The way the Species at Risk Act has been designed is unlike the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act or the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, in which the equivalent of the safety net, the equivalency provisions, apply automatically. The Species at Risk Act requires a positive government intervention in order to invoke the net. The status quo is that it's not applied if there's a lack of action.
In this case it's a question for the department and the minister, ultimately—and cabinet, I suppose—but the fact that these provisions are not utilized even though there's a biodiversity crisis and a growing list of species at risk shows you that Canada is not doing enough to protect its biodiversity.