After London workers cut down a monarch butterfly habitat without the homeowner’s permission, an environmental lawyer says Ontario cities must re-examine policies addressing complaints over butterfly-friendly wild flowers.
Susan McKee returned from vacation in July only to discover her pollinator garden, once bustling with monarch butterflies and bees, was mowed down by city workers while she was away. She said the garden was used by neighbours as a source of eggs to help colonize nearby gardens with the embattled insect.
McKee got three tickets totalling $300 in cleanup, inspection and administration fees because city workers had to deal with “tall weeds and grass” on her property.
In doing so, workers removed more than a dozen varieties of plants, including milkweed — a plant considered a vital habitat for monarch butterflies, a once pervasive insect that was declared endangered just weeks ago by an international consortium of science and conservation groups.
Whether city workers violated the Species at Risk Act when they destroyed monarch butterfly habitat would be a question for a court to decide, said Theresa McClenaghan, executive director and counsel for the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA).
Monarch subject to federal management plan
“It would be a question of whether the city’s action was contravening a restoration plan that had been approved under the Species at Risk Act,” McClenaghan said.
The monarch butterfly is subject to a federal management plan that has existed since 2016. It encourages “the creation of butterfly gardens using milkweed species native to the area” and “conserving milkweeds and other nectar-producing garden plants in home and school gardens.”
Children such as this eight-year-old use London, Ont., resident Susan McKee’s garden as a source of eggs to help colonize nearby gardens with the monarch. McKee’s garden, once bustling with monarchs and bees, was mowed down by city workers while she was away. (Michelle Both/CBC)
But according to the City of London, it didn’t do anything wrong. Spokesperson Jo Ann Johnston wrote in an email to CBC News that federal protections for endangered species only apply to “federal lands” and “the actions taken were on private and city property.”
“We know the importance of pollinator gardens and providing habitats for species that are at risk, and we recognize how critical they are not only for the species, but for all of us,” she wrote.
The actions taken were limited to this property and were as a result of complaints related to the yard and lot maintenance bylaw.– Jo Ann Johnston, City of London
“The city actively includes pollinator habitat and monarch habitat in buffer restoration and other naturalization projects. In this instance, the actions taken were limited to this property and were as a result of complaints related to the yard and lot maintenance bylaw.”
McClenaghan, however, said “there should be a rethink” of the way Ontario municipalities deal with complaints about vegetation neighbours might find loathsome or unsightly, especially when it comes to milkweed in pollinator gardens.
McClenaghan said a June 2001 Supreme Court decision ruled local communities have a legal responsibility to look after nature when it upheld the Quebec town of Hudson’s ban on cosmetic pesticide use after it was challenged by a pest control company.
“The Supreme Court of Canada said municipalities are ‘trustees of the environment,’ they’re part of the solution.”
It’s quite ironic then when a municipality goes out and chops down milkweed.– Theresa McClenaghan
“Loss of habitat is highly connected to climate change,” McClenaghan said, noting the insect has become a potent emblem of a continent-wide push for better environmental stewardship.
Monarch butterflies are “the symbol of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico’s environmental co-operation agreement, so it’s quite ironic then when a municipality goes out and chops down milkweed,” she said. “It’s very dated thinking.”
Monarchs will only lay their eggs on milkweed
Milkweed may no longer be considered a noxious weed by the Ontario government, but it still isn’t seen as a good thing by the province’s Ministry of Agriculture Farming and Rural Affairs, which notes “milkweed species are generally thought to be poisonous to livestock.”
‘Monarch butterfly females will only lay their eggs on different species of milkweed,’ says Jeremy McNeil, a professor of biology at Western University who studies insects. (Mary Garshore/Nature Conservancy of Canada)
“Monarch butterfly females will only lay their eggs on different species of milkweed,” said Jeremy McNeil, a Western University professor of biology who studies insects.
“Once the eggs hatch, the caterpillars will feed on those. You can put them on another plant and they will not feed. They’re specialists.”
McNeil said monarchs have learned to digest and store the same toxic milkweed compounds in their bodies that make the plants poisonous to livestock, so the butterflies are unpalatable to predators.
McNeil said years of education on milkweed has slowly reshaped our understanding of the plant as a vital source of food for the insect.
“We have to ensure that milkweed is here in the summer months when they are breeding, that is for sure. But it’s not the only thing that’s affecting them over the years.”
McNeil said monarch butterflies embark on an incredible journey each spring, leaving their overwintering grounds in the Mexican mountains and flying north thousands of kilometres to their breeding grounds in Canada.
Opening more land to agriculture, pesticide use and changes to weather patterns brought on by climate change have made the voyage all the more perilous because they affect the numbers of plants the insects can feed on.
WATCH | Experts speak on what’s contributed to the decline of monarch butterflies:
Monarch butterflies added to endangered species list
12 days ago
Duration 2:11
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has added the migratory monarch butterfly to its list of endangered species.
“If you’re driving and you can’t find a gas station, what’s going to happen?” McNeil said.
“For whatever climatic reason, if there are way fewer flowers in a given year, then guess what? There’s going to be less fuel available, they might die and if they don’t die, they’re going to have a reduced fecundity.”
McNeil said this year’s drought has had a significant effect on butterfy numbers. In his field work, he visited 99 milkweed plants and found only one larva.
“It really was the most abundant butterfly you would see around,” he said. “The number this year was extremely low.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
