Ontario polar bears could be ‘extinct in 45 years’ as Ford’s Bill 5 strips remaining protections

When Ontario Nature’s conservation campaigns and advocacy manager, Shane Moffatt, told The Pointer in May that Bill 5, dubbed Protect Ontario by Unleashing Our Economy Act, is “potentially the worst piece of legislation that Ontario has seen in a generation,” he knew exactly what was at stake. 

The Doug Ford government’s controversial legislation, passed on June 5 gutted the Endangered Species Act (ESA), one of the province’s strongest environmental protection tools, and replaced it with the far weaker Species Conservation Act, stripping away essential safeguards for Ontario’s at-risk wildlife. 

Five months later, Moffatt found himself writing to the federal government, urging Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) to step in and help polar bears, after Ontario had abandoned the cause of protecting the magnificent creatures. 

His letter, submitted as part of the federal consultation on the Management Plan for the Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) in Canada, a 90-day process that closes October 23, warned that without federal oversight, polar bears in Ontario, already imperilled by a warming Arctic, could vanish from the province within decades.

The timeline and severity of that decline vary by region, but the trend is consistent: less ice means less food, lower survival rates, and fewer cubs reaching maturity. Other mounting pressures include industrial development, marine shipping, tourism, and contaminants. More recently, scientists have begun warning about pathogens and diseases spreading northward with climate change.

In 2012, when sea ice hit a record low, over 25 percent of polar bears captured in the Beaufort Sea showed signs of alopecia, a condition marked by significant hair loss and skin lesions.

A 2018 Yale report warns that as the Arctic warms rapidly, polar bears are facing not only the loss of sea ice but also increasing threats from disease and pollution. Scientists have documented cases of alopecia (severe hair loss and skin sores) in polar bears, particularly in years when sea ice levels hit record lows. Warming temperatures are enabling new species to move north, potentially bringing unfamiliar pathogens to which polar bears have no natural immunity. At the same time, as polar bears are forced to fast longer due to shorter hunting seasons, they metabolize fat stores that contain pollutants like mercury, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), and Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), releasing these toxins into their bloodstream, where they can harm the brain, weaken the immune system and disrupt reproduction. Researchers warn that the combination of increased disease risk, toxic exposure, and nutritional stress may pose a serious threat to the long-term health and survival of polar bear populations across the Arctic.

(Michelle Valberg)

In 2011, polar bears were listed as a species of Special Concern in Canada under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA), following a 2008 reassessment by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). The independent panel of scientists and wildlife experts, determines which species are at risk of extinction or extirpation and advises governments on their protection. The at-risk status was reconfirmed in 2018. 

For Moffatt, those national protections are not enough if provinces like Ontario erase the mechanisms that enforce them.

“The federal government is currently consulting on the national management plan for polar bears,” he told The Pointer, noting the species, which once roamed the province’s northern coasts under the protection of the ESA, lost its last line of legal defence the day Bill 5 became law. 

“We were very interested in what Ontario would say now that the Endangered Species Act is being repealed. Ontario and Canada play a crucial role in conserving global polar bear populations, and the actions Ontario takes will have a significant impact on their survival worldwide.”

Polar bears are found throughout the circumpolar Arctic, stretching across Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia, and the United States (Alaska), but no population lives farther south than Ontario’s. 

From the North Pole at the center, the global distribution of polar bear subpopulations spans across a vast and diverse region, encompassing both land and sea. There are 19 distinct subpopulations scattered across areas like the Arctic Ocean, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, and the United States. The Arctic Basin subpopulation is primarily situated in the Arctic Ocean, while the Chukchi Sea subpopulation stretches along parts of Alaska and Russia. To the northeast, the Laptev Sea and Kara Sea subpopulations are found, with the Barents Sea subpopulation lying southeast between Russia and Norway. Moving south, the East Greenland subpopulation is located along Greenland's coast, just west of Iceland. Further south, the Baffin Bay and Davis Strait subpopulations are found, with Kane Basin situated west of Greenland. Northern Canada is home to several subpopulations, including the Norwegian Bay, Viscount Melville Sound, Lancaster Sound, M'Clintock Channel, Gulf of Boothia, and Northern Beaufort Sea. The Southern Beaufort Sea subpopulation spans both Canada and Alaska, while the Foxe Basin subpopulation is located in the northern part of Hudson Bay. Below that, the Southern and Western Hudson Bay subpopulations are situated in the southern regions of Hudson Bay. Nine subpopulations are entirely within Canada, with the Southern Beaufort Sea subpopulation shared between Canada and the United States, and Kane Basin, Baffin Bay, and Davis Strait shared between Canada and Greenland.

(Environment and Natural Resources/Government of Canada)

Along the frozen coasts of Hudson Bay and James Bay, an estimated 900 to 1,000 bears, roughly 3.6 to 5 percent of Canada’s total, represent the southernmost breeding population in the world. They belong primarily to the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation, with a smaller number from Western Hudson Bay in the northwest corner of the province.

Across their global range, polar bears are divided into 19 subpopulations, thirteen of which occur fully or partially in Canada. Collectively, the country is home to more than 17,000 individuals, about two-thirds of the world’s total. 

But their numbers are declining in several key regions.

According to ECCC’s 2022 Polar Bear Technical Committee (PBTC), an estimated 29 percent of Canada’s subpopulations are likely declining (four of thirteen), and about 17 percent are in subpopulations where population trends remain uncertain (three of thirteen). 

Only about half are considered stable or likely stable.

Ontario’s polar bears live on the fragile fringe of that distribution, a frontier where climate change is pushing the Arctic southward. Their survival depends on the seasonal formation of sea ice, which allows them to hunt seals and accumulate the fat reserves that sustain them through long, ice-free summers. 

As the ice disappears earlier each year, the bears are spending more time on land, fasting longer, and producing fewer healthy cubs.

As early as 2010, researchers studying polar bears in western Hudson Bay, just across the provincial border in Manitoba, found that the population had dropped from about 1,200 bears in 1987 to roughly 935 by 2004. Long-term data revealed earlier sea-ice breakup was shortening the bears’ hunting season by roughly three weeks since 1984, forcing them ashore sooner each spring and extending their annual fast.

Healthy adults were barely holding on, but cubs and older bears were suffering sharp declines in survival rates.

Manitoba has lost a third of its polar bear population. Northern communities are working to establish Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas in the region, and the Jane Goodall Institute has been advocating to partner with Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) to create a dedicated polar bear conservation park.

(Jane Goodall Institute)

A 2023 study led by University of Toronto Scarborough postdoctoral fellow Louise Archer and biologist Péter Molnár found that shorter hunting seasons are causing polar bear mothers to produce less milk, putting their cubs at greater risk of dying during their first fasting period if they don’t gain enough weight. 

Mothers are also having fewer cubs, with litter sizes down 11 percent compared to nearly 40 years ago, and they are keeping their cubs longer because the young bears aren’t strong enough to survive on their own. 

Using a bio-energetic model that tracked how much energy bears gain from hunting seals versus how much they need to grow and reproduce, based on four decades of data from 1979 to 2021, the researchers found that the Western Hudson Bay polar bear population has dropped by nearly 50 percent. Adult females now weigh 39 kilograms less than in the 1980s, and one-year-old cubs are, on average, 26 kilograms lighter.

“A loss of sea ice means bears spend less time hunting seals and more time fasting on land,” Archer said.

“This negatively affects the bears’ energy balance, leading to reduced reproduction, cub survival and, ultimately, population decline.”

Monitoring data in Western Hudson Bay shows that polar bears are much smaller than they were 40 years ago.

(WWF)

Molnár, who has studied Arctic mammals for more than a decade, added that the model provides a “mechanism” linking warming to population loss. 

Western Hudson Bay has long served as a warning sign for the health of polar bear populations worldwide, and with the Arctic warming at a rate four times faster than the global average, researchers caution that similar declines are likely in other regions. The protective policies eliminated by Doug Ford’s PC government threatens to accelerate that decline.

“This is one of the southernmost populations of polar bears, and it’s been monitored for a long time, so we have very good data to work with,” Molnár said.

“There’s every reason to believe what is happening to polar bears in this region will also happen to polar bears in other regions, based on projected sea ice loss trajectories. This model basically describes their future.”

Ontario Nature’s submission to ECCC builds on these findings, warning that the loss of maternal denning habitat combined with melting ice and poor food availability will hit cubs hardest. It predicts that polar bears could disappear from Ontario within 45 years.

“Some climate-change models predict that without significantly halting climate change, polar bears are likely to be extirpated, locally extinct from Ontario within 40 to 100 years,” Moffatt warned.

Before Bill 5, Ontario’s Endangered Species Act required recovery strategies, impact assessments, and ministerial progress reports for every listed species, including the polar bear, every five years. It legally prohibited the destruction of habitat and demanded that developers seek permits and mitigation plans before disturbing land critical to wildlife survival.

Bill 5 swept those safeguards aside.

Under the new law, “habitat” is redefined to include only the immediate nest, den, or surrounding area—excluding the forests, wetlands, and feeding grounds essential for survival.

The Cabinet has the authority to narrow this definition of habitat even further. 

“Pursuant to Bill 5, feeding grounds, migratory routes and other areas essential for the sustenance of polar bears and other listed species are no longer included in the definition of ‘habitat’ for the purpose of any habitat protections the government might contemplate. Given the vast areas travelled by polar bears to feed alone, this definition of habitat is severely limiting,” Moffatt writes in his submission. Tracking data show polars roam areas as large as 300,000 square kilometers. 

Polar bears traverse massive areas during the winter months, roaming across hundreds of thousands of square kilometres in search of food to sustain them during the warmer, ice-free months.

(Ministry of Natural Resources)

The Cabinet also has the power to selectively list or de-list species that the Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario (COSSARO), the expert committee that designated endangered species under the previous law, identified as being at risk.

This means even the polar bear’s status as a threatened species is now “uncertain,” and politically determined, not scientifically grounded. 

Even the requirement to maintain or restore viable populations has been replaced with vague language emphasizing balancing conservation with economic development.

When species are removed from the protection list, the legal safety afforded to them under the Endangered Species Act is rescinded, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and harm.

(Bill 5)

The repeal of a key provision, including sections 57, 20 and 30, removes the requirement for the government to consider the impacts of regulations on at-risk species, and reduces public involvement and transparency, limiting opportunities for people to challenge decisions that could harm endangered species.

The amendments also strip crucial powers from enforcement officers, reducing the immediate response capacity to halt harmful activities affecting endangered species. “Amendments are made to remove the ability of enforcement officers to issue stop orders and to authorize provincial officers to issue contravention orders and to authorize the Minister to issue mitigation orders,” Bill 5 dictates. 

Under the new, watered-down Species Conservation Act, developers no longer need government approval before harming the habitat of threatened species, they simply register and proceed as “trusted proponents”.

“With the enactment of Bill 5, proponents now only need to register with the new Species Conservation registry in order to immediately proceed with harming listed species habitat, without any prior requirements to avoid or minimize harms to habitat,” the Ontario Nature submission notes. 

“There appears to be currently few if any limits under provincial law on damage or destruction of polar bear habitat.”

Bill 5 effectively codified into practice how the PC government has been treating species at risk since being elected in 2018. A 2021 auditor general’s report found the PC government’s environmental ministry was working contrary to its mandate to protect species. That report found the majority of permits to harm habitat were being handed out automatically. The PCs attempted to misrepresent the audit’s findings when questioned by experts and members of the public, and have consistently refused to study the cumulative impacts of their development-first agenda, despite clear evidence of the harm it is doing to at-risk wildlife. 

“He’s making it easier for his friends to pave over farms, forests and wetlands and wipe out endangered species without any guardrails,” Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, warned this summer.

Ontario’s 2011 Recovery Strategy for the Polar Bear notes that “the greatest threats to Ontario’s Polar Bears are habitat alterations due to climate change and an increase in mortality resulting from human-bear interactions.” 

“Climate change will result in a loss of sea ice habitat and maternal denning habitat. These changes will have the greatest impact on the survival of cubs and older bears. A loss of habitat and food sources because of climate change will increase the number of human-bear encounters. These encounters can threaten the safety of both Polar Bears and humans,” the strategy warns.

“Although current harvest levels of Polar Bears appear to be sustainable, there is potential for the harvest to become unsustainable in the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation.”

It explicitly links species recovery to climate action, calling reducing greenhouse-gas emissions a “critical” step, setting targets of 15 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, 37 percent by 2030, and 80 percent by 2050. 

Those goals were meant to align with federal and international climate commitments, but they have largely been abandoned.

By 2023, Ontario’s emissions were just 11 percent below 1990 levels, far short of the Province’s own targets.

“What we can see now is that the Ontario government is failing to deliver on that critical action,” Moffatt said.

In October 2025, the Auditor General of Ontario reported the province is “not on track” to meet its 2030 emissions reduction target, falling further behind than previously acknowledged, due to the lack of a finalized climate plan, no targets beyond 2030, no progress report since 2021, and overly optimistic projections with little advancement in climate change strategies.

“Ontario set a legislated target in 2018 to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The review found the Province is projected to miss this target by at least 3.5 megatonnes — and the gap could be even larger,” the auditor general report stressed.

Ontario’s recovery strategy also promised to assess “cumulative impacts” from development, pollution, and climate change on polar-bear habitat. 

More than a decade later, Ontario Nature says there’s no evidence the province has conducted those reviews or established new pollution targets, arguing that these omissions violate both the spirit and the intent of the Province’s commitments under the Accord for the Protection of Species at Risk in Canada, to which the province is a signatory since 1996.

The Ford government’s retreat from environmental policy has been systematic. Since taking power in 2018, it has cancelled the cap-and-trade program, scrapped more than 700 renewable energy projects, dissolved the Office of the Environmental Commissioner in 2019, and stripped the powers of conservation authorities. Through Bill 23, it opened protected wetlands and parts of the Greenbelt to development. 

Bill 5 continues that trajectory, removing accountability altogether.

Ontario Nature is urging the federal government to hold Ontario accountable under the Species at Risk Act (SARA), calling for ECCC to demand a credible, evidence-based plan showing how Ontario will sustain Polar Bear populations and habitat without the ESA, and to ensure the province meets its long-abandoned emissions goals.

This ask comes as the federal government is also off-track on its climate commitments. A recent report from the Canadian Climate Institute found Canada made no progress cutting emissions last year, largely due to rising oil and gas pollution, and will likely not meet its own 2030 targets.

Polar bears evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago to thrive on Arctic sea ice, but they cannot adapt fast enough to survive its rapid, human-driven loss. A 2012 DNA study of polar bears and brown bears suggested their split from brown bears occurred between 600,000 and five million years ago, yet despite this long history, fossil records show that when sea ice disappeared in the past, polar bears vanished too, a warning that their future now depends entirely on our ability to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

(anxious.animals/Instagram)

Moffatt requested the federal government embed Indigenous rights and free, prior, and informed consent into all aspects of the Management Plan for the Polar Bear in Canada, aligning it with the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

“The way that I look at it is that the actions by Ontario, and to some extent the federal government, to undermine crucial environmental protections are undermining the survival of species all around us,” Moffatt said. 

“They are undermining the ecosystems that we all depend on for our survival. Those actions are out of sync with public expectations. Polling consistently shows that Canadians and Ontarians want more nature protections, not less.”

A 2024 EKOS poll for Nature Canada shows that 84 percent of Canadians want stronger government action to protect forests and wildlife, including many Conservative supporters. 

Ontarians are among the most eager for enhanced nature protections, according to a 2022 polling by Greenpeace Canada.

Two-thirds of Canadians believe the loss of wildlife and nature is at a crisis point in Canada, and there is an urgent need to act now to reverse the damage. The sense of urgency is higher among younger Canadians.

(Environics Research/Greenpeace Canada)

“The solution to the situation we find ourselves in now is people power and Indigenous leadership,” Moffatt said. “[W]e need a transparent way to overturn this Bill and put in place new legislation that is actually going to reflect the perspectives of all Ontarians of all political persuasions, the vast majority of whom deeply care about the environment.”

Email: [email protected]