure Wasaga Beach remains a natural shoreline that balances tourism and a healthy ecosystem for the species that call it home.

You can also learn about the major projects and initiatives at the Town of Wasaga Beach.

If you are a resident of Wasaga Beach, visit this website to learn how you can get involved.

You can also contact Wasaga Beach’s Mayor and Council to ask them to protect this globally rare ecosystem.

Believe it or not, Ontario’s Endangered Species Act (ESA) was passed with all-party support back in 2007. Subsequently, of course, it was undermined through numerous exemptions and approvals for harmful activities, and now, through Bill 5, the Government of Ontario is tossing it aside completely. It is being replaced by the Species Conservation Act, 2025, (SCA) which is in no way its equal. With a view to eliminating barriers to development, it is claimed the new law will “help speed up project timelines and provide greater certainty for proponents.”

Devastating Changes

Under the SCA, no migratory birds, aquatic species or species of special concern will be provincially listed. The rationale for removing protections for migratory birds and aquatic species is that they already receive federal protection under the Species at Risk Act (SARA). In the case of special concern species, the provincial government is not listing them because they were not subject to “prohibitions under the ESA”. The provincial government is thus abandoning responsibility for 106 out of the 270 or so species currently deemed to be at risk in Ontario.

National Accord

In 1996, federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for wildlife committed to a national accord to protect species at risk by agreeing to “establish complementary legislation and programs that provide for effective protection of species at risk throughout Canada.” Canada and Ontario went a step further in 2011 by developing an Agreement on Species at Risk that commits to coordination and cooperation on preventing species from becoming at risk, as well as protecting and recovery identified species.

The Government of Ontario has abandoned these commitments. Species do not recognize arbitrary political boundaries, and cooperative federalism is absolutely necessary to conserve species at risk, especially amid a biodiversity crisis.

Limitations of SARA

The SARA is not equivalent to the ESA and to date, the federal government has been reluctant to exercise its power under the act on non-federal lands. The Government of Ontario has given no indication that the federal government was engaged on the draft SCA or agreed to step in and provide protections for the migratory birds and aquatic species that have lost provincial protections. On the contrary, Minister McCarthy along with the Alberta Environment Minister sent a letter to their federal counterpart in June, 2025 that requested the federal government amend SARA “to respect the constitutional jurisdiction of the provinces”, along with request to weaken other environmental regulations.

Further evidence that SARA is not fit to purpose to make up for the once gold standard provincial ESA, is that the backlog of species needing reassessment by Environment and Climate Change Canada will grow to 574 by the end of 2030. Additionally, as of 2022, the Auditor General of Canada found that 10% of federally listed species did not have recovery strategies or management plans in place as required by the act. Furthermore, of the 409 recovery strategies prepared by 2022, 20% did not identify the species’ critical habitat, which is necessary for protections under SARA.

Despite the Government of Ontario’s claims that the protections under the ESA for migratory birds and aquatic species were duplicative with federal protections, it is clear that SARA and the federal government are not equipped to provide equivalent protections.

Call to Action

Extinction threatens one million of approximately 8 million plants and animals worldwide. Responding effectively requires cooperation across all levels of government, as previously agreed to under the national accord and Canada-Ontario agreement.

Ontario’s weakening of protections for species at risk threatens our long-term well-being. Join us in urging the Government of Ontario to repeal Bill 5.