Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his government have a new favored turn of phrase when it comes to talking about nature conservation. 

In June, Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment announced the government would be taking new steps to “enhance the effectiveness” of its conservation authorities, the 36 watershed management agencies tasked with ensuring the preservation of the province’s natural habitats. Hassaan Basit, a longtime conservationist and Burlington’s former chief administrator, was tasked with implementing those changes under the newly-created role of Chief Conservation Executive. 

“These changes will support the government’s commitment to protect Ontario’s economy by speeding up critical infrastructure and housing development, while safeguarding the environment,” said the province in a press statement. Minister of the Environment Todd McCarthy welcomed the changes, excited about bringing “common-sense conservation principles to the role of conservation authorities.”

McCarthy offered no definition of what “common-sense conservation” entails, nor did he clarify how conservation authorities would now be tasked with balancing environmental safeguards while seemingly accelerating the speed at which they review development applications within protected lands. But that hasn’t stopped the Ford government from repeatedly leaning on the phrase in recent months. 

First appearing in the PC party’s official party platform in February, the phrase “common-sense conservation” later resurfaced in Ford’s Throne Speech two months later. It has since been featured repeatedly in province-funded ads promoting faster approvals for new mines. But environmentalists say the slogan is less about protecting nature than about selling deregulation to the public — pairing promises of cutting red tape with little detail on what it actually means for Ontario’s environment. 

Swift and immediate opposition

Such allegations have only intensified since Ford introduced the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, more commonly known as Bill 5. Introduced in the wake of Trump’s ongoing trade war with Canada and having received royal assent in June, the sweeping, omnibus bill was pitched as a way to shield Ontario’s economy from tariffs by accelerating major infrastructure and natural resource projects. 

Tim Gray, executive director of non-profit Environmental Defence, warns the bill will translate into the most far-reaching rollback of conservation laws in a generation. 

“It’s probably the single worst piece of legislation aimed at the environment that I’ve ever seen in my career,” he says. Gray argues the changes will accelerate urban sprawl across southern Ontario, eating up farmland and forests, while sidelining conservation authorities that once provided crucial ecological oversight. 

Bill 5 now allows the Ford government to create “special economic zones” in which his provincial cabinet can exempt companies or projects from having to comply with provincial regulations or municipal bylaws, under the guise of boosting competitiveness. The bill also repeals the Endangered Species Act, replacing it with a Species Conservation Registry. Biologists testifying before the provincial legislature earlier this year said the latter would significantly reduce protections for species at risk. 

The bill in practice would cancel the environmental assessments needed for major projects such as the Ring of Fire’s Eagle’s Nest mine, a mineral-rich area in northern Ontario. The Chiefs of Ontario and several Treaty 9 First Nations have denounced the legislation, warning that it undermines their treaty rights and accelerates unchecked industrial expansion. 

At odds with public opinion

Ford has argued that his “common-sense conservation” principles are necessary to attract investment and secure Ontario’s economy against trade threats from the United States. But Tony Morris, conservation policy and campaigns director for Ontario Nature, counters that the policies are at odds with public opinion.

“There’s a disconnect between what people want and what the government is doing,” Morris says, one of the experts that testified before committee hearings on Bill 5 back in May. “Ontarians care about nature. They want it protected.”

A Pallas Data poll found that 58 per cent of respondents either strongly or somewhat opposed Bill 5. According to the Ontario Biodiversity Council’s 2024 survey, 88 per cent of Ontarians agreed the province should invest in the protection and restoration of biodiversity. National polling from earlier this year found that 89 per cent of Canadians consider nature a key part of the country’s identity — ranking even higher than hockey or the maple leaf flag.

For Gray, it’s that disconnect that explains why Ford was forced to retreat from opening parts of the Greenbelt for development after a public backlash. But that hasn’t stopped the government from moving ahead with these plans. The very day Bill 5 became law, Ford indicated his intention to designate the Ring of Fire as one of his proposed special economic zones, but would hold off until consulting with all affected First Nations. 

Because the conservation initiatives introduced by Ford represent such a broad retreat from existing biodiversity protections, Morris thinks it will become much harder for natural areas to qualify as environmentally significant, leaving more of them vulnerable to development.

“It’ll lead to essentially a Wild West in terms of impacts on natural areas, particularly in southern Ontario,” he says. 

Since Bill 5 passed, challenges from local groups have only grown. In late August, Kitchener city council unanimously called for Ford’s government to alter key portions of the bill that would allow municipalities to retain some authority over special economic zones. In Stratford, local groups Climate Momentum and the Perth County Sustainability Hub launched a “Repeal Bill 5” campaign, rolling out lawn signs and community events to rally opposition.

The politics of ‘common sense’

Ford’s choice of language might not be accidental. Hugh Mackenzie, a research associate at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, senses that the Ford government’s use of the phrase “common sense” is a deliberate callback to the campaign platform of former Ontario premier Mike Harris and his “Common Sense Revolution.” 

In the leadup to the 1995 election, Harris and his Progressive Conservatives promised to reduce the province’s deficit by enacting tax cuts and slashing funding to social programs, itself drawing inspiration from the conservative governments of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

“[Reagan’s] Republicans came to the realization that you couldn’t win by attacking public programs: oftentimes once programs came into place and became popular, people didn’t want to get rid of them,” Mackenzie explains. “But if you can’t name the things you want to get rid of, what you can do is cut off life support.” 

“[The phrase] ‘Common sense’ is therefore not used to define clear policy goals, but rather to signal alignment with voters’ instincts, even when policies run against expert advice,” he continues.

Gray says Bill 5 takes a similar approach by targeting the rules and protections that sustain Ontario’s environmental oversight, but still on the surface signaling to the voter that they care about conservation: “There’s an appeal in playing the aw-shucks populist: you don’t need to be an expert, you just make decisions off the hip.” 

The risks of ignoring environmental assessments

Critics like Gray say the risks of sidelining environmental concerns in the name of economic growth are not abstract — they’ve already been demonstrated in Ontario’s history: flooding worsened when wetlands were drained, rivers poisoned by industrial waste, and governments spending heavily on remediation projects that could have been avoided. 

He highlights in particular Toronto’s $1.3-billion restoration of the Don River mouth, a massive effort to rebuild wetlands and natural floodplains that had been filled in for industrial use, as a cautionary example.

“It would have been a lot cheaper not to fill in the wetland in the first place,” Gray says. “In the 19th century, people didn’t know better. But we do know better now.”