Scientists Warn Carney’s Changes Will Bring ‘Wilful Extinction’

In an urgent and unprecedented plea, five former chairs of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada are sounding the alarm about a Carney government proposal that would allow the “wilful extinction” of species across the country.

The five scientists say the Species at Risk Act will become “meaningless” and “merely paper protection” if the government follows through with a plan to exempt major projects — such as the West Coast oil pipeline — from what’s known as the “jeopardy test” if projects are deemed to be in the national interest.

The test prohibits Ottawa from authorizing projects or actions that would harm listed species and their critical habitats if they would jeopardize their survival. More than 600 species, including B.C.’s spotted owls and killer whales — also known as orcas — are currently listed under the act.

The recent announcement that the West Coast pipeline may be deemed of “national interest” places B.C.’s endangered southern resident killer whales “directly in the crosshairs of this change,” the scientists said Tuesday in a media release.

“Are Canadians willing to bet this unique population of killer whales against another oil pipeline?” they asked.

The scientists, who are from B.C., Quebec and Nova Scotia, said the pipeline “could decimate the entire population of the imperiled killer whales through time” by increasing tanker traffic noise and significantly destroying habitat for the whales’ main prey, Pacific salmon.

But under the proposed change to the Species at Risk Act, they said, “this real risk of extinction would be moot.”

“Canadians must learn about this, or risk becoming unknowingly complicit in the wilful extinction of Canadian wildlife species,” the scientists said.

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is an independent advisory panel to the federal government that assesses species at risk of extinction and makes recommendations to list them as endangered, threatened or a species of special concern.

Recent budget cuts have left the watchdog committee struggling to do its job as the number of at-risk species in Canada steadily climbs.

The committee’s five former chairs also published an open letter Tuesday that they sent to the federal government on July 21, strongly urging Carney and his cabinet to remove the proposed alteration to the Species at Risk Act from any impending legislative changes.

David Green, a biologist and McGill University professor emeritus who chaired the committee for four years, told The Tyee that the current government might use any new discretionary power judiciously, “but future governments may not.”

“That’s the real danger,” Green said. “Once the species is gone, it’s gone forever. You’re not going to bring it back if it goes extinct.”

The letter comes as the Carney government takes stock following a public comment period on sweeping changes it proposes for environmental regulations and permitting to speed up approval and construction of major projects such as pipelines, ports and mines.