Bobolink? More like Dodolink if the government doesn't step in. Photo via Flickr user Kelly Colgan Azar
In the spring of 2010, the bobolink—an adorable little bird that was once widespread in many parts of Canada—was found to be threatened, and the committee in charge of evaluating the status of Canadian wildlife flagged the issue to government.
But by the end of their mandate, years after the dwindling creature's plight was first brought to their attention, the former Conservative government had yet to react.
This inaction was part of a bigger trend for the Harper Tories: During the party's majority rule, the protection of dozens of at-risk organisms—various plants, marine life, insects, and mammals—was put on hold.
According to information compiled by University of Ottawa researchers and obtained by VICE, between May 2011 and November 2015, less than seven percent of potentially at-risk species received government protection.
In contrast, between 2003 and May 2011 (before Harper was in office, during his minority years) an average of 88 percent of species deemed at-risk were properly evaluated and added to the endangered species list. That's a 81 percentage point drop.
So what happened?
Eric Taylor is the current chair of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), the arms-length expert organization mandated with assessing which species are at risk of disappearing.
COSEWIC has been around since 1977, and Taylor, a professor of zoology at the University of British Columbia, has been involved since 2001. A decade later, he says the group's work suddenly became much more difficult. "The perception was that once Harper gained a majority, his somewhat tepid enthusiasm for species at risk cooled off even more so, because of course he had the parliamentary power to do that."
Here's how the process is supposed to work, according to the government's Species At Risk Act (SARA): first, COSEWIC prepares a list of species it judges to require some form of protection, which is then sent to the federal environment minister. From there, the minister has three months to agree or disagree with the assessment. If they think the species or the context require more analysis, the case is sent for further examination. Otherwise, they send the whole file for consultations after which a recommendation on whether or not to list is sent to the Governor in Council (GIC, a cabinet committee) which has nine months to make a final decision.
Legally, if the government doesn't respect those deadlines, the species are (supposed to be) automatically added to the endangered species list. Sadly, there's a loophole, and the Tories found it.
"There is a bit of a glitch in government's decisions. "There may be very, very compelling socio-economic reasons as to why a species perhaps should not be listed," he said. "The problem with the reasons that the government uses to say whether a species should be listed or not is that those are very often not open to public scrutiny, they're not open to peer review like all our COSEWIC assessments."
These adorable prairie chickens are thought to no longer exists in Canada. Photo via Flickr user USFWmtnprairie
But why protect these species? Findlay calls it our "fiduciary stewardship responsibility."
"We do have all sorts of examples of species that were lost from ecosystems and communities where the loss has had a big impact, but we also have examples of species that were lost and as far as we can tell there hasn't been much impact, or maybe we just don't know about it, it's difficult to tell," he says.
"I think the most important issue is that we have this library of life on this planet and I think we're kind of obliged to keep as many of the books as we can and not burn them up by letting them go extinct," he adds.
Taylor says he's hopeful the new government will bring about change. "I think vibes coming out of Ottawa and the new Minister of Environment and Climate Change are quite positive, and I think things are going to get better in terms of commitment to species at risk issues."
In his mandate letter to the Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau listed this as one of the priorities. "Enhance protection of Canada's endangered species by responding quickly to the advice of scientists and completing robust species-at-risk recovery plans in a timely way," he wrote.
Yet the new administration will need time to deal with the species backlog, Taylor warns.
"This is a legacy of the Harper government that unfortunately the Trudeau government is going to have to clean up, and we're going to have to be patient," he says. "I can't imagine how busy Catherine McKenna must be right now, quite justifiably."
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