The changes were included in last spring’s federal budget, but the target to fully implement them has slipped from last month to June, the documents say.
The delay means clear answers aren’t easy to obtain when resource and industrial companies approach Fisheries seeking authorization for work that might affect fish habitat, according to one industry spokesman.
“Our own sense is that the transition hasn’t been managed as well as we would have liked,” said Pierre Gratton, president of the Mining Association of Canada.
“I don’t think (staff in regional offices) have been prepared for handling this interim period, so they’re not quite sure, they don’t quite know how to answer questions, and this leads to delays.”
The government planned to have the new Fisheries Protection Program in place by Jan. 2, replacing the current Habitat Protection Program. It also planned to have the accompanying cabinet-imposed regulations spelling out how bureaucrats implement the changes ready at the same time.
But while the Fisheries Management Program was established in January, positions in the re-organized structure won’t be filled until April 2, according to an email sent to Fisheries staff earlier this week. And the “current working target” to bring into force the major changes in last year’s Fisheries Act amendments is June.
“But this is only a working target,” said Brad Fanos, Pacific regional manager for the department’s Habitat Protection Program, in a January email obtained by The Vancouver Sun.
“It could be earlier or later than the June working target.”
Fanos’s email does little to disguise morale problems in a department where a third of fisheries habitat positions in B.C. have been eliminated, and many of those who remain are being asked to move elsewhere in the province and in the country as offices are consolidated.
“I recognize that this is a very stressful and uncertain time for all staff … through this challenging transition period,” Fanos wrote to B.C. staff last month.
Sharon Ashley, the department’s director-general, thanked staff across Canada this week for their “patience, support and professionalism” while announcing the April target date.
Former senior federal Fisheries biologist Otto Langer, a critic of the government’s plans and a frequent recipient of leaked documents, said he is told morale is rock-bottom in his former department.
The department “is in tatters” as a result of job cuts and regional office closures that accompanied the legislative changes, Langer said in an email.
“Staff that have yet to leave are totally demoralized as they look for a new job and try to man the fort to the last man/woman.”
The Fisheries Act amendments passed last year triggered protests from environmental groups and even two former Progressive Conservative fisheries ministers from B.C., John Fraser and Tom Siddon.
The changes eliminated rules that had prohibited the “harmful alteration, disruption and destruction of fish habitat” unless authorized by the minister. The new proposal focused on protecting only revenue-generating commercial, sport and aboriginal fisheries.
But many of the most dramatic changes to policy won’t take effect until a cabinet order, now expected in June, is executed and regulations governing those changes are in place.
Among those impending changes is the prohibition against “serious harm,” which is defined as “death of fish or any permanent alteration to, or destruction of, fish habitat.”
In other words, according to a legal analysis by the group Ecojustice, the regulations in June could potentially mean it is “no longer … against the law to harmfully alter or disrupt fish habitat.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Peter O'Neil
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