Contact

Store

About

Issues
News
Guides
Lake Ontario
Media
Get Involved
Donate Now

Search

Home
Issues
News
Guides
Lake Ontario
Media
Get Involved
About
Contact
Store
Donate Now
News

How low can we go? Canada's environmental descent

Published on December 17, 2007 by Dylan Neild.

Recently, a new version of Canada's most powerful environmental law appeared in the House of Commons. Bill C-32, the Fisheries Act, dramatically weakens environmental protection rules in Canada. First introduced in 2006, this "modernized" Act attracted sharp criticisms from environmentalists including Waterkeepers, Alberta Wilderness Association, Conservation Council of New Brunswick, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecology Action Centre, Fisheries Recovery Action Committee, Friends of the Oldman River, Georgia Strait Alliance, Great Lakes United, Les Intendants du Madawaska, Living Oceans Society, Newfoundland and Labrador Healthy Oceans Coalition, Ottawa Riverkeeper, Sierra Club of Canada, Southpeace Environment Association, and Yukon Conservation Society.

The existing Fisheries Act protects every waterway, every community, and every Canadian. The proposed Fisheries Act protects only some waterways and some communities, some of the time. Under the current Act, clean water is a right for person in the country who lives on a fish-bearing waterway. Under Bill C-32 (once known as C-45), clean water will become a privilege, reserved for a limited number of communities with the political allies and economic clout to preserve still-pristine lakes and rivers.

The Fisheries Act has been a powerful tool for protecting Canada's water. When coal-fired power plants in the United States contaminated Canadian water with mercury, it was the Fisheries Act that gave Waterkeepers the right to take action. Scott Edwards launched a private prosecution in 2007 in an effort to halt the release of mercury from DTE Energy facilities in Michigan. His case is still making its way through the courts. Under the "modernized" Fisheries Act, mercury would no longer be considered a "deleterious substance". We may never again be able to hold a polluter accountable for contaminating Canadian waters and fish with mercury.

In 1968, with support from the Federal government, the Province of New Brunswick built the causeway across the Petitcodiac River and one of the world's most astounding rivers was virtually destroyed. The causeway was built in direct contradiction to the current Fisheries Act, which requires that at least 1/3 of every waterway be always left open for free-flow. Petitcodiac Riverkeeper is using this Act to restore free-flow to the river, sparking one of the greatest river restorations in Canadian history. With one exception, every species of fish is expected to return to the Petitcodiac River. Under the "modernized" Fisheries Act, the freeflow rule is eliminated. Politics, rather than science, will dictate which rivers are protected and which rivers are not.

The existing Fisheries Act encouraged lawyers like Mark Mattson and Doug Chapman to go out in the field; it taught them the importance of addressing pollution from the grassroots. Their private prosecutions resulted in some of the largest environmental penalties in Canadian history and helped to pay for Lake Ontario Waterkeeper's first patrol boat, the Angus Bruce. In a private prosecution, a citizen lays a charge (rather than the police) and his or her lawyer prosecutes the offender. Canadians' right to initiate a private prosecution is one of the oldest protections against government inaction and corruption that we have. The "modernized" Fisheries Act eliminates the explicit encouragement of private prosecutions.

The new, "modern" Fisheries Act is not the only threat to Canada's oldest, and most effective environmental law. Policy changes in recent years quietly undermined some of the Act's key protections:

 

  • In 2002, the federal government changed the Criminal Code to make it more difficult for citizens to bring prosecutions.
  • In 2003, a number of groups including Waterkeeper appealed to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation when Canada failed to enforce the Fisheries Act in Montreal. PCBs were leaking continuously from the Technoparc site into the St. Lawrence River, but no charges were ever laid and no cleanup ever occurred. In its written defense, Environment Canada defended the pollution. Four years later, there is evidence that the government is pressuring the Commission to sit on the report or make findings more in tune with the government's views.
  • In Hamilton in 2007, the Board of Hamilton Harbour Commissioners (now the Hamilton Port Authority) filled in fish habitat in Sherman Inlet without an environmental assessment or authorization from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has opted not to press charges. Port Authority president Keith Robson recently told the Hamilton Spectator that, "You can safely say it didn't hurt fish habitat because it was so contaminated, so polluted, that no fish could have lived in there."
  • Also this year, Fraser Riverkeeper Doug Chapman brought two private prosecutions against the City of Vancouver for its sewage pollution earlier this year. Supported by Ecojustice, the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, Georgia Strait Alliance and the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union, Chapman's charges were stayed by the federal Crown. The sewage pollution continues.

 

Many of these actions stem from DFO's belief that industry stakeholders - and not the general public - are its "clients". When DFO considers whether charges are appropriate, it asks a variety of questions to determine whether a particular file is "significant enough to consider prosecution." These questions include:

  • Is this a high profile project on a high profile watercourse?
  • What will be the public reaction if we take no action?
  • What will be the public reaction if we prosecute?
  • Is the client a good candidate for voluntary restoration?

 

This policy represents a consideration for offenders that is unprecedented in Canadian law enforcement. The "modernized" Fisheries Act seeks to enshrine this philosophy in law. It changes the very purpose of the Act - to protect all fish and fish habitat - and sacrifices each Canadian's right to clean water.

If the new Fisheries Act shows up in the House of Commons again in the new year, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper hopes to present our concerns during the clause by clause committee review. In the meantime, we keep doing what we are doing; because Canadian law states that this is what is in the public interest.

 

This week on Living at the Barricades: threats to Canada's strongest piece of environmental legislation - the Fisheries Act. Hosts Mark Mattson and Krystyn Tully are joined by Waterkeeper Alliance President Steve Fleischli to discuss environmental rollbacks and the consequences for every waterway.

  • Listen to this week's show online (right-click to download).
  • Subscribe to the Living at the Barricades Podcast via iTunes.

     

Canadian rollbacks

Newer Articles Older Articles
Featured
Gord Edgar Downie Pier T-shirt
Gord Edgar Downie Pier T-shirt

This shirt commemorates the Gord Edgar Downie Pier in Kingston, Ontario. The City of Kingston and Swim Drink Fish Canada unveiled the pier on July 26, 2018.

100% of our proceeds support our core initiatives so Canadian communities can prosper.

Blog Categories

  • Deloro (2)
  • Eastern Mainline Pipeline (2)
  • American Eel (3)
  • King's Mill Park (4)
  • Castonguay (5)
  • Gifford Hill (5)
  • Pickering (5)
  • Skip the Wash (5)
  • Swim Guide (6)
  • Enbridge-Line9 (9)
  • Events and Meetings (9)
  • GreatLakes Protection Act (10)
  • Waterkeeper Gala (10)
  • Press Releases (11)
  • TO Island Airport (14)
  • Microbeads (15)
  • WestonGreatLakesChallenge (15)
  • 2014 Challenge (16)
  • Microplastics (16)
  • Red Hill Valley Express (20)
  • PortHope RadioactiveWaste (25)
  • TorontoHarbour Monitoring (30)
  • Canadian rollbacks (34)
  • Darlington Refurbishment (46)
  • Toronto Sewage Bypasses (65)

Blog History

  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • February 2012
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • September 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • March 2007
  • October 2006
  • August 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • June 2005
  • April 2005
  • February 2005
  • December 2004
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004
  • July 2004
  • June 2004
  • April 2004
  • March 2004
  • February 2004
  • January 2004
  • November 2003
  • October 2003
  • September 2003
  • August 2003
  • July 2003
  • June 2003
  • April 2003
  • December 2002
  • November 2002
  • August 2002
  • June 2002
  • May 2002
  • April 2002
  • March 2002
  • October 2001
  • September 2001
Donate Now
Lake Ontario
Cases
Blog
Events
Store
Contact
Guides
Great Lakes Guide
Swim Guide
Drink Guide
Media
Get Involved
Donate
Volunteer
Report Pollution
Events
Sponsor A Beach
About
History
Staff

Search

Waterkeeper, Swim Drink Fish, and the Swim Drink Fish design (icons) are registered trademarks of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.