The message contrasts with an explanation last year from the minister responsible for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Keith Ashfield, who suggested the changes were designed to help make it easier for industrial facilities to pollute water.
The Conservatives are saying on their website that their critics aren’t telling the real story about the changes they made.
“We do not believe it is sensible, or practical, to treat all bodies of water – from puddles to the Great Lakes – the same way, and our government is making long-overdue changes to our rules to focus DFO on what is important to Canadians.”
Ashfield said in June 2012 that the government was changing the Fisheries Act, considered at the time to be one of Canada’s most powerful environmental protection laws, because it needed new tools to authorize pollution.
“There are currently few tools to authorize pollution other than by detailed regulations,” Ashfield wrote in a June 14 letter to Todd Panas, president of the Union of Environment Workers. “For example, the amended Fisheries Act will provide flexibility and establish new tools to authorize deposits of deleterious substances.”
Thomas Siddon, a former Conservative fisheries minister, is among the critics of the recent changes that were adopted by Parliament in July as part of hundreds of pages of changes to Canada’s environmental laws.
Siddon said the changes to the Fisheries Act weaken the law and compromise the minister’s constitutional responsibility to protect fisheries.
Ashfield’s office was not immediately able to comment on the claims made on the Conservative party website.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Mike De Souza
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