Saving Ontario’s Disappearing Wetlands – the Goulbourn Wetland Complex

In a province already experiencing extensive wetland loss, one would think all efforts would be made to protect those that remain. However, from March 2023 to March 2024, 156 hectares of wetlands across 17 municipalities lost their Provincially Significant Wetland (PSW) designation and the strong provincial protection that designation imparts.*

The highest proportion of these losses, totaling over 55 hectares, occurred within the Goulbourn Wetland Complex, a PSW located west of Stittsville, a growing community within the City of Ottawa. Rather than stepping up to protect Ontario’s remaining wetlands, the Government of Ontario ran in the other direction when they implemented a new, weakened system for identifying and designating PSWs.

*Since this blog was published PSW losses have continued. By July 2024, a total of 600 hectares of wetlands across 39 municipalities lost their PSW designation.

A History of Weakening Protections

The ecological health of wetlands in Ontario continues to be threatened by land conversion for development, invasive species, pollution, artificial modification of water levels by drainage and filling, and climate change. At the same time, nature’s very own nature-based climate solution is irreversibly damaged.

In support of More Homes Built Faster: Ontario’s Housing Supply Action Plan 2022-23, the government introduced and rapidly passed Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022 supposedly to ensure that our communities would grow with a mix of ownership and rental housing types that would meet the needs of Ontarians.

A host of other proposed legislative, regulatory and policy changes were also posted to the Environmental Registry purporting to support Ontario’s Housing Supply Action Plan. Those changes included attacks on the Greenbelt and changes to the Ontario Wetland Evaluation System (OWES) – the official system for identifying and designating PSWs.

Despite many Ontarians voicing opposition to these changes, a decision was made with a stroke of a pen to proceed with the weakened OWES as proposed. The changes came into full effect on January 1, 2023.

The consequences of this weakened evaluation system are severe. Changes include:

1. No longer recognizing complexes of smaller connected wetlands
2. Drastically reducing the contribution of species at risk in determining significance
3. Removing the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry’s role in overseeing OWES evaluations

The result is a system that makes it much harder for wetlands to achieve and maintain PSW designation and the protections it imparts, marred by a complete absence of transparency and accountability.

The Government of Ontario speaks boldly to the value of wetlands, including recent comments by the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks that “Wetlands…make up the natural infrastructure that protect us from drought and flooding, while keeping water clean and providing homes for many at-risk species of plants and animals” yet their actions to weaken provincial wetland protections speak otherwise.

With the changes to the OWES, the Government further stated that “Species at risk [will] continue to be afforded protection under the Endangered Species Act, 2007.” Despite these assurances, protections for vulnerable species continue to plummet in the province, as also noted in the 2021 Value for Money Audit: Protecting and Recovering Species at Risk report from the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario.

A Call to Action

Wetlands cannot wait until the next election. The Goulbourn Wetland Complex is one of many unique ecological treasures across Ontario. The people of Ontario rallied together to protect the Greenbelt and we sought the reversal of the government’s unilateral decision to expand urban boundaries across Ontario.

Now, more than ever, we need to be unwavering in our efforts to ensure the survival of our wetlands across Ontario – for those species that call them home, for ourselves, and for future generations.

Raise your voice to protect our wetlands – contact the Premier, the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry, the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and your local MPP. And to learn more about Friends of Stittsville Wetlands, please visit their website.

Janet served as a municipal elected official for twelve years, beginning as a Councillor for the former Township of Goulbourn, then as Mayor, and for six years, as an Ottawa City Councillor. She then served as Chair of the Mississippi-Rideau Source Protection Committee – an appointment by Ontario’s Minister of the Environment – to protect current and future sources of municipal drinking water from overuse and contamination. Janet also served as Executive Director for the Algonquins of Ontario in their continuing efforts to advance negotiations with the Governments of Ontario and Canada towards a modern-day treaty while also facilitating responses to consultation requests received within their traditional unceded, unsurrendered territory. Janet now serves as President of the Friends of Stittsville Wetlands, a volunteer, community-based, not-for-profit corporation incorporated on January 1, 2024.