Canada has a chance to lead on the world stage with an improved Nature Accountability Act
Bill C-73 is a much-needed piece of legislation that would give the National Biodiversity Strategy legal teeth, and make it enforceable by the courts.
Canada contains some of the most globally significant ecosystems; our country is home to 80,000 species, 300 of which occur nowhere else in the world. It also hosts 9% of the world’s total forest cover, 25% of the world’s wetlands, and the longest coastline on earth.
For over a century, the Government of Canada’s extraction-based economic and management paradigm has fueled industrial growth, unsustainable land-use, and overharvesting, while degrading and destroying vital ecosystems, species, and ecological processes that communities depend on. Now, faced with twinned biodiversity and climate change crises, one in five species teeters on the edge of extinction, while severe storms, droughts, and wildfire affect ecosystems and communities alike.
In 2022, Canada hosted the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Montreal, where 196 countries signed onto the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – a global deal for nature that commits signatories to achieving 23 targets that will halt and reverse biodiversity loss and protect 30% of lands and waters by 2030. Signatories committed their governments to turn this global agreement into national policy by the end of 2024.
Unfortunately, the Government of Canada has a poor track record when it comes to keeping its biodiversity promises. Efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss in Canada continue to be set back by the Trudeau government’s approval of massive industrial projects that will have significant, adverse, and cumulative effects on habitats, biodiversity, and species protected under federal legislation (i.e., the Species at Risk Act) – see the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion or Roberts Bank Terminal 2 in British Columbia for recent examples (among others).
Notwithstanding this, the Government of Canada released a draft 2030 National Biodiversity Strategy (‘the Strategy’) in early 2024 that outlines the path Canada will take to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. While the draft Strategy was a promising start, it was not legally-binding and was merely a statement of intent.
In response, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, introduced the final draft of the Strategy and Bill C-73, the Nature Accountability Act, on June 13th. Bill C-73 is a much-needed piece of legislation that would give the Strategy legal teeth and make it enforceable by the courts.
However, in its first reading, the bill falls short in several areas. First, it does not enshrine the 23 global targets of the Kunming-Montreal GBF into law and doesn’t require Canada to set national biodiversity recovery targets based on species decline in our country.
Second, while the Nature Accountability Act requires the establishment of a nature advisory committee, it does not require the Minister to adopt the recommendations of the committee into the Strategy or corresponding action plans.
Further, the bill lacks stringent accountability and transparency measures. For example, as was included in the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, the Nature Accountability Act should include the requirement for regular audits by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to independently evaluate the implementation progress, or lack thereof. Finally, this legislation needs to be resilient to changes in the political climate in Ottawa to ensure it becomes a permanent fixture in our legislation and is embedded in the culture and fabric of Canadian culture and society.
We are now at a pivotal moment where Canada can advance a Nature Accountability Act that is precedent-setting and timely. In October, the countries that signed onto the Kunming-Montreal GBF in 2022 will gather in Cali, Colombia, for COP16 to report on their progress implementing their respective National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans. Canada now has the opportunity to lead on the world stage by delivering an amended Bill C-73 that includes the 23 Kunming-Montreal GBF global targets, Canada-specific targets, and the inclusion of advisory committee recommendations.
We have 6.5 years to achieve 23 ambitious biodiversity and land and water protection targets. Now is the time for the federal government to show its leadership by giving the Strategy true legal teeth. This is Canada’s pathway to halting and reversing biodiversity loss.
This article was originally published in the Hill Times on July 29th, 2024.
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