In 2018, faced with a rise in toxic algal blooms that threatened the health of Lake Erie, Ottawa and Queen’s Park released the Canada-Ontario Lake Erie Action Plan, pledging to reduce levels of phosphorus in the lake by 40 per cent within seven years. Since then, says Michelle Woodhouse, water program manager with Environmental Defence, little has happened. “We were supposed to receive an update from the province in 2020 about how we were doing so far. We never received one,” Woodhouse said, noting a new “interim update” on efforts to slow nutrient runoff into the lake has been promised for next year.