12/11/2025
We need help. Please contact city council. Raise your voice. We need you to stand up for our environment, our relations, all of these precious lives!
Why Winnipeg’s decision matters for Halifax
Winnipeg recently moved to scrap its bird-friendly window bylaw, less than a year after it came into effect. Conservationists are “shocked,” calling it “a backwards move for birds.” The changes on the table include dropping the bird-friendly window requirements. A bird-safe window is one that is built or retrofitted with features like patterned films, decals, glazes, or coatings to reduce strikes. Environment and Climate Change Canada estimates that between sixteen million and forty-two million migratory birds die in Canada each year due to window collisions.
Meanwhile, Halifax still proudly carries the designation of being a Bird Friendly City. Last year we presented to the ESSC about the importance of bird-friendly design, especially to prevent deadly window strikes, and successfully got language into our Regional Plan calling for future developments to “consider birds and fatalities.”
Of note, in Winnipeg it was the Urban Development Institute of Manitoba, the developers’ lobby, that pushed for the bylaw’s removal — the same type of lobby groups that lobbied to remove bird-friendly wording from Halifax’s proposed Regional Plan. Lobby groups pushed us out of the Regional Plan. Many bird-friendly initiatives are hard-fought, and our progress in Halifax is precious. If Winnipeg can reverse itself so quickly, it shows how fragile these protections really are.
If we care about Halifax birds, it is up to us to keep the pressure on: demand bird-safe design, support Bird Friendly Halifax, and make sure that “consider birds” does not become “forget birds.”
To date, we have passed out hundreds of free window strike kits to local residents. While it is too cold right now to put up the stickers, in the spring there will be many more safe windows. A significant ongoing threat, however, remains untreated glass in high rise builds in migration corridors, which continues to put birds at risk.
