When you think of Ontario, what comes to mind?

For many of us, Ontario means the Canadian Shield. It means forests and lakes. It means fish and wildlife. It means NATURE.

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources is responsible for managing and protecting the natural world in Ontario on behalf of all its citizens. Yet in the last 15 years, the MNR has seen this crucial work slashed.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union represents over 4,300 MNR employees. We are devoted to restoring and rebuilding the MNR so it can once again do the job that Ontarians want and expect it to do. With a provincial budget on the horizon and a provincial election set for Oct. 4, 2007, now is the time.

For more information about OPSEU, visit www.opseu.org.

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The MNR budget

The overall budget of the Ministry in 2006-07 is 24 per cent lower, in real terms, than it was in 1992-93. The budget for the actual work of the Ministry (not counting transfers to industry and other outside organizations) is 31 per cent lower. In 2006-07, the MNR’s budget not counting transfers fell by more than 5 per cent in real terms. This latest cut has had severe effects in many areas.

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Conservation officers

Fewer Conservation Officers

In 1992 there were 257 uniformed Conservation Officers on the job in the field in Ontario. As of July 2006, there were 173 uniformed COs in the field and another 26 COs focused on special investigations, for a total of 199 officers. There are now 84 fewer COs doing basic enforcement in the field (down 31 per cent since 1992) and 58 fewer officers involved in enforcement overall (down 23 per cent).

Cuts to operating expenses for Conservation Officers

Conservation Officers need money to pay for gas (for trucks, boats, and ATVs), repairs, cell phone bills, uniforms, and meals, and so on. These operating expenses are being cut back so severely that conservation enforcement is effectively paralyzed. A best estimate is that this year’s budget is one half of last year’s.
 

“I don't know how to make this any clearer than this,” one Enforcement Supervisor wrote to his Conservation Officers in September. “You MUST monitor your gas purchases and when you have it $400.00 [per month] you will have to park the truck for the rest of the month and work in the office.”
 

The following are general facts about the work of Conservation Officers in 2006:

• The Ministry has been cagey about dollars and is putting little on paper. Cost-cutting targets are mostly communicated via face-to-face meetings.

• In the Mike Harris era, each CO had about $15,500 a year for expenses, or $300 a week. That was when gas was 59 cents a litre. This year each CO will be lucky to get half that, with $100 a week for expenses being common.

• Apparently some district managers saved money throughout the year to be able to put officers in the field during the fall moose hunt. While this made the best of a bad situation, most districts still had no regular patrols during hunting season – they only responded to calls from the public.

• COs have been told to reduce all their enforcement targets by 40 per cent. The original targets were established in April 2006, using a risk-based analysis to identify priority areas for enforcement. The 40 per cent cut will therefore affect areas already identified as being at the highest risk.

• COs are being told they will have to manage by priority. The top two priorities will be public safety and endangered species. These two areas account for only a small part of a CO’s work. The police generally handle public safety issues, and endangered species work is limited.

• The core of the CO’s work, ongoing enforcement of hunting and fishing laws, will almost never be done. With large territories to cover and no money for gas, regular deterrent patrols have become a thing of the past. Boat patrols have also been reduced. COs are less and less aware of what is happening in the field.

• COs may still respond to tips in some cases (the MNR launched a new tips line last year), but tips are often ignored if the alleged violations are far away or do not relate to the top two priorities.

• The operating budget of the Investigation and Intelligence Section has been cut by roughly 60 per cent. The primary work of the IIS involves investigations, including undercover work, around the commercialization of wildlife: illegal harvesting of bear gall bladders, illegal hunting of trophies for sale, illegal commercial fishing, and so on. The normal operating expenses for the Section total about $250,000 per year. This year they will be closer to $100,000.

• MNR’s award-winning Flying CO program has been eliminated and two CO Pilots received surplus notices. This program had provided years of effective access to the remote and sensitive areas throughout the province, especially in the north. MNR says COs will use the MNR Air Service instead – highly doubtful since it costs over $500 an hour for an aircraft. The end of the Flying CO program means an end to any meaningful enforcement throughout much of northern Ontario.

• Most COs have been allotted enough overtime to work one statutory holiday and an additional eight hours for the year.

• MNR is reducing the number of trucks for COs. Three officers will now share two vehicles in many cases. In 1992, when there were 257 officers, there were 257 patrol vehicles. Today, with 173 field officers, there are between 110 and 120 vehicles.

• MNR is reducing the number of computers for COs. Officers will now share computers.

• MNR has invested tens of millions of dollars in the construction of logging roads for industry. These roads open up new lakes to fish in and new lands to hunt in. With a general reduction in enforcement, these new areas will be like the Wild West for fishers and hunters.

• The combination of cuts to field patrols and the elimination of MNR counter service means that MNR staff will lose contact with what is going on in the field and will lack the information and intelligence needed to make effective management and enforcement decisions.

• Taken together, these changes add up to a field day for poachers.

On July 31, 2006, OPSEU made a Freedom of Information request to get the exact numbers for Conservation Officer budgets. MNR has dragged its feet on providing the information. A conference call with MNR officials John Maffei, Terry Langdon, and Rick Stankiewicz on Oct. 3 clarified the information responsive to the request, and they agreed to provide the information within a couple of weeks.

Reduction in enforcement

The chart below, received from MNR through Freedom of Information, shows reductions in Conservation Officer enforcement activity from 2004-05 to 2005-06.

These numbers show a 7 per cent drop in contacts, a 6 per cent drop in warnings, an 11 per cent drop in charges laid, a 22 per cent drop in completed charges, a 19 per cent drop in convictions, and a 25 per cent drop in fines collected.

Statistics for 2007-06, when the most severe cuts have occurred, can only show a sharper decline.

What the Minister said:

Questioned on June 5, 2006 by two Conservative MPPs (Bill Murdoch and Bob Runciman), MNR Minister David Ramsay said:

“We're going to have a very strong Ministry of Natural Resources. The minister is going to lead it and is going to manage it in a very efficient way…. We talk to the stakeholders who have great interest in what we manage from the ministry's point of view. We work very closely with them. We're looking at more partnerships with people to help us with many of the functions that we have historically done. We're going to make sure that the natural resources in Ontario have good stewardship from the ministry, because the people of Ontario deserve nothing less….

“In the ministry, we are managing all the functions that we have the responsibility for. Obviously, the conservation officer program is a very important program in Ontario; and again, we have various techniques. As you know, we've announced this year a phone-in line that has had a great response from the public. The public wants to help the ministry with enforcement issues because the law-abiding hunters and anglers don't want to see poachers exploiting the resource, and so they're playing a greater role in helping our conservation officers in patrolling this. We have beefed up our intelligence unit, and what we've done is targeted areas where we have specific problems.

“I very much appreciate the information that the member is bringing forward to us, because when we get that information we can concentrate on those areas and provide good enforcement for our resources.”

What the Minister meant

“Anglers and hunters will call us if there’s a problem out there. Conservation Officers can stay in the office.”

OPSEU’s response

There is no enforcement if officers aren’t out in the field. Fish and wildlife stocks will be gutted this fall unless MNR takes action immediately. The ministry must hire more Conservation Officers (as a start, by returning field staffing to 1992 levels) and provide full funding for officers’ expenses.

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Provincial parks

On April 28, 2006, the Ministry told OPSEU of wide-ranging cuts to seasonal staff at 80 provincial parks. These cuts included:

• 293.5 seasonal contracts began later than they did last year;

• 319 seasonal contracts ended earlier than they did last year;

• 61 seasonal contracts had their working hours reduced from 40 hours per week to 36.25;

• 47 vacant seasonal positions were not filled;

• 82 regular full-time student positions were not filled; and

• 10 seasonal positions were abolished.

The total impact was equal to 226 15-week summer jobs. Based on Ministry numbers for July 2005, this was a 19 per cent cut in seasonal and regular student employment. MNR management said the cuts would save about $2.4 million.

The cuts hit park wardens, park interpreters, park maintenance staff, and park administrative staff. Some examples of impacts:

• At Six-Mile Lake (near Georgian Bay), the interpretive centre was open one day a week as opposed to 3-4 hours per day in 2005.

• At Bass Lake (near Orillia) and McRae Point (Lake Simcoe), cuts to maintenance meant staff could not keep up with cutting grass, painting, or clearing trails.

• At Springwater (near Barrie), the park office was not open on weekends.

• At Lake Superior (near Wawa), there was now no park warden coverage for the north end of the park.

• At Esker Lakes (north of Kirkland Lake), guided hikes (advertised on the web site) were no longer available and the children’s programming was gone. Campgrounds were closed because they couldn’t be maintained.

• At Sandbar Lake (north of Ignace), there were no longer any night shifts to ensure visitors are paying park fees, so the park lost money.

To save money, many parks shut their gates early at the end of the season.

What the Minister said:

From Hansard, June 5, 2006:

As the member knows, the parks system is one of two special-purpose accounts in the Ontario government, the other being revenues from angling and hunting. In that special-purpose account we're basically at a point where we're very close to being break-even now on the parks revenues coming in to operate those parks. We're trying to manage within that budget. Again I stay to the member that with increasing costs coming to the parks system, I think you'd be the first on your feet to criticize me if all of a sudden I had a large increase in camping fees that might make it prohibitive for many Ontario families to enter our parks system. So we're going to keep the fees down, and reasonable and affordable so that all Ontarians can access the Ontario provincial parks system.

What the Minister meant

The Liberals had a choice between cuts, higher user fees, or increased government spending. They chose cuts. The Minister also hinted that the Liberals want to make the parks self-sufficient.

OPSEU’s response

It’s pretty pathetic when the government can’t manage basic services like provincial parks. User fees already recoup 80 per cent of park costs. This is the highest cost recovery rate of any comparable protected areas jurisdiction in North America. (The corresponding number for Alberta provincial parks, for example, is 12 per cent). The government pays less than $14 million of the $64 million parks budget. The rest comes from user fees. For the 2007 park season, OPSEU wants the minister to:

• Restore all service and staffing levels to at least the level they were at in 2005;

• Keep our parks open at least as late as in 2005; and

• Develop a long-term plan to ensure that all Ontario parks have the funding and the staffing levels they need to protect ecological integrity within our parks and to provide all park users with an enjoyable and enriching park experience.

For more information, visit  www.saveontarioparks.ca

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Office closures

Historically, MNR offices across Ontario were meeting places for all citizens who cared about natural resources. No more. All MNR offices have closed their doors to the public. Now, citizens who want information can’t get it, and citizens who have information about what’s happening in “the bush” have no one to pass it on to.

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Regulation of industry

Natural resources like timber, gravel, oil, and gas contributes tens of billions of dollars to Ontario’s economy every year. Hunting and fishing provide a livelihood for thousands of outpost camp operators, guides, and other workers. The MNR is responsible for ensuring compliance with laws and regulations related to private use of public resources.

In 1996, the Mike Harris government moved aggressively toward self-regulation for all resource-related industries. Hundreds of staff involved in industry regulation lost their jobs.

Ongoing budget pressures since 2003 have not improved the situation. The problem with resource extraction today is not that resource violations may be occurring; it is simply that, with so few staff, the MNR often has no way of knowing whether they are occurring or not, let alone preventing them.
 

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The OPSEU campaign

OPSEU’s MNR campaign began June 2, 2006 with a news conference related to park staffing cuts. The campaign has continued and is being documented on the web at www.savethemnr.ca.  MNR employees are wearing black to work every Thursday, tying orange flag tape to car and truck aerials, signing petitions for presentation in the Legislature, and lobbying their MPPs. An online petition has attracted over 1,000 signatures in its first 18 days of operation. The campaign seeks to draw attention to the MNR crisis in the run-up to the 2007-08 provincial budget and the provincial election.

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Sign our petition

To sign our online petition and help save the MNR.

Download and print our petition

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Contact us

For more information on the OPSEU campaign to Save the MNR, please contact the members of the OPSEU Enforcement and Renewal Committee for the Ministry:

Elaine Bagnall, Peterborough: ebagnall_opseu@yahoo.ca

Peter Wall, Hearst: peterw@ntl.sympatico.ca

Dave Fluri, North Bay: dave.fluri@onlink.net

Ed Evens, Sioux Lookout: eevens@gosiouxlookout.com  

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For further information, contact

Randy Robinson, OPSEU Communications at
(416) 448-7441, 1-800-268-7376 ext. 7441, or rrobinson@opseu.org.

Sign our on-line petition!