• Ineffective oversight by the Ministry of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry has allowed mining companies to set up illegal camps and landing strips.
• Mining companies using claim staking, exploration, and related activities to circumvent government's promises to protect half the boreal forest, an area vital to Ontario's threatened woodland caribou.
• Failure to keep an up-to-date inventory of closed landfills that could be polluting groundwater.
• Worsening wastewater discharges threatening the Great Lakes because rules fail to factor in rapidly increasing southern Ontario population.
• Air quality standards that allow government to exempt whole sectors of industry.
• One billion more trees need to be planted in southern Ontario - far more than the government's target of 50 million trees by 2020 - to conserve biodiversity and respond to the challenges of climate change.

A land claim free-for-all in the so-called "ring of fire", a vast swath of recently discovered mineral-rich lands in Northern Ontario, has created a modern day wild west, according to Miller. "Just like our historic wild North you had to send the Mounties up to the Klondike. Well, I think it's time we send the MNR [Ministry of Natural Resources] up into northern Ontario to keep things well managed and under control."

Ontario passed the Far North Act the day following release of the ECO report, though the act has not been proclaimed into force. The legislation aims to protect half, at least 225,000 square kilometers, of Ontario's boreal forest from development. Several First Nation leaders have expressed opposition, saying the legislation violates their treaty rights and doesn't give them a say in how their lands will be developed.