Doug Ford made it legal to create bird 'death traps' to speed up home construction

Nature is disappearing globally, and in Doug Ford’s Ontario new laws now make it legal to sacrifice bird life for unchecked urban growth.

On June 5, Bill 17, dubbed the Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, received royal assent after being presented as a bid to jumpstart home construction through changes to development charges, building codes and planning. Since being elected in 2018, the PC government has made similar promises to eliminate what it sees as “red tape” that slows home construction. 

There is little evidence that this approach is working. 

A June 2025 report from Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer found housing starts in the province in the first quarter of the year were the lowest they had been since 2009. 

The legislation was among seven bills fast-tracked through Queen’s Park before MPPs extended their summer break till October 20 after sitting for just 23 days (currently, the House of provincial Parliament is slated to sit for just 51 days in all of 2025, compared to 84 days twenty years ago, in 2005).

Bill 17’s Schedule 1 focuses on the Ontario Building Code, aiming to assert greater provincial control over how municipalities can influence development approvals. 

Critics warn the Bill is intended to dismantle existing Green Building Standards, including bird-friendly design requirements adopted by cities like Toronto and others across Ontario.

“Reducing the millions of bird collisions occurring in Ontario every year through building design is being classified as unnecessary 'red tape' that impedes housing development and affordability,” bird conservation organization, Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) Canada, noted in a statement. 

Each year, more than one billion birds in North America, including 42 million in Canada and over one million in Toronto, die after colliding with buildings and windows. Ontario was on track to become a leader in addressing this crisis. That progress is now under threat.

Collisions with windows are a major cause of bird deaths in Canada. The problem is especially severe in Toronto and Mississauga. Toronto alone has one-third of all tall buildings in Canada; the concentration of mid-rise and high-rise structures in these urban areas creates deadly hazards that result in millions of bird fatalities annually.

(Global Bird Collision Mapper)

Buried within the Bill’s pro-development language is a provision with deadly consequences for birds: municipalities can no longer enforce bird-friendly building standards, and with those standards gone, so are the legal protections that once held developers accountable.

“My heart broke when I actually heard the final news of this bill going forward,” FLAP Canada’s executive director and co-founder, Michael Mesure, told The Pointer.

“I was not surprised and shocked at the same time, if that's possible…and how it went forward is quite disturbing. There was very little public consultation, if any. It kind of came out of nowhere and just was pushed through. And sadly, there is so much at stake here. This is not just the bird building collision issue. There are so many particular environmental concerns that are going to be affected under this bill that the Building Code doesn't address right.”

It took FLAP Canada more than 20 years working with municipalities like Toronto, Mississauga, and Markham to introduce bird-safe policies. The PCs undid it all in a matter of months. 

“Those municipalities have served as templates for other municipalities to do the same. Right now, there's 28 municipalities across the province (out of 444 municipalities) that have some form of bird-friendly guidelines and policies in place,” Mesure said.

With Bill 17 now a law, “they're gone.”

Now, developers will no longer be required to incorporate bird-safe design, leaving it entirely up to them to adopt such measures voluntarily.

Developers seeking to construct a new building must apply to the municipality for approval. For certain types of buildings, such as institutional, commercial, and multi-unit residential buildings with ten or more units, this process is known as site plan approval. This does not apply to single-family homes, which are the most common building type and, despite their lower heights, cumulatively account for the highest number of bird deaths from window collisions.

(Ontario Nature/Brendon Samuels)

Even before the Bill became law, the damage had begun.

“I was getting calls from Pickering and Whitby. They both ran into the same problem with two different developers, almost on the same day that, once the developers heard that this bill was perhaps going to be passed, they were saying, ‘You know what, we're not doing it as bird friendly, sue us.’ Because I think they had the confidence this time that the bill was going to be passed,” Mesure said.

“So, the developers welcome this, want this, and sure it's going to make construction easier, but it's also going to make developers richer, because they have less financial burdens put on them in terms of time and permits and you name it, that allow them to make more profit. And I just can't help but feel that that is the bigger motivator here. This isn't necessarily about making more homes. It's about making more money.”

North America’s four major bird migration routes, including the Pacific, Central, Mississippi, and Atlantic Flyways, follow key geographic features, with Toronto uniquely positioned at the convergence of the Atlantic and Mississippi Flyways, where most birds passing through in spring head north to the Arctic and boreal forests.

(City of Toronto)

After Bill 17 had passed its second reading, Environmental Defence’s program manager of land use and Ontario environment Phil Pothen had warned that the PCs have “used the housing shortage as a pretext to give special interest groups, like developers, exactly what they want.”

Pothen stressed that removing green building standards will create a “serious problem for municipalities who are trying to meet climate targets.”

Ontario is already behind on its long-term climate target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

In 2018, the Ford government pledged to cut emissions by 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, but Ontario is currently not on track to meet this target. While emissions have declined since 2005, with a notable drop between 2019 and 2020 due to pandemic-related slowdowns, they have since partially rebounded.

(Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks/Government of Ontario)

“We are concerned that the proposed Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act could unduly restrict municipalities’ abilities to apply development standards that protect energy affordability, public health and climate objectives as we build new homes and communities,” The Atmospheric Fund’s (TAF) vice president, policy and programs, Bryan Purcell warned.

On June 6, TAF sent a letter to minister of municipal affairs and housing, Rob Flack, expressing concern that Bill 17 weakens municipal oversight by restricting municipalities from enforcing key urban design standards related to flood protection, air quality, and energy efficiency, while also mandating automatic approval of certain development submissions, undermining the role of local governments in safeguarding public health, safety, and the environment.

TAF recommended that Bill 17 be amended to allow municipalities to set green development standards that do not conflict with the Ontario Building Code, clarify alignment with the Provincial Planning Statement, and preserve municipal authority to independently review development applications — changes essential to protect the public interest and ensure responsible, sustainable growth.

On June 11, Brampton City Council also warned that the legislation threatens the City’s ability to build healthy, livable communities, shifting growth-related infrastructure costs onto existing taxpayers by reducing development charge revenues without providing sustainable funding alternatives. Proposed standardized planning rules limit municipal flexibility, risking delays in servicing and occupancy of new homes despite faster approvals. 

Deferring development charges is expected to cut Brampton’s cash flow by $84 to $112 million in the first year, according to a staff report, with ongoing annual shortfalls of $13 to $21 million, plus additional borrowing and inflation costs, totalling up to $2.9 million in yearly fiscal pressures.

“Since 2019, the province has proposed nine different pieces of legislation in an effort to expedite and accelerate housing. Bill 17 has 6,585 words…the word affordable appears zero times,” City of Brampton’s planning, building and growth management commissioner, Steve Ganesh, said during a council meeting on June 11.

“Bill 17 is going to test the financial resilience of Brampton and other municipalities, because it will now remove the predictable funding source of development charges in a way that we have come to rely on in an effort to deliver levels of service for our businesses and residents.”

According to the Province’s technical briefing on Bill 17, the goal is to "streamline municipal development processes" by enforcing a single, province-wide standard for construction.

But several critical questions remain unanswered.

“There's no direct, clear language that is informing all these different parties involved what this bill really means,” Mesure noted. 

“It's confusing, and I hate to say it until proven otherwise, it seems to be deliberately confusing.”

The province’s technical briefing on Bill 17 promises streamlined, uniform building standards across Ontario but raises concerns over the loss of municipal authority to enforce vital green and bird-safe building measures.

(Government of Ontario)

FLAP Canada has reached out to the Province seeking clarification on the implications of Bill 17, but hasn’t received a response as of June 12.

Critics point out that Schedule 1 of the bill, which amends the Building Code Act, may conflict with existing laws such as the City of Toronto Act and Section 41 of the Planning Act, both of which grant municipalities authority over the development approval process.

The briefing refers broadly to “construction requirements and standards,” but is unclear whether this includes Green Building Standards, which municipalities do not classify as construction standards. Municipalities are already in full compliance with the Ontario Building Code, and critics argue that this legislation could unjustly override well-established, environmentally responsible practices that have long been accepted at the local level.

Wood Thrushes embark on long-distance migrations, covering thousands of kilometres between Canada and the U.S. breeding grounds and Central American wintering sites. Birds Canada has recorded a journey of nearly 6,000 kilometres completed in just 34 days.

(Top: FLAP Canada, Map: MOTUS Bottom: Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer files)

"Maintaining our ecosystem is a part of preventing and dealing with the impacts of climate change, and birds play a critical role in native ecosystems," New Democratic Party (NDP) MPP Chris Glover said in 2021 when he introduced a motion urging the Ford government to incorporate the Canadian Standards Association’s (CSA) 2019 Bird-Friendly Design standard into the Ontario Building Code to prevent fatal bird collisions with windows. 

"They pollinate plants and help maintain fertile agricultural land, healthy wetlands, and lush forests. Many of Ontario's migratory bird populations are in dangerous decline because of climate change. But buildings represent a major killer of birds as well, including bird species at risk."

Bird-friendly design uses visible markers at least 6 mm wide, placed no more than 5 cm apart on the outside of glass, covering the whole surface up to 16 meters high or the top of nearby trees; these markers help birds see the glass and avoid deadly collisions by breaking up reflections and making windows visible as barriers.

(Brendon Samuels/Ontario Nature)

This isn’t the first time the Ford government has prioritized rapid housing development at the expense of environmental protections—or used vague legislative language to do so.

In 2022, the PCs passed Bill 23, dubbed More Homes Built Faster Act, which proposed opening 15 parcels of protected Greenbelt land to development to fast-track the province’s target of creating 1.5 million homes, even though multiple expert reports confirmed that Ontario already had ample space for growth within existing urban boundaries.

There was also confusion around the legislation's impacts on the ability of municipalities to implement green standards like those used in Toronto and under development in Mississauga. 

The Bill removed the ability of municipalities to enforce these standards, but following an immediate public backlash, the PCs changed course and said the wording of the bill unintentionally removed this power. The PCs maintained that municipalities still have the ability to require green standards and new developments. 

Housing starts in Ontario have dropped to their lowest point in over 15 years, according to a recent report from the province’s Financial Accountability Office (FAO). In the first quarter of 2025, only 12,700 new housing units broke ground—a figure the FAO warns reflects "significant weakness" in the province’s housing sector.

Mesure explained that Bill 23 mostly affects single-family homes, which constitute the bulk of housing. But green building standards rarely apply to these homes, focusing instead on mid- and high-rises. So while Bill 23 removes some standards to ease development, those standards never covered single-family homes, meaning the changes won’t reduce bird collisions for the majority of homes.

It’s confusing: multiple bills, directly or indirectly, affect birds and building practices. The Ontario Building Code now contains no specific bird-safe requirements. The province’s response is to say everyone must simply follow the code, which lacks bird-safe design altogether.

The Canadian Standards Association, commissioned by the federal government in 2019, has already developed bird-friendly building standards that could be adopted nationally. In 2022, under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, the government also updated the Migratory Bird Regulations in 2022 to align with the Species at Risk Act.

But developer pressure continues to delay widespread implementation.

This is a delay the planet can’t afford. Global wildlife populations have declined by an average of 73 percent between 1970 and 2020—pushing countless species to the brink of extinction, according to the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Living Planet Report 2024.

Wildlife populations have suffered a steep decline over the past 50 years, with data from nearly 35,000 populations across 5,495 species of amphibians, birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles showing alarming downward trends.

(LIVING PLANET REPORT 2024/WWF)

The next five years are critical. Experts warn that the decisions made by 2030 will determine whether we can prevent irreversible ecological damage and begin to live in balance with nature.

“Nature is issuing a distress call. The linked crises of nature loss and climate change are pushing wildlife and ecosystems beyond their limits, with dangerous global tipping points threatening to damage Earth’s life-support systems and destabilize societies,” Kirsten Schuijt, director general of WWF International, said.

In Ontario, more than 200 plant and animal species are currently at risk of extinction. Instead of strengthening protections, the province is steadily weakening the laws meant to safeguard them, whether it is through Bill 17 or Bill 5, which completely eliminates the Endangered Species Act. 

Climate change is severely threatening nearly half of North America’s bird species by disrupting their migratory schedules. As spring weather becomes more unpredictable and shifts faster than birds can adapt, species like Purple Martins, who spend winters deep in the Amazon rainforest, cannot anticipate conditions thousands of kilometres away in places like Toronto. 

Purple Martins rely on internal, genetically programmed clocks based on past generations’ average conditions, leaving them vulnerable to the rapidly changing climate.

(Ontario Purple Martin Association)

Preventing bird collisions is vital not only for wildlife but also for building occupants who endure the distress of repeated impacts and bird carcasses near their homes. Bird-safe design is also a due diligence measure, shielding building owners from liability.

In Ontario, it is illegal under provincial and federal laws to cause bird deaths through glass collisions, intentional or accidental. The Migratory Birds Regulations (2022) explicitly list glass collisions as incidental “take” of protected species.

Under the Species at Risk Act, property owners can face fines up to $1 million per bird killed. FLAP monitors buildings in Toronto with collisions involving dozens of protected birds annually. Owners charged may avoid penalties by treating glass; failure to act risks significant fines.

Retrofitting existing buildings is much more costly than embedding bird-safe design from the start. Building owners facing retrofit expenses might seek restitution from original builders who exposed them to liability. Though untested in court, Bill 17 risks creating future legal battles involving builders, owners, and the government.

In the landmark 2013 case Podolsky v. Cadillac Fairview, Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice found that the developer had violated the Environmental Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the federal Species at Risk Act by failing to address ongoing bird collisions that resulted in the deaths of protected species. The company avoided penalties by demonstrating it had taken reasonable mitigation steps, but the case set a powerful precedent.

Now, with Bill 5, formally titled Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, the Ontario government has dismantled the original Endangered Species Act, replacing it with a weaker version that strips away key protections for at-risk birds. 

Mesure says combined with Bill 17’s removal of municipal authority to enforce bird-friendly design, these legislative changes have created an even more dangerous landscape for birds in the province — turning urban spaces into “death traps” for migratory and threatened species.

Bill 5 strips key environmental protections, sidesteps Indigenous consultation and grants the provincial cabinet sweeping powers to fast-track development in specially designated zones without adhering to municipal or provincial laws.

(Anushka Yadav/The Pointer) 

FLAP Canada is now urging the federal government to take action by incorporating a national bird-safe design standard—CSA A460: Bird-Friendly Building Design—into the National Building Code which provides science-based guidelines for minimizing bird collisions with buildings. Including CSA A460 in the National Building Code would set a consistent benchmark that provinces and territories can adopt into their own regulations, helping protect migratory birds across Canada.

FLAP Canada’s Michael Mesure explains that making buildings bird-friendly comes at a very low cost. For example, adding bird-safe glass design to a 40-story building increases glass and installation costs by “only about one percent.”

“That’s it! It’s minimal and not a financial burden,” Mesure says, noting these bird-friendly standards mainly apply to mid- and high-rise buildings, not single-family homes. He calls the decision to remove such standards “ill-informed.” 

“But I don't get the impression that they're concerned about that,” he said, noting this isn’t the first time he’s faced situations like this, not specifically with this Bill. The cause has lost ground several times over the years.

“We want to work with industry, real estate investment companies, and definitely the government. Nothing’s going to be a perfect fix, but there needs to be a collaborative approach where the government consults groups like FLAP before making these decisions. They might be surprised to learn that it’s not as burdensome as it’s often portrayed. Removing bird-friendly measures is only destructive and doesn’t truly serve their interests the way they think it does.”

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