Ontario's Environmental Commissioner said there is paralysis by analysis on the provincial government's part in failing to implement the controversial 2009 policy on woodland caribou conservation.
Gord Miller said it is the critics of the Caribou Conservation Plan who are ratcheting up anxious Northerners by “wrongly asserting” that the plan will wipe out forestry-dependent towns.
“This is extremely misleading, but the silence from the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) has been deafening. And it's matched by a lack of action.”
In an opinion piece released Dec. 27, Miller said the MNR has refused to release estimates of the population and range of the animal, which is categorized as a threatened species in Ontario.
Miller reiterated the same concerns on the lack of progress in the caribou recovery strategy in his annual report released in November.
He also blamed the lack of leadership in government and “antagonists” in public relations who “deliberately confusing the issues” in stalling the plan and pushing the policy debate back to the argument stage.
The woodland caribou was listed as a threatened species under Ontario's Endangered Species Act in 2007. The government's recovery strategy to preserve caribou habitat was initiated in October 2009.
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