It could hardly equal C-38 in negative environmental impact. There are only so many environmental laws to be trashed. With the Fisheries Act gutted and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act already eviscerated, and changes to give pipelines priority over navigable waters and endangered species, the remaining environmental laws are not a long list. There’s the Species at Risk Act, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), which deals primarily with toxic chemical management, and the already damaged Navigable Waters Protection Act.

There had been many rumours last spring indicating that the Species at Risk Act (SARA) would be included in the next omnibus bill and for similar treatment. Then, in late summer, it was reported that Environment Minister Peter Kent would introduce stand-alone legislation on SARA. Apparently, the provinces were unhappy with the extent of damage and change in SARA. It was not ready in time for C-45. I fear that SARAwill be wrecked soon, but at least it will receive the consideration accorded a piece of legislation in its own right.

Thus far, it seems that Stephen Harper does not have CEPA in his sights, but he clearly wants to call a full retreat on federal responsibilities over wild areas, streams, fish habitat, and the rules that require a full understanding of what is happening to nature due to federal projects. The Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) was the big loser in this Act.

C-45 is the third omnibus budget bill introduced under Prime Minister Harper to take aim at this venerable piece of legislation. It was originally passed in 1882, when Sir John A Macdonald was Prime Minister. It applied to any water in Canada considered ‘navigable’. Until Stephen Harper came along, ‘navigable’ meant capable of navigation—by freighter or by canoe. But in 2009, in Harper’s first omnibus budget assault, the meaning of navigable was altered to whatever the Minister says it is. Not content with that weakening, three years later, C–38 took another run at the NWPA. As you may recall, ‘pipelines’ were excluded from the definition of ‘works or undertakings’ that block navigation. Thus the NWPA was trumped in any instance when a pipeline might impede navigation.

It would have seemed that his work was done, but the Prime Minister was not content. Along came C-45. In this omnibus bill, the Act is renamed. No longer the Navigable Water Protection Act, it is now the Navigation Protection Act. The meaning of ‘navigable’ has been fully destroyed. It has been reduced to a list: three oceans, 97 lakes and 62 rivers. If a waterway is not listed by name in the schedule to the Act, it no longer has any rights to navigation. It no longer requires a permit from the Minister of Transport before impeding navigation. Considering that Canada has tens of thousands of rivers and millions of lakes, the list produced is stunningly inadequate. While it is true that, depending on the jurisdiction, other laws may be in place to protect aspects of waterways, the right to travel by waterway (a limited right admittedly since the Minister of Transport could grant permits to reduce navigation) is now gone for 99% of our inland waters.

Provinces will usually have some requirements for permits before rivers can be dammed or bridges constructed. But there are gaps. And certainly the federal responsibility for navigable waters, one stemming from our Constitution, has been made a mockery. For the first time in Canada’s history, most of our waterways have been removed from federal oversight. (You can find the list of waterways on my website http://www.elizabethmaymp.ca/is-your-lake-safe.)

Given the removal of protection for navigation, C-45 includes amendments to the Fisheries Act. To protect the ability of fish to swim through rivers no longer protected by the NWPA, the Fisheries Act is amended to prohibit the use of fishing gear (weirs, nets, seines) over more than two-thirds of the width of a waterway.

The bulk of the Act deals with changes to pensions. Due to a joint effort by Opposition Parties, the reduction of benefits for MP pensions moved quickly through unanimous consent. As a result, those portions of the Actare considered passed as C-45a. Meanwhile, pension changes affecting thousands of public sector workers remain to be reviewed.

Other changes are made to the Canada Labour Act, changing the approach to holiday pay, temporary steps to refund small business tax credits, changes to the Indian Act, changing voting procedures to reverse a lease, and the elimination of several agencies: the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, the Grain Appeals Tribunal, the EI Financing Board.

It also authorizes the new Windsor-Detroit bridge, and that project’s exemption from the Fisheries Act, NWPA (since the Detroit River is one of the listed 62), SARA and CEAA.

There are many things yet to receive attention in C-45. One will require foreign visitors, even tourists, to fill out forms requiring more information, including their state of health.

I will keep taking a fine-tooth comb to this bill. I am confident I will find nothing as outrageous as the destruction of Sir John A Macdonald’s law to protect navigable waters.

Elizabeth May is the Leader of the Green Party of Canada and the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.
Originally printed in the Island Tides.

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Ms. May has agreed to have all of her expenses open for public scrutiny and has also suggested capping or cutting MPs’ current base salary of $157,731.

“Canada should pay its MPs well but reviewing their pensions in the context of today’s circumstances would be prudent,” said Green Finance Critic Ard Van Leeuwen. “The divide between pensions haves and pension have-nots is growing in Canada and it`s not appropriate to have MP`s at the very high end of the spectrum.”

“We should be examining options for MP pension reform.  We would be willing to look at any proposals brought forward,” said Green National Revenue and Ecological Fiscal Reform Critic Erich Jacoby Hawkins.  “Originally, there was a need to balance the economic uncertainty of being an MP and to ensure good candidates.  However, with the salary plus benefits, and since an MP is in a position to make maximum RRSP contributions, there is no longer any justification for an MP to have a special pension plan that is richer than one any other employee with similar income would have.  We should also examine pushing back the eligibility for receiving benefits to age 65, thus reducing the potential for double-dipping.”  Once they sit in Parliament for six years, MPs are eligible to collect full pension benefits at age 55.

The recent focus on MP pensions comes from a report by the C.D. Howe Institute revealing that MP pension funds, rather than being invested, are guaranteed by law to grow 10.4% per year.  This is in contrast to other pension funds that are vulnerable to market downturns.  The end result is that taxpayers end up paying $23.30 to the MP pension plan for every $1 paid in by the MP.  The report also says that the pension plan is underfunded by up to $1 billion. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has been leading the charge to have these inequities addressed, calling the situation “a national disgrace.”

“The bottom line is that we need to ensure that all Canadians have adequate incomes in retirement.  A pension system must keep the elderly out of poverty, require minimum additional contributions and have low administrative and investment costs.   An MP’s pension should be in line with what someone with a similar salary in the public service receives,” said May.

The Greens have also been calling for enhancement of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) by phasing in the doubling of the target income replacement rate from 25% to 50% of income received during working years.

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