Why Ford's Latest Act is a Roadmap for Environmental Destruction and Corporate Corruption
Doug Ford is trying to take a chainsaw to environmental stewardship, democratic rule of law, and Indigenous treaty rights. Here's why it needs to stop.
In just over a month, Doug Ford’s Conservative government has raced through its most alarming attack on environmental protections, democratic rule of law, and Indigenous rights. The Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act, 2025 (originally called Bill 5) is framed as an “economic growth” solution, but in reality it continues Premier Ford’s very real — and concerning — pattern of provincial overreach, ignoring the rule of law, and bypassing democratic safeguards in order to dish handouts to corporate developers.
Environmental Destruction on a Provincial Scale
This Act revokes Ontario’s Endangered Species Act (ESA), 2007, which used to be the gold standard in Canada for protecting biodiversity. Before regulatory changes weakened its scope, the Endangered Species Act required science-based recovery plans and required permits for projects impacting critical habitats.
However, its substitute, the “Species Conservation Act”, drastically dismantles these safeguards, completely eliminating the requirement for recovery strategies for endangered and threatened species, and also allowing the removal of species from the species at-risk list. This effectively enables decisions entirely based on political ideology, rather than evidence…even if that evidence shows developments on protected lands will put species critically at-risk.
Second, the Act also pitches a series of proposals that lay the groundwork for habitat destruction on a scale much, much larger than the Greenbelt. It swaps the definition of ‘habitat’ to one that includes only the immediate nest or den area of a species, which in essence puts species that are already declining due to habitat loss at greater risk, and opens a loophole for unregulated development on these previously protected areas.
Additionally, the Act introduces an online registration system, which enables developers to begin builds immediately, without any expert review or regulatory oversight at all, regardless if the build presents a serious threat to habitat destruction. Perhaps worst of all, the new Act grants Cabinet unchecked power to decide which species receive protection, effectively meaning they can take a species off the list … if it benefits them politically (eg selling protected lands to private developer friends).
Environmental experts are already raising the alarm, warning that this shift “virtually ensures continued decline” for at-risk species, including the endangered redside dace and spotted turtle. This Act may have been pitched as an “economic growth” bill, but in reality, it simply use the U.S. trade war as a smokescreen to cover up the ecological damage this Act will surely cause.
Opening the Door to Corporate Corruption
Another subsection of the “Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act”, titled the Special Economic Zones Act, gives Ford’s Cabinet unchecked powers that should raise serious red flags.
The Act grants Cabinet the power to completely exempt projects from all provincial and municipal laws, creating deregulated corporate “safe zones” that are shielded from any environmental, labour, or safety standards. Under the Act, Cabinet can create these “safe zones” on any land, for any reason, with no oversight – opening up the likelihood of corruption and corporate handouts.
There’s another word for a region stripped of all laws, rules, and legals protections. Lawless.
Even more concerningly, the Act bans any legal challenge to these “safe zones” in court, effectively silencing any legal attempts to halt these unregulated, lawless “safe zones”. This should horrify us.
This gross abuse of authority, as we’ve seen before with the Greenbelt scandal and Therme Group’s Ontario Place spa project, favours private developer interests over the public interest, risking labour abuses, and seriously threatening our right to oppose unethical, illegal, and destructive developments.
Indigenous Sovereignty Under Threat
Lastly, this new Act exempts developers from having to conduct any archaeological assessments. This may sound mundane, but it’s a very serious violation of Indigenous treaty rights.
Under law, the government has a mandatory duty to consult Indigenous nations on any develop involving Indigenous nations. This Act directly violates those legal requirements, attempting to erase Indigenous stewardship from land-use decisions. We’ve seen this before, in Ford’s blatant disregard for reconciliation in projects like Highway 413 and the Ring of Fire mining push.
Ford’s Anti-Democratic Playbook
But this new Act is not a new precedent, and aligns closely with Ford’s anti-democratic playbook. Here are some recent examples:
The Highway 413 Act, which bypassed federal assessments, endangering 220 wetlands and 29 at-risk species.
Bill 307, which was struck down for using the notwithstanding clause to suppress public criticism.
Issuing more than 114 Ministerial Zoning Orders (MZOs) since 2019 to override local planning in order to hand out favours to private developers.
Each case reveals a government hostile to public transparency and responsible governance.
How to Fight Back
Countless organizations and experts, including Environmental Defence, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Ecojustice, and the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, have all condemned the Act as a threat to our ecosystems and democracy.
Ultimately, we cannot swap our biodiversity, Indigenous rights, and democracy for corporate handouts, environmental destruction, and short-sighted economic gain. The Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act must be immediately repealed to prevent a future where corporate interests eclipse the public good.
I would urge readers to sign this petition to demand that their elected representatives hold this government accountable, and defend the principles of justice, accountability, and environmental protection that define Ontario.