It does not look like there will be any bridge over the troubled water of the House of Commons any time soon.Tempers flared across the aisle last week in House Chamber after a vote to remove federal oversight on bridges, dams, wharfs, and just about everything else that can built on or around Canada’s waterways.
The majority-governing Conservatives passed their sprawling fall budget implementation act, Bill C-45, through third reading. The bill includes an overhaul of Canada’s 130-year-old Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA), a bill originally introduced by John A. Macdonald to ensure that no construction project would interfere with Canadians’ ability to freely pass through public waterways.
The bill removes all but a few dozen of Canada’s thousands of lakes and rivers from that oversight, and changes the requirement to notify Industry Canada of the construction projects. While previously all projects in or around public water had to be vetted by Industry Canada, this bill makes such reviews optional.
The changes to the NWPA have been decried by the opposition parties, who say that it’s the finishing touch on the government’s effort to dismantle Canada’s environmental regulation system.
Industry Canada officials have said the changes are warranted because the NWPA’s scope has resulted in a massive backlog of project reviews.
The governing Conservatives, for their part, say that the bill was never meant to be about environmental protection, and that their goal was to hack away at the onerous red tape that can hamper families from building wharfs at their cottages.
NDP MP Megan Leslie (Halifax, N.S.), her party’s environment critic, disagreed. “This act has always been environmental legislation. It’s always been interpreted that way,” she said.
Industry Canada says that the changes will give the government freedom to focus resources where they’re needed while speeding up the “approval of major construction projects,” but leaving industry with the option to request a review of a project.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C) called that “laughable.” She said nobody, Ducks Unlimited aside, will opt-in to that review.
Ms. May called the bill a “withdrawal” of the government’s constitutional responsibility to protect “the right of a Canadian to put a canoe in any body of water.”
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo, also criticized the bill on the grounds that the changes could “compromise key aspects of the Crown-First Nation relationship” and slammed the government for failing to consult First Nations groups about the changes.
When asked if the government had met its duty to consult with First Nations, Industry Canada said simply that First Nations were “invited to participate in technical briefings to outline the steps taken to modernize the NWPA.”
Unless the bill is amended, that could leave First Nations with the same recourse as anyone else opposing a project under the act—litigation.
The bill allows for a review if someone can convince a federal judge that the project is an obstruction to navigation. Industry Canada insists that the common law route is sufficient to protect Canadians’ right to access the country’s thousands of waterways. Ms. May calls that route costly and time-consuming.
Cases filed in the federal court under the existing legislation show that the common law remedy isn’t always fruitful. There are only a half dozen cases listed that directly involve the NWPA, and only two of the cases led to the court opening a review of the decision.
One case echoes the Conservative talking points, where a group of landowners were forced into a time-consuming review process to repair their island’s aging bridge.
Other cases involve First Nations and environmental groups using the legislation as a means to oppose mining, logging and damming projects. Federal judges dismissed all but one.
In the end, the process of passing this legislation has left the opposition with a bad taste in its mouth. The opposition’s overtures—both in good faith, and partisan—were ignored.
Ms. Leslie said that the NDP approached the government multiple times, through different channels, to hold negotiations on the legislation, while Ms. May introduced a spate of amendments that sought to keep the oversight of the bill—which she admits needed some reforms—while cutting down on unnecessary red tape.
They were rebuked by House Leader Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.).
“This is a form of parliamentary insanity; to treat every piece of legislation as though every amendment is some sort of political defeat,” Ms. May says. “This is not normal.”
The back-and-forth on the budget bill got so heated that it nearly came to blows last week after a terse exchange between Mr. Van Loan and New Democrat House Leader Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley Valley, B.C.).
Ms. May called the incident “unfortunate on all sides.” She says that the adversarial hollering, stomping and acrimony that was on display during last week’s votes “sets the tone in the House of constant warfare.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Justin Ling
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