Do BC Fish Get the Shaft in Ottawa?

For a province that prides itself on its pristine shores and myriad coastal industries, British Columbia lacks important representation on the Ottawa committees responsible for fisheries, according to a local filmmaker.

Damien Gillis, who has produced documentaries about environmental issues in B.C., said the limited number of British Columbians on fisheries committees explains what he sees as a lack of action on threats to salmon and the closure of West Coast coast guard stations and lighthouses.

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives say Fisheries Act was used to protect puddles

OTTAWA-Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative party is telling its supporters that its government overhauled a major water pollution law last year because it believed it was used to protect puddles.

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.

Harper’s fish-protection changes bog down

OTTAWA — Implementation of the Harper government’s sweeping changes to the Fisheries Act, intended to make life easier for developers, has been stalled inside a Fisheries Department facing “a very stressful and uncertain” period of transition, according to internal documents.

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.

Federal fisheries officials stalling on talks to protect water

OTTAWA - The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has no formal plans to consult with stakeholders on new regulations or partnerships to prevent industrial pollution in the wake of a major changes to environmental protection laws adopted last summer, says newly-released internal correspondence obtained by Postmedia News.

Despite pledging to develop new regulations and partnerships to protect Canadian waterways when it implemented the changes to Canada’s Fisheries Act and other legislation, the department is unable to provide any timelines or details of its progress, nearly six months later

Critics say bill hampers Fisheries Act

The Harper government is preparing to allow oil sands and mining companies to cancel regulatory permits that require them to compensate for loss of fish habitat, critics charged Friday.

Under the budget omnibus bill tabled this week, companies will be allowed to apply to the fisheries minister who can either amend or cancel old permits – as well as the conditions that applied to them – if the minister “is of the opinion that the holder no longer need an authorization.”

Water pollution law meant to assist oilsands: Liberal MP

OTTAWA — New laws offering the government more tools to "authorize" water pollution appear to be designed to remove obstacles for expansion of Canada's oilpatch, says a Liberal MP from Montreal who spearheaded a parliamentary investigation into the environmental footprint of the oilsands.

"I just found it curious that they're trying to hide their motive," said Francis Scarpaleggia, the Liberal water critic. "This is all being done for the oilsands. It's not being done for the pulp and paper industry. They have their house in order."

How Ottawa fumbled the fisheries file

Stephen Harper prides himself on being an astute political manager. However, the recent amendments to the Fisheries Act, contained in Bill C-38, the 2012 Budget Implementation Act, are the work of a political amateur. They will not help him get new pipelines built and they do not help his re-election prospects, since they have mobilized significant opposition, including from within the Conservative Party, and the manner of their passage lacks all legitimacy. Why has this seasoned veteran acted like such a rookie on the fisheries file?

High turnover at DFO threatens environmental reviews: records

OTTAWA - Heavy workloads and high turnover at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans could jeopardize the federal government's ability to protect Canadians from the dangerous impacts of industrial projects, say internal government records obtained by Postmedia News.

The warnings were made before the federal government started a series of multi-million-dollar budget cuts to scientific research and monitoring programs across several departments.

Federal government slammed for 'gutting' fisheries protection program

OTTAWA — The Harper government has announced major cuts to its fisheries habitat protection program, prompting a retired federal biologist to warn Wednesday of a dramatic increase in the risk of environmental damage.

The cuts coincide with Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield's launch of a public consultation process seeking input on how Canadian fisheries should be managed.

Federal fisheries changes will hurt small owners

Ottawa’s notion of managing the future of the East Coast fishery casts aside the importance of owner-operator fishing businesses, Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair said Wednesday in Dartmouth.

It is a viable industry the federal government should leave alone, Mulcair said.

He was in metro to meet privately with the Eastern Shore Fisherman’s Protective Association about the Harper government’s plan. The federal NDP leader spoke with reporters after the get-together and was quick to denounce his political foes.

“Every time you talk about taking care of a resource, they say, ‘Oh, you’re trying to interfere in the marketplace,’” Mulcair said.

Atlantic fishermen mobilize against plan to ‘modernize’

Nellie Baker Stevens says the 250 Atlantic fishermen she represents fear the Harper government is poised to destroy the fishery as they now know it, even allowing Chinese corporations to own the resource.

“Is this something that we as Canadians want,” she asked. “Is this how we envisage our future?”

On Wednesday, Ms. Baker Stevens and several members of her organization, the Eastern Shore Fisherman’s Protective Association, met at a Dartmouth hotel with NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, who offered no alternatives but lent a sympathetic ear.

Don’t defund freshwater research, Ontario and Manitoba tell Tories

Two provincial environment ministers are pleading with the Conservative government to continue its funding of a research station in Northwestern Ontario that has studied the ecology of freshwater lakes for more than 50 years.

Gord Mackintosh, Manitoba’s Minister of Conservation and Water Stewardship, and Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley say the work conducted at the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) is relied upon by all Canadian bodies that are responsible for managing freshwater resources and many of their international counterparts.

Science, not politics, should be at the heart of fisheries

Four good men with extensive government experience tried to stop the Harper government. Predictably, they failed – predictably, because this government listens to almost no one who actually knows about given policy fields.

In this instance, four former ministers of Fisheries and Oceans from previous Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments pleaded with the Harperites not to water down environmental protection for fish habitats.

Fisheries science could die on the vine due to federal cuts: academia

Scientific projects such as the development of disease-resistant salmon in New Brunswick and an examination of how climate change is affecting Ontario lakes could die on the vine because of cuts to the federal Fisheries Department, university researchers say.

The department is bracing for a $79.3-million decrease in funding over the next three years as part of Ottawa’s cost-cutting measures. Officials have said research will still be done, though it will be refocused on what it says are areas that directly support conservation and fisheries management.

Federal scientists losing their positions say they aren’t permitted to publicly discuss the cuts, but their colleagues in academia say valuable knowledge could be lost, posing threats to the country’s environment and its competitiveness.

Fisheries minister accused of misleading the House

OTTAWA — Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield was accused of misleading the House of Commons Tuesday after he suggested the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) still supports controversial and sweeping changes to the Fisheries Act.

The FCM, in a near-unanimous emergency vote at its annual meeting in Saskatoon on the weekend, passed a resolution stating the changes in the omnibus budget implementation bill "could reduce the act's ability to protect the environment."

The FCM, while stressing it still supports "common-sense" measures to reduce red tape for municipal governments, called on the federal government to remove and re-assess legislation in bill C-38 that impacts the environment.

Federal Fisheries Act amendments could spell disaster

Fish species do not simply live in isolation from other fish species. That is why the amendments in the federal Fisheries Act in the 452-page budget implementation bill should themselves be amended

If these changes are enacted, fish useful in very specific ways to human beings will have a privileged status. In the bill, there recur phrases such as “the contribution of the relevant fish to the ongoing productivity of commercial, recreational or aboriginal fisheries” and “serious harm to fish that are part of a commercial, recreational or Aboriginal fisheries, or to fish that support such a fishery.” When, for example, the fisheries minister considers a new regulation, he will be required to think about whether it will benefit those categories of fish.

Protecting Canada’s fisheries: an open letter to Stephen Harper

Dear Prime Minister Harper:

As privy councillors from British Columbia who have served as ministers of Fisheries and Oceans in past federal governments, we wish to inform you of our serious concern regarding the content of Bill C-38 and the process being used to bring it into force.

We have had lengthy and varied political experience and collectively have served in cabinet in Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments alike. We believe we have a fair understanding of the views of Canadians. Moreover, we believe there is genuine public concern over the perceived threat this legislation poses to the health of Canada’s environment and in particular to the well-being of its fisheries resources. We are especially alarmed about any possible diminution of the statutory protection of fish habitat, which we feel could result if the provisions of Bill C-38 are brought into force. Migratory salmon and steelhead are icons of our home province. Our experience convinces us that their continued survival would be endangered without adequate federal regulation and enforcement, particularly in the area of habitat protection.

Kent rebuffs ex-ministers' concerns over Fisheries Act

Environment Minister Peter Kent is suggesting four former federal fisheries ministers who penned a letter critical of the regulatory changes in the budget implementation bill haven't read the legislation.

The authors of the letter, two Liberals and two Progressive Conservatives now retired from politics, questioned the Harper government's placing of environment measures in a money bill.

Mulroney-era Conservatives Tom Siddon and John Fraser and Chrétien-era Liberals Herb Dhaliwal and David Anderson also asked what outside groups may have pressured the government into making the changes.

Harper gov't abandoning protection for dozens of freshwater species, say scientists

OTTAWA — The federal government is sabotaging its own legislated requirement to protect endangered freshwater fish by weakening the Fisheries Act, Canadian scientists say in a letter to be sent to the Harper government Tuesday.

The revisions would mean that the majority of freshwater fish and up to 80 per cent of the 71 freshwater species at risk of extinction would lose protection, according to the letter from the 1,000-strong Canadian Society For Ecology and Evolution (CSEE) provided exclusively to the Vancouver Sun.

The letter is signed by Dalhousie University professor Jeffrey Hutchings, a current member and former chairman from 2006-2010 of the federal government's main independent advisory body on species at risk, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC).

Feds trying to gut Fisheries Act under the radar, say two former federal Conservative fisheries ministers

Two former federal Conservative fisheries ministers and a former Conservative MP say the government’s massive omnibus Budget Implementation Act should be split up and accuse the government of trying to gut the Fisheries Act under the radar.

John Fraser, a former fisheries minister under prime minister Brian Mulroney, and later House Speaker, told The Hill Times the omnibus bill is a “mistake,” that the “politics is dumb,” that he doesn’t appreciate how the government casts critics of the process as “radical left-wingers,” and wondered what the House Finance Committee will know about “steelhead and salmon on the West Coast” when it studies Bill C-38.