Current Issues
Bill 23: More Homes Built Faster Act
Bill 23 represents a wide sweeping attack on our environment. We need your help to either stop or amend it.
The Waterloo Region Nature Board has shared a letter expressing our concerns with all relevant Ministers and local MPPs.
If you are unaware of the issue please read this overview written by Environmental Defence or this backgrounder by Ontario Nature and this review from Professor Dawn Parker of the University of Waterloo. Also visit: Save Ontario Wetlands.
In short, Bill 23 is a 227 page Omnibus Bill that significantly changes numerous acts and regulations, undermining a communities ability to effectively deliver affordable housing (despite the acts intent), severely limits Conservation Authorities role in protecting our community, and overrules regional planning authority to prevent urban sprawl into our rural and natural spaces. This Act has already passed second reading (in a matter of days) and could pass third reading as early as Friday this week! It is incredibly urgent that we address yet another attack on our democracy (the fast tracking of this huge Act) and ask for something better from our Provincial Government.
What we are asking you to do:
- Please join us and Environmental Defence in signing this petition.
- Contact as many people, groups, associations, special interest groups as you can and make sure they know about Bill 23. Ask them to make their voices heard.
- Express your concerns about the bill to the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy, responsible for reviewing and approving or modifying the bill before third and final reading (deadline for comment is November 17).
- Review the multiple postings on the Environmental Registry of Ontario related to Bill 23, summarized by the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) and shared by Ontario Nature.
- Call or email your MPP and or MP to discuss this issue. This tool can help: https://saveontariowetlands.weebly.com/take-action.html. In Waterloo our MPPs are:
| Mike Harris Unit 3 & 4 63 Arthur St. S Elmira, ON N3B 2M6 Mike.Harrisco@pc.ola.org |
Jess Dixon Unit 4 4281 King St. E Kitchener, ON N2P 2E9 Jess.Dixon@pc.ola.org |
| Brian Riddell Cambridge Place Suite 409 73 Water St. N Cambridge, ON N1R 7L6 Brian.Riddell@pc.ola.org |
Laura Mae Lindo Suite 500 151 Frederick St. Kitchener, ON N2H 2M2 LLindo-QP@ndp.on.ca |
| Catherine Fife Suite 220 100 Regina St. S Waterloo, ON N2J 4P9 CFife-QP@ndp.on.ca |
Current Projects
Ecoposts
In May 2015, with funding from the Region of Waterloo, TD’s Friends of the Environment Foundation, and the University of Waterloo, WRN began the EcoPosts initiative. EcoPosts aims to inform the public about Waterloo Region’s natural heritage, and will encourage folk to explore the outdoors. The project will achieve this through informative signs placed in various natural areas. Using an EcoPost’s QR code and a smart phone or tablet, a user will be able to quickly access a website with information on the natural features of the area. Each web page accessed also informs the viewer of nearby areas of interest (both natural areas and other features). The website will be accessible to people of all ages, and can also be used at home as a resource on Waterloo region’s natural heritage. The web page also has a form for user input, about species sightings, management issues etc.
Past Projects
Peregrine Nest Box
In February 2015 we donated the money needed to build a light-weight nest box to put on the CTV tower in Kitchener where the pair of downtown resident Peregrine Falcons hatched and successfully fledged four chicks.
Pollinator Information Session
In April 2015 we paid to rent a theatre for a Sierra Club Canada information session on pollinators and the risks to them from neonicotinoid pesticides.
Past Donations from our Sanctuary Fund
- In 2020 we gave $5000 to raresites to help acquire a second property in the Eramosa River Valley in Wellington County.
- In 2018 we gave $5000 to raresites to help acquire a property in the Eramosa River Valley in Wellington County.
- In 2016 we gave $1000 to Ontario Nature to help acquire the Sydenham River Nature Reserve.
- In 2015 we gave $10,000 to the Thames Talbot Land Trust to help acquire the Hawk Cliff Woods property.
- In 2014 we gave $3,000 to Ontario Nature to help acquire additional land in the Lost Bay Nature Reserve.
- In 2013 we gave $10,000 to the Bruce Trail Conservancy to help acquire three properties - Silent Valley, Fairmount-Webwood Passage and Duntroon Crevice Heights.
- In 2006 we gave $1,000 to the Hamilton Field Naturalists to help with the mortgage on Cartwright Nature Sanctuary.
- In 2004 we gave $25,000 to Cruickston Charitable Research Reserve to help pay the mortgage at what is now known as the rare Charitable Research Reserve.
- In 1999 we gave $20,000 to the Nature Conservancy of Canada to acquire land near Morrisburg.
- In 1988/89 there were some small donations of $110 to Backus Woods, $35 to Forests for Tomorrow and $100 to Long Point Bird Observatory.
- In 1986 we gave $3,000 to Hamilton Conservation Authority for part of Crieff Bog near Puslinch - Fletcher Creek Ecological Preserve.
- In 1985 we gave $3,000 towards the Stone Road Alvar on Pelee Island.
Purchases
- In 1962 F.W.R. Dickson Wilderness Area south of Cambridge was purchased and later donated to the Grand River Conservation Authority.
- In 1964 Bannister Marsh and Wrigley Lake (near Cambridge) were preserved through our cooperation with the GRCA.
- In 1967 the Founders’ Wildlife Sanctuary near Roseville was acquired.
- In 1973 the F.H. Montgomery Wildlife Sanctuary on the Nith River near New Dundee was acquired.
