By Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, Green MP Bruce Hyer

What is an environmental issue? However you define it, Harper is against it.

“Environment” means different things to different people.

To some, it is the natural world for which conservation values will protect sustainable populations and ecosystems for future generations. The roots of that conservation ethic go back to the late 1800s, and Gifford Pinchot, the first dean of Yale School of Forestry. The ethic embraces “sustainable use” of forests and fish and the renewable resources that have supported economies.

Then, there’s the more modern concept of environment, stemming from Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, published in 1962 and credited with helping launch the environmental movement in the U.S. The 1960s era of environmental awareness was actually more concerned with how human activity and new technologies-in this case toxic synthetic pesticides-threatened species, but perhaps more significantly, human health as well. Now that the publication of Silent Spring has passed the 50-year mark, it hardly is “modern” anymore. Our current use of the term “environment” has increasingly been subsumed in the media into one issue only-climate change.

Yet, climate change is not primarily an environmental issue. Sure, it involves the environment. In the same way drowning involves water, but we do not describe drowning as a “water issue.” Climate change, like drowning, is a survival issue. Climate change is an issue that can be described best as a security threat-although it involves questions of energy, economy, and the environment.

The harsh reality of our current political climate is that all the basic notions of the environment are under assault. We have entered a political era of “decision-based evidence making.” Stephen Harper’s administration has launched an unprecedented assault on government science. More than 2,000 scientists and researchers in the federal civil service have lost their jobs. Most of these scientists were working in areas of the “environment.”

All the scientists working in our national parks have been laid off. Fisheries and Oceans has lost all its habitat specialists after Bill C-38 gutted the Fisheries Act to remove habitat protection. The entire Marine Contaminants Program at DFO has been eliminated. The list is long. Mr. Harper is not just neglecting science; he is attacking any science or data or evidence that runs contrary to his beliefs or agenda.

Meanwhile, even though the only legislative change Harper has made to the Species at Risk Act was to remove the application of SARA when a pipeline is involved (also in C-38), still SARA is being more broadly undermined. Species at risk are going unprotected.

National parks no longer exclude oil and gas activity (with the tragic circumstances of the creation of Sable Island National Park.) This could be the thin end of the wedge for industrial activity in parks, in general. Meanwhile, parks are being privatized piecemeal, as is clear from the Jasper National Park “ice walk,” the Banff hot springs, and now a hotel proposal inside the national park in Jasper. Harper may have expanded national park boundaries, but he has endangered the protection of what lies inside the boundaries.

The pressure to clear away any regulatory hurdles to oil and gas expansion has led to the wholesale dismantling of decades’ worth of environmental laws and regulation. From legislation passed under prime minister John A. Macdonald (Fisheries Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act) to laws passed under former prime minister Brian Mulroney, (the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and National Round Table on Environment and Economy), nothing is sacred. The last eight years bear witness to a devastating reversal of environmental law in Canada. It needs to be said that Canada’s laws never were as strong in environmental protection as those of the U.S. or other industrialized countries, such as Germany. In the race for the bottom, Canada has no competition.

Nowhere is the abdication of environmental responsibility as disturbing as in the area of climate change. Harper first cancelled our legally binding Kyoto targets, then withdrew from the treaty, adopted his own targets for GHG reductions in Copenhagen in 2009, and has now declared those will not be met either. True, he has not actually declared his rejection of his own targets, but the new timeline for oil and gas regulations, first promised when John Baird was environment minister nearly seven years ago (The “Turning the Corner” plan), make it clear no real effort is contemplated.

We all use oil. We will for a long time to come, but it must be used wisely, and we should all seek to reduce our consumption as much as possible, and shift to more renewable and sustainable energy sources. The sad and dispiriting irony is that if Canada embraced real action, we will create more jobs and revitalize our economy faster than by pursuing the mindless vision that puts all our eggs in the bitumen basket. Canada deserves better. We deserve an energy plan, a climate plan, and the new industrial revolution of clean-tech and renewables. We can still get there from here. The first step is for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to get out of the way.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May represents Saanich- Gulf Islands, B.C., and Green Party MP Bruce Hyer represents Thunder Bay-Superior North, Ont.

Originally published in the Hill Times.

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On April 25^th the witnesses were Arne Mooers, Biology Professor from Simon Fraser University; Kim Barrett, Senior Terrestrial Ecologist with Conservation Halton, Doug Chorney, President of Keystone Agricultural Producers; and Darrell Crabbe, Executive Director of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation.  Mooers argued for full implementation of SARA, while the agricultural representatives recommended financial incentives to help private landowners care for habitat conservation.

These two meetings had a few takeaways focused more on agriculture and the relationships between private property owners and wildlife.

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As a New Year’s Resolution, I knew it was a long-shot—but so are many New Year’s Resolutions. So, like most of us this New Year, I will re-commit to some unfulfilled 2012 resolutions — including seeing Stephen Harper leave office (one way or another) within 2013.

Crystal-ball gazing is notoriously prone to failure, but let me make some likely predictions. Within the continuing attack in the House of Commons against the fabric of Canadian criminal law, we will see more bills that assault Charter rights through a ‘tough on crime’ agenda. The Conservatives are bound to return to the internet snooping bill, C-30, famously described by Vic Toews as representing a choice of standing with the Conservatives or standing on the side of child pornographers.

Up early in February will be C-43, titled the act for the ‘faster removal of foreign criminals act’ but which, actually, can limit access to Canada to people who are not criminals at all. The bill gives the Minister of Immigration the right to deny a claimant permanent residency in Canada for ‘public policy reasons,’ a term which is undefined.

We will see the last significant environmental law (at least among those that have an impact on land-use and conservation) being dismantled. The Species at Risk Act (SARA) was rumoured to have been planned to be in the fall omnibus bill, C-45. The Hill gossip is that the provinces were not willing to see the act being downloaded to the provinces as rapidly as was being proposed. Environment Minister Peter Kent has said to expect the overhaul of SARA as stand-alone legislation.

It won’t be too early to start seeing the impacts of the egregious changes from 2012. The new and pathetic excuse for an environmental assessment act is so badly drafted that even industry is bound to start complaining. And the destruction of the Fisheries Act in relation to protection of fish habitat could well be the subject of litigation, especially due to the impacts on First Nations rights.

Another potential area of litigation could be First Nations push back against the Canada-China Investment Treaty. I keep hoping that a case can be brought for injunctive relief to block ratification while there is still time. As I write this, the treaty is not yet ratified. The Prime Minister can legally ratify at any time he convenes a Cabinet meeting. We need to keep the pressure up, particularly on Conservative MPs, to urge them to pressure the Prime Minister to, at a minimum, reject the treaty with language that locks us in for 31 years. We should insist that, at least, the exit provisions match NAFTA, with a 6-month opt-out provision.

By December, the Joint Review Panel on the Enbridge Northern Gateway project, or as I like to call it, ‘The Great Pipeline of China’ will report. Thanks to changes in C-38, the National Energy Board is no longer the decision-maker. The NEB will make a recommendation based on the Joint Review Panel report. Then, Prime Minister Harper’s Cabinet will rule. Despite all the opposition, and the clear climb-down on rhetoric from the PM and his Cabinet members in the last year, it will be a surprise if the project is turned down. We will stop it from being built, somehow, but we cannot afford to assume the fight is already won.

Beyond the legislative agenda, we are likely to experience within Canada and globally, more extreme weather events due to human-induced climate change. I am convinced another year cannot go by without people around the world, urged on by the world’s scientists, making the links and demanding governments take action. We need to become more active, more assertive in making the case that the changes we are seeing now are dangerous, and that we are only seeing the tip of a very large (and melting) iceberg.

No doubt we will experience heartbreaks (I cannot speak of what happened to little children in Newtown, Connecticut). We can never anticipate exactly how the military industrial complex will make its greed and Machiavellian machinations felt in a troubled world. We will have moments that bring us great joy, worry about things that in the scheme of things do not matter much, and love and lose loves, as in every year. The world did not end in 2012 and perhaps human consciousness will evolve.

Perhaps, from our beautiful islands—big and small—off the west coast of British Columbia, just perhaps, our work for change will lead the way. All the best to us all in this new year.

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Did the support of 24 per cent of the electorate on election day give the federal government a mandate for its radical project to gut environmental protection? Apparently. In our apathy-inducing first-past-the-post political system a small minority can translate into a big majority, which can disregard public opinion and do whatever it wants.

Here is a list of what the feds have accomplished so far in their three-pronged environmental strategy of deregulation, cutting information and research and targeting dissenting voices:

1. Eliminated Canada’s international commitment to mitigate climate change, including the repeal of the 2007 Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.
2. Undermined global climate negotiations to avoid climate action.
3. Failed to create a plan to address climate change.
4. Eliminated energy conservation and efficiency and renewable energy funding while continuing subsidies to fossil fuels.
5. Eliminated funding for the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences.
6. Eliminated the climate adaptation research group within Environment Canada.
7. Eliminated scientists in Natural Resources Canada to study ice core data.
8. Cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Environment Canada.
9. Repealed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, weakening the federal environmental assessment process.
10. Eliminated accepted criteria for compulsory environmental assessments, leaving such reviews to the discretion of the Minister of the Environment and political appointees.
11. Eliminated the jobs of hundreds of scientists working for various government departments that focus on the environment and wildlife.
12. Weakened elements of the Species at Risk Act.
13. Amended the Species at Risk Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act to allow the National Energy Board to assume jurisdiction of endangered species or navigable waters in the way of any pipeline.
14. Allowing the federal cabinet, rather than the National Energy Board, to make decisions about approvals for major pipeline projects.
15. Introduced cuts to ozone monitoring.
16. Ended monitoring of smoke stack emissions.
17. Eliminated the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.
18. Weakened the Fisheries Act in the areas of habitat protection and eliminated the marine contaminants program.
19. Fired all DFO habitat officers in British Columbia.
20. Killed the Navigable Waters Protection Act, replacing it with the Navigation Protection Act, which effectively makes major pipeline and interprovincial power line projects exempt from requirements for proponents to prove they wouldn’t damage navigable waterways.
21. Reduced federal protection of waterways to a small number of water bodies and rivers.
22. Parks Canada no longer has to conduct periodic environmental audits or management plan reviews.
23. Eliminated funding for the National Round Table on the Economy and the Environment.
24. Eliminated support for the Experimental Lakes Program.
25. Eliminated funding for a dozen Arctic science research stations. Closed the Polar Arctic and Environmental Laboratory and the Yukon Research Lab.
26. Started privatization and eliminated ecological staff positions in National Parks.
27. Made a systemic effort to cut research, information and analysis with respect to environmental issues.
28. Attacked environmental and First Nations organizations for critiquing resource development.
29. Provided the Canada Revenue Agency with an extra $8 million to crack down on environmental charities.
30. Provided oil companies with unprecedented access to senior government leaders.
31. Muzzled government scientists who have been conducting research on various climate and environmental issues.
32. Cut funding to the Network on Women’s Health and the Environment.
33. Cut funding of the Canadian Environmental Network.
34. In addition to changing the definition of “aboriginal fishery” in the Fisheries Act, without consulting First Nations governments introduced changes to the Indian Act designed to make it faster and easier for First Nations to “take advantage of economic opportunities” by leasing designated reserve lands based on a majority of votes from those in attendance at a meeting or in a referendum, instead of waiting for a majority vote from all eligible voters.
35. Gave the aboriginal affairs minister the authority to call a band meeting or referendum for the purpose of considering a surrender of the band’s territory.
36. The minister can accept or refuse the land designation after receiving a resolution from the band council.
37. Eliminated the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, the Indian Head Tree Nursery and the PFRA pasture management program on millions of acres of sensitive grasslands.
38. Provided unprecedented support to industries to exploit natural resources with minimal environmental oversight.

Originally printed in the Star Pheonix.

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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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She reviewed the Harper Government’s decisions and announcements since the end of last parliamentary session, looked ahead to the Harper Government’s Fall agenda, Canada’s increased sell out to China and the impacts of Bill C-38 on Species at Risk and Parks Canada.

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ELIZABETH MAY (Green Party Leader): Bonjour. Good morning. First of all, I should explain in case anyone doesn’t recognize the blue striped scarf that today is National Prostate Cancer Awareness Day.

So I’ve never been known for fashion statements, so I just want to make sure that everyone knows that that is why you’ll see many members of Parliament wearing a blue scarf or a blue tie today.

Thank you for joining me this morning. I wanted to pull together some of the experiences being out on the ground in my riding and across the country this summer in terms of the effect being felt on the ground from changes brought in through Bill C-38 and to Budget 2012 on local communities, and local problems being created through the reckless cuts that occurred in the spring.

And I want to look ahead at what I see on the fall parliamentary calendar that all Canadians should be concerned about.

First thing I want to share with you, we know that Parks Canada received well above the average of other departments, severe cuts. The overall cuts in the 2012 budget came to five per cent of spending. There were several entities that got 10 per cent cuts. Those were CBC, CIDA, our overseas development agency, and Parks Canada.

Now some people may feel and maybe Stephen Harper feels that Parks Canada is an easy place to make cuts because you don’t have to do anything to protect ecological integrity in our parks.

Clearly Mr. Harper believes that Parks should have more visitors, more tourists, and that those visitor experiences could be privatized, such as with the Jasper Iceway and now the Banff Hot Springs being allowed to have private, for profit operations on them.

But our national parks are more than the tourist visitor experience. They also involved public safety. And that’s where the cuts hit the ground in a way that I think most Canadians would find quite alarming.

The cuts are so severe that in some parks at least to my definite personal knowledge, forest fires and rescues are beyond the reach of Parks Canada personnel.

They’ve lost so much capacity that they can’t put out forest fires in a national park and they have to rely on local, in some cases, volunteer fire fighting services.

To give a specific example on the Gulf Islands National Park within my riding, there were two forest fires this summer, Tumble Island and on Saturna Island, where Parks Canada staff couldn’t get there.

Parks Canada staff had to watch as the local forest fire fighting group, Saturna Island’s fire service which has one paid staff person, the fire chief, and everybody else is volunteer, dealing with a very difficult fire that was halfway up a cliff rock face, and it required repelling down the rock face, volunteer fire fighters did this and then the provincial forest fire service shot up with helicopters with water buckets to help put out that fire.

Now if you look at a map of Saturna Island, you’ll see it’s virtually half national park, and interspersed all around the edges of the park are homes. So this is a significant public safety issue when a public… when a national park decides it can no longer manage rescues or putting out fires.

And that’s been the case in more than one national park across the country this summer.

As well, in C-38, we changed the law so that now forest, or rather national park wardens are required under C-38 to operate as law enforcement officers for any law that’s being violated. They’re now required to carry fire arms, and they are required to be available to pursue any other criminal act within a national park.

It’s not clear that they would have the benefit that the RCMP officers do, that you should never send a lone officer into a remote area, that they should always be two. That doesn’t appear to be the case for national park service staff who would be required to go in to deal with any criminal wrongdoing.

So on top of a 10-per-cent cut, they’ve had to take on new duties. And to be responsible for those new duties, there are now fewer officers. Just by way of example, in the National Parks, if you take a rough number of park wardens that existed for one of the major national parks in the Rockies, you would have had in the past about 30 park wardens.

Now there are about six. Now it’s true that unlike the 30 park wardens who were there before, the six who are there now will have fire arms with them to be able to pursue criminal activity but six park wardens can’t do the job that 30 used to do. And the budget cuts in the resource conservation issues are so severe they’ve actually reduced the number of national incident management teams already and on the ground, we are experiencing an inability of Parks Canada to respond to rescue or fire situations.

That’s one area of cuts.

Another is to maintain the protection of endangered species. Again an example from my own riding, as part of the national recovery strategy for northern and southern resident killer whales or orcas, and this is a copy of the DFO report that explains what the Species at Risk Act requires of them for the protection, conservation and restoration of orca populations.

Part of the requisite job is to make sure that whale watching operations, which are a big economic boon to many parts of coastal Canada, we have a lot of whale watchers and it’s great. You know, it’s a fabulous ecotourism experience. But you have to follow the law. You have to stay a requisite distance away from the whale populations or the enjoyment of whales in the wild turns into harassment of whales and impedes their ability to recover.

So there’s been a straight watch operation run by CETUS’ research and conservation foundation that makes sure with federal government funding through the Species at Risk Act, through Environment Canada, to this operation in Southern Vancouver Island and other locations on Vancouver Island, to monitor what the whale watch groups are doing. Their funding was just completely cut.

Which leads me to what I expect to see in the fall. We’ve heard that there will be changes to the Species at Risk Act. It worries me that a service being performed consistent with the federal government’s statutory obligations under the Species at Risk Act to protect resident orca whale populations is being cut to me is a foreshadowing of changes coming in the Species at Risk Act.

We’ve heard from Minister of the Environment Peter Kent that they plan to make changes. Originally those changes were rumoured to be included in the upcoming Omnibus Budget Bill. We now hear that they will be taken separately and the reason for that, through the various sources that I’ve heard, is that even the provinces don’t want to take on the responsibilities the feds want to shovel off on them as quickly as possible.

The reality is that cutting the funding to a small operation, minimal amount of money, to keep an operation going where skilled people, knowledgeable conservationists out on the water to protect whale populations, that’s been completely eliminated.

The other thing we see coming, which I think deserves more attention than it’s getting, certainly more than it’s getting in the House of Commons, is looking forward again towards what’s going to happen this fall. I’m very concerned about the Omnibus Budget Bill. I of course will read it carefully.

But we also know that by November 12th, the government of Canada must decide on the bid by Nexen, I mean, the bid by SNOOC to purchase Nexen. SNOOC being the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company.

We are still hearing even the official opposition, the NDP only goes on about net benefit. When is someone going to talk about national security? We’re talking not about a commercial venture. We’re not talking about a private-sector operation coming from China. We’re talking about a state-owned operation of communist China. The same state that owns SINOPEC, the same state that owns PetroChina. Communist China owns SNOOC. And I thought this quote, which I found in the Wall Street Journal from late last month, this rather instructive, this is from the August 29th Wall Street Journal, and the headline says it all. For China boss, deep water rigs are a “strategic weapon”.

The full quote from SNOOC Limited Chairman Wang Yee Lin is this. Quote: “Large scale deep water rigs are our mobile national territory and a strategic weapon.” Unquote.

Purchasing large amounts of oil sands territories and operations, as strategic weapons, in the words of the company’s own chair, certainly requires that Canadians look at it as a national security question. We’re hampered in that by Stephen Harper’s refusal to include an objective definition of national security when the Investment Canada Act was amended in 2009. Nevertheless, we must ask these questions.

And we specifically must ask, and I will ask in the House, when we’ll see the specific text of the agreement Stephen Harper has signed with China for investor protection because it was bad enough when U.S. based corporations were able to sue municipal, provincial or federal governments in Canada for what they claim was a loss of profits due to decision-making or regulations in Canada at the municipal, provincial or federal level.

But if as it appears China’s companies, which are an extension of the state of China, will be allowed to sue Canada for democratically elected government decisions to protect our health or environment in Canada, if we are then susceptible to having to pay damages to Communist China, I think Canadians will have a lot of questions to ask. This agreement has already been signed by Stephen Harper when he was in Russia.

We need to see the text and we need to debate whether he’s giving Canada a way to Communist China without even allowing us to debate it in the House of Commons.

Merci beaucoup. Je regrette beaucoup que je ne fais pas beaucoup des commentaires en français mais je suis disponible pour les questions dans les deux langues. Merci.

QUESTION:  What are you worried about downloading to the provinces in Species at Risk?

ELIZABETH MAY: The provinces don’t have the same capacity and there are different federal and provincial jurisdictional areas. Historically in Canada provinces have different levels of capacity to do for instance environmental assessments. So what we saw in C-38, if you were to look at a common theme, Mr. Harper wants to call the common theme streamlining. In reality the common theme is abandonment of environmental responsibilities by the federal government.

So the Fisheries Act changes not only remove protection of fishery habitat in a wide part, in a broad swath across Canada, the other part of the change of the Fisheries Act were to say if any province asks to take this on, we’ll say okay. Same thing on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act: if a province  says we can do this environmental review, we are to say federally okay, even if they don’t establish that they have anything like equivalent regulations. This I think will be what we’ll see in the Species at Risk Act. If a province says you know, we’ll take it on.

So the question then is what has happened to the federal areas of responsibility constitutionally? And as a matter of capacity, downloading to the provinces a whole lot of really significant environmentally critical protection measures without giving the provinces any new resources with which to protect those environmental resources is a prescription for Species at Risk going extinct, for areas of fisheries habitat being eliminated, for various coho and Chinook runs to go dead. We need to have a federal role in these areas.

It’s further dangerous because of the… made more dangerous by the elimination of so much environmental science to guide those policy decisions at both federal and provincial levels.

QUESTION:  Give an example of a species that is at risk that if you download the whole thing to the provinces, you may see the end of that species?

ELIZABETH MAY: Pretty much anything, but give a specific example, in the case of well, very critical example for British Columbians, we have a number of salmon on the endangered species list. We now have a combination of things. We’ve, in the decision to, in C-38, remove protection of fish habitat, under the Fisheries Act, the subsequent decision from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was to lay off all of the habitat enforcement officers within DFO operating in British Columbia.

So we’re no longer going to have protection of critical habitat for certain salmon runs of coho and Chinook. Now if on top of that Species at Risk Act downloads as well, the question is will British Columbia step up and protect all the species, replace all those jobs? The answer is no. We certainly haven’t seen any new B.C. staff attached to protection of salmon resources. And salmon are clearly a federal responsibility.

So it’s… if you look at other Species at Risk, Woodland Caribou, for instance, we have a lot of pressure on Woodland Caribou habitat in Northern Alberta coming from expansion of the oil sands. I certainly commend Premier Allison Redford for making a decision to set aside some areas of Northern Alberta in the Athabasca region, so there’s some conservation zones.

But without a coordinated effort under the Species at Risk Act, downloading to the provinces is, and particularly in Northern Alberta, the amount of land now protected or on its way to being protected at the provincial level isn’t sufficient to keep the species extent and indeed, it may be extirpated from areas of Alberta, certain sub-species of Woodland Caribou are more trouble than others. So if you don’t have a federal approach under the Species at Risk Act, then you’re going to see species disappearing.

QUESTION:  Au printemps vous avez fait une lutte contre C-38 que vous avez perdue. Je me demande aujourd’hui quand vous regardez les choses sur lesquelles ils ne voudront pas revenir, c’est déjà fait, c’est fini. C’est quoi les nouveaux risques? C’est quoi les nouveaux dangers que vous dites qui s’en viennent cet automne?

ELIZABETH MAY: Oui, parce qu’à ce moment, évidemment personne a lu le projet de Loi omnibus 2 de l’automne. Pour moi-même on doit liser cette… on doit lire le projet de Loi omnibus pour l’automne avant de faire une décision oui ou non. Mais j’ai beaucoup d’inquiétudes parce que ce n’est pas le bon processus dont pour… ce n’est pas démocratique évidemment d’avoir plus que 400 pages des changements fondamentaux des lois pour Canada dans C-38 et s’il y a une autre loi et je (inaudible) que c’est peut-être 800 pages. Alors qu’est-ce qu’on peut faire avec 800 pages comme un seul projet de loi?

J’ai beaucoup d’inquiétudes et je pense qu’encore, on doit faire une lutte fondamentale pour arrêter cet effort. Mais je veux, on doit lire le projet de loi. Ce n’est pas à ce moment devant le Parlement.

QUESTION: D’un point de vue environnemental, quel mal est-ce qu’ils peuvent encore faire qu’ils n’auraient pas déjà fait?

ELIZABETH MAY: Oui, oui. Il y a beaucoup de mal maintenant parce que nous avons les changements des équipes dont les parcs nationaux, par exemple, et ce n’est pas à ce moment possible de faire une réponse contre les feux dans les parcs nationaux, dans beaucoup de parcs. Pas absolument chaque parc national mais j’ai le rapport pour beaucoup de parcs nationaux et particulièrement dans ma circonscription, le parc de Iles de Gulf, c’est pas possible cet été de faire, d’avoir une équipe contre les feux par… de parc national et il était … il reste avec les petits groupes bénévoles locaux pour faire une lutte contre les feux dont le parc national de Saturna, par exemple. Et aussi il manque l’équipe scientifique pour montrer les changements pour protéger l’intégrité écologique dans les parcs nationaux puis il y a aussi les nouvelles responsabilités pour les gens dans les parcs par les parcs « wardens », maintenant ont les autres nouvelles responsabilités à cause de C-38 que l’on doit répondre pour toutes les autres lois criminelles dans les parcs, on doit faire les réponses comme les polices mais ce n’est pas la responsabilité « core » des parcs nationaux.

C’est beaucoup de choses qu’ils ont fait maintenant déjà.

QUESTION: You didn’t understand my question. My question was, okay, so we know all the damage they’ve done with C-38.

ELIZABETH MAY: Oui.

QUESTION:  What more damage can they do? That’s my question.

ELIZABETH MAY: Pardon. Il y a beaucoup de choses où on peut faire, et c’est pour ça que j’ai beaucoup d’inquiétude. Pour par exemple pour la loi pour protéger les espèces en train d’extinction, M. Kent a déjà parlé qu’il a les changements et dont les choses qu’il y a des rumeurs au sujet de la Loi pour protéger les espèces, la Loi SARA, et tous les rumeurs sont mal pour réduire les responsabilités des gouvernements au niveau fédéral, pour réduire les protections des espèces menacées, pour donner aux provinces toutes les responsabilités pour protéger les espèces en train d’extinction.

Et il y a aussi les autres choses que je pense sera dans l’omnibus projet de loi 2. C’est pour réduire les protections pour les eaux au Canada, dont la loi de la protection des eaux de navigation. Je ne sais pas les mots en français mais Navigable Waters Protection Act.

Je suis certaine que dans le projet de Loi omnibus de l’OTAN, il sera les changements mauvais pour ce projet de loi pour éliminer le rôle du gouvernement fédéral pour beaucoup des eaux et des rivières et des fleuves du Canada.

So we’re seeing a lot, the threat is there, very clearly in a second omnibus budget bill to do more damage to the environment, particularly through the Navigable Waters Protection Act, being changed to reduce the federal role and it lines up with the Enbridge pipeline as a threat as well, to eliminate the federal role in unnamed waterways that are in remote locations that under the law we had in 1867 until 2009, would clearly have been navigable waters.

This government has made a number of changes, three different times, twice so far they’ve made significant changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act and my information is they’re not done yet.

QUESTION:  You were saying when is someone going to start talking about national security and Communist China, what specifically are you worried that the Chinese could do by taking over Nexen?

ELIZABETH MAY: Well, I think the fact that the Chairman of the Corporation in question, CNOOC, speaking to his employees and Communist Party superiors, explained that ambitions abroad are a strategic weapon should make someone ask some questions about national security.

So, in its very specific context, coupled with the foreign investment protection review agreements which appear to have been signed, well, foreign investment protection and promotion agreement was signed on just last Sunday September 9th in Russia at the meeting of which Mr. Harper and President Hu Jintao were attending in Russia, they’ve now inked an agreement that Parliament hasn’t yet seen.

If it is as reported, the same as other foreign investment protection agreements that Canada has signed, if it is modelled on Chapter of NAFTA, we then have a situation in which a company completely owned by China and for that matter whenever we sign one of these agreements certainly all of the companies owned in the U.S. can already do this, but the companies owned in the U.S. are private-sector entities. We now would have a situation where the Chinese Communist government would have the ability to veto health, safety, environmental regulations of all kinds, if they made the case that this affected their level of anticipated profit, so investor-state provision agreement work.

And so while it’s being presented to the Canadian public, that we’re now protecting investor rights for Canadian companies that want to invest in China, and it’s a very good question whether there’s any reciprocity on the part of China to let Canadians invest there but meanwhile the real impact is going to be that on Canadian… I mean, if Fort McMurray decides to pass a bylaw that improves local air quality, China could sue for damages.

Sue the government of Canada for any local decision-making by Fort McMurray town… city council. Or the province of Alberta. Or the province of British Columbia. Or the federal government of Canada.

So as a national… so that affects perhaps more the net benefit question. But in terms of…

QUESTION:  In what agreement would that be allowed?

ELIZABETH MAY: That’s under the…

QUESTION:  Fort McMurray, I mean, like what is the…

ELIZABETH MAY: Foreign investment protection and promotion agreement signed on September 9th. We still haven’t seen the text, but all the analysis of it that has appeared elsewhere I have, for instance yes, there’s a note to their clients prepared by Heenan Blakely, Heenan Blaikie, rather, Canada concludes FIPA with China April 2012, with the best information that they have, this agreement will be modelled on the… what they call the NAFTA-based Canadian model FIPA brings the concept of expropriation one step further in that it also protects investors against less extreme or obvious actions which are, quote, tantamount to expropriation, unquote.

This is what has led to for instance Canada repealing the law we put in place that banned the toxic gasoline additive that was manganese based. It also led to a case Canada lost against a PCB destruction company called S.D. Myers in Ohio. It sued Canada when we didn’t allow the export of PCB contaminated waste to the U.S. We lost that case against S.D. Myers. In each of these instances, tens of millions of dollars ended up going to U.S. based corporations and in the case of the ethyl case, that rich ethyl corporation out of Richmond, Virginia, which is the one that made the toxic gasoline additive, we repealed a law.

Now this is quite egregious when it’s private sector U.S. compos getting Canadian laws repealed. But take it to the next level. According to everything I can see, and as a member of Parliament, I haven’t seen the agreement Stephen Harper signed with China. No one has. I think that’s alarming, especially since we’re about to see a decision for a very large Canadian energy giant, Nexen, to be purchased by SNOOC for $15 billion which as even Jack Mintz pointed out, state-owned enterprises have more cash. They are not… really it’s not what you call a fair level playing field with other private sector investors. They’re awash with cash and Communist China is able to put down $15 billion as a bid for Nexen which they then described themselves as a strategic weapon.

What kind of effect does this have on national security? Well, I think it’s a question we should be discussing. If it’s a national security question that we’re able to say what about the suppression of Tibetan monks? And the… well, not just suppression. What about the killing of Tibetan monks? What about suppression of Chinese Catholics who operate in their houses illegally to have worship? What about what happens to Falun Gong practitioners in China? What about what happens to Chinese dissidents? What begins to happen to Canada’s role in the world when Chinese state-owned enterprises own at this point, I’ve seen estimates up to $35 billion worth of investments, in Canada’s oil sands?

What happens if we decide, for strategic reasons, that we want to keep the oil domestically? That could be a national security concern.

Does anyone think we’re going to be able to say no to China? Our last chance to say no to China comes in two decisions: Saying no to CNOOC on the Nexen bid and saying no to the great pipeline of China across Northern British Columbia and the Enbridge PetroChina offer. That, those two things, we sort of … we sort of have the horse is out of the barn, but we’ve got to find some way to close the gate before this is just so far gone that Canada becomes a resource colony of China and there’s nothing any of us can do about it and say why didn’t anyone mention it at the time?

QUESTION: (Inaudible) favourite back and forth between the NDP and the Conservatives over a carbon tax. Do you plan to … or cap and trade.

ELIZABETH MAY: Yes.

QUESTION: And do you plan to weigh in on that? And what do you think about the (inaudible)?

ELIZABETH MAY: I’d love to weigh in on that. Thank you. You’re the first person who … It’s obvious that it’s, well, it’s appalling to me to watch responsible people run away from a good idea as quickly as they want to scamper away. I think the leader of the official opposition, I think Mr. Mulcair should be ashamed for the role the NDP has had in the past and currently in demonizing a carbon tax.

Someone needs to step up and say wait a minute: British Columbia has a carbon tax and it’s working. It’s reduced emissions. It’s reduced dependency. It’s working at the pump. It’s not… you know, British Columbians are largely supportive of it. After bringing it in, Gordon Campbell got re-elected. The tax that brought him down wasn’t the carbon tax. It was the HST.

We’re looking at economies around the world where it’s working. And in fact, the economies in Europe right now that are the strongest, like Germany and Sweden and Denmark and Norway, the economies that are bailing out the rest are economies that had carbon taxes, reduced emissions while they also had economic growth.

I think… so I wish that we worked… it’s sort of like the… reminds me of Brer rabbit and the tar baby. Somebody’s got to step up and say wait a minute, that’s a good decision. Don’t keep running away from it.

And of course it’s completely dishonest for the Conservatives to claim that they never supported a cap and trade regime. Jim Prentice introduced one when he was Environment Minister. The Conservatives wanted cap and trade.

Cap and trade is, after all, something that was designed by George Bush and the free-market Republicans as a way of putting a price on carbon without using a carbon tax. Cap and trade is something that has… that comes from a free market thinking. But the reality of putting a price on carbon is that every knowledgeable expert, well, everyone in the world recognizes, who’s looking at the climate crisis, that the first step is to put a price on carbon.

You can do it two ways. You can do it through cap and trade or you can do it through a carbon tax. Both have the effect of making fossil fuel based energy sources cost more. And the purpose of that is to drive more development in renewables.

We have to get rid of the subsidies to fossil fuels. That’s, you know, point A. Get rid of subsidies, and put a price on carbon. If you look at the International Energy Agency reports, they’re pleading with every government around the world to put a price on carbon. We’re one of the only countries that hasn’t done it, along with the U.S.

So if we don’t, we’re going to find our exports and our energy products getting a tariff on top of whatever else it costs to buy our products because other countries are going to want to internalize the carbon costs that we haven’t.

So if we don’t take steps to put a price on carbon, we’re both ignoring the climate crisis and putting our exports at risk. And the fact that Mr. Mulcair and Mr. Van Loan are running in circles attacking each other and Mr. Harper over who promoted a carbon tax and who didn’t, it’s really clear. The Green Party of Canada is the only party right now brave enough to stand up and say, you know, it works. Hello? It can be designed in such a way that the average Canadian has less tax burden than they had before because it’s all about shifting the taxes away from income and profit and putting it on pollution so that both individual corporations and individual consumers can make choices that reduce the amount they pay in carbon taxes, by shifting away from carbon to more green energy choices.

And frankly right now the Greens are supporting what’s called a tax and dividend, which means that every Canadian would actually get a dividend from carbon pricing and it would be an absolute wash in terms of the average Canadian household, would not cost people more.

But if we don’t have a discussion about how to make it work, if they’re so busy pointing fingers and running away from action on climate change, you know, in the summer, within weeks of when we have an all-time low level of ice covering the Canadian Arctic, the best we get from the so-called leadership of the Conservatives and the NDP is to run away from a good idea, I find it absolutely shocking.

QUESTION: (inaudible) asking if you’re planning to, on the Omnibus Bill, if you don’t like the content would you do what you did last time?

ELIZABETH MAY: Of course. It’s my responsibility as both leader of the Green Party and as an individual member of parliament to represent my constituents. And my constituents, I just finished a round of town hall meetings in every part of my riding and I have complete support. It’s un… at least in terms of people showing up, it’s hard to say complete support of everyone in a riding.

But their number-one issue in my community is to stop the Enbridge project, protect our coastline from super tankers, and I had enormous amounts of local support and gratitude for the fight we put up on C-38.

If I don’t like the contents of the next Omnibus Budget bill, they haven’t seen anything yet. They think 330 amendments was a lot. Well, we will take whatever steps are necessary to put up the kind of fight that Canadians expect to protect things like navigable waters, other environment laws. You know, if I like it, obviously we won’t put forward any kind of fight at all. We have to read it and see.

QUESTION: Thought 330 amendments were a lot. You can up that?

ELIZABETH MAY: Well, if basic … our amendments were directly related to the length of the bill and the passages that needed fixing. So a 425-page bill led to 330 amendments. They’ve actually got an 800-page bill, and it has egregious sections that we need to fix. That, of course, will mean more amendments.

It depends. We have to read it, obviously. But if it’s … if it’s as bad as I think it may be, yes, of course, we’ll bring forward everything we’re allowed to do under the rules of parliamentary procedure. That’s my obligation as a member of Parliament.

Thank you so much. Merci beaucoup.

Transcription done by:

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• Looking ahead to the Harper Government’s Fall agenda;
• Looking back on Harper Government’s decisions and announcements since the end of last parliamentary session;
• Canada’s increased sell out to China;
• Impacts on local communities of Government’s Budget 2012 cuts; and,
• Impacts of Bill C-38 on Species at Risk and Parks Canada.

When: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 at 9:30 am ET
Where: Charles-Lynch Press Gallery, Room 130-S, Centre Block

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Canada undermined global climate negotiations in Durban in December, negotiated in bad faith, and immediately announced intent to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol when the Environment Minister touched down on Canadian soil. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver kicked off the New Year with an assault on environmentalists and First Nations as “radicals.”  The Prime Minister attacked environmental groups for accepting foreign funding, even as he courted Communist Party controlled state operations from China as investors in the oil sands.  One Parliamentary Secretary said anyone opposed to pipelines and tankers was “against Canada.”  When asked to withdraw the remark as un-parliamentary, she refused.

The legislative juggernaut, C-38, repealed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, replacing a coherent piece of legislation with a discretionary formula for confusion, conflict and court cases.  The gutting of the Fisheries Act raised the ire of four former federal Ministers of Fisheries.  Environment Minister Peter Kent insulted the four former ministers, suggesting they had not read the Act.  Mulroney era Minister Tom Siddon showed up to testify before the sub-committee on Finance and in short order made it clear he may be the only Minister who has read the act.  While Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield tried to claim the new Fisheries Act will improve habitat protection, the assault to habitat is real, underscored by the subsequent lay-off notices to all DFO habitat officers in British Columbia. The National Round Table on the Environment and Economy is scrapped.  The Species at Risk Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act amended to allow the National Energy Board to assume jurisdiction of endangered species or navigable waters are in the way of any pipeline.

Basic science and monitoring is being savaged with the end of funding to the Canadian Foundation of Climate and Atmospheric Science, elimination of the Adaptation research group within Environment Canada, the cuts to ozone monitoring, the closure of the Polar Arctic and Environmental Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka, the sale of the 58 lakes in the globally unique Experimental Lakes Area near Kenora, Ontario, the elimination of the marine contaminants programme within DFO, the loss of scientists in Natural Resources Canada to study ice cores data (and the hope to find a university with a large fridge willing to take the 80,000 year ice core record Canada’s government no longer wants), the end of monitoring smoke stack emissions, cut backs in the Canada Oil and Gas research group in Halifax, and cuts at NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) resulting in the closing of the Yukon Research Lab at Yukon College in Whitehorse.

The thin end of the wedge of privatization has hit National Parks – first Jasper and then the hot springs at Banff, while cuts to ecological staff in the parks compelled former Deputy Minister Jacques Gerin to call on Harper to stop gutting National Parks.

It is a blitzkrieg of bad news as cut-backs and programme cancellation hit the core areas of federal responsibility to protect nature.  The multi-faceted assault has the effect of blinding media and the public to the largest threat.  In 2012, Canada still has no plan to address the threat of climate change.

While Stephen Harper has succeeded in dramatically reducing the Canadian media coverage of climate science through the muzzling of government scientists, the atmosphere does not seem to have gotten the memo.  Around the world, the force and frequency of severe weather events has woken up even the mainstream US media.  Fires, floods, tornadoes, heat waves are wreaking havoc on agriculture and running up the bills to the insurance industry.  The culprit for much of this year’s strange weather phenomenon is the rapidly warming Arctic.  As the Arctic warms the differential in temperature between the Arctic and the Equator becomes less pronounced. That causes the jet stream to lose its straight and fast course. (Francis, Vavrus study, Rutgers/Univ of Wisconsin). Slowing down, it has allowed large low pressure systems and high pressure systems to sit for far longer periods than normal in one place —  causing flooding in the low pressure zones and heat waves and fires in the high zones.

Loss of agriculture, losses to floods and fires also cost the economy, as well as human lives. Despite the Prime Minister’s attempts to destroy the collection of data, the evidence of the climate crisis is all around us.  We are sabotaging our children’s future – but what does it matter as long as the bitumen flows?

Elizabeth May is the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Canada.

First published in the Hill Times.

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I am very glad that we have this procedure of adjournment proceedings, because, as we all know, it is very difficult in the very short time available in question period to put a question together to fully explain the context, so I am going to return to my question, explain it more fully and put it again to the parliamentary secretary.

I started my question by quoting a quite extraordinary letter written by four former ministers of fisheries and oceans: the Honourable Tom Siddon, the Honourable John Fraser, the Honourable Herb Dhaliwal and the Honourable David Anderson. They all happen to be from British Columbia, but they do not happen to be in the same party. There are two Liberals and two Progressive Conservatives.

These four gentlemen are calling on the government to withdraw from the omnibus budget bill those sections that have no place being there, the sections destroying the Fisheries Act.

What they said at one point in the letter was:

With respect to process, we find it troubling that the government is proposing to amend the Fisheries Act via omnibus budget legislation in a manner that we believe will inevitably reduce and weaken the habitat-protection provisions. Regrettably, despite the significance of the legislation, to date the responsible ministers have provided no plausible, let alone convincing, rationale for proceeding with the unusual process that has been adopted. 

This is the section that I quoted in my question to the hon. member:

Quite frankly, Canadians are entitled to know whether these changes were written, or insisted upon, by the Minister of Fisheries or by interest groups outside the government. If the latter is true, who are they? 

In putting this question forward on June 1, I added, “Where are they, in Canada or in Beijing?”

I know my hon. friend found that, in his words, a strange question, so let me elaborate on why I think that is the question.

We are looking at a lot of changes in Canadian environmental assessment law, changes that would make cabinet superior to the National Energy Board for decision-making purposes. We are looking at changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the Fisheries Act and the Species at Risk Act, and they are in aid of what is described as a great urgency to approve projects.

I have had some experience with projects of the Government of Canada. The case I will relate involved the previous government of the Right Honourable Jean Chrétien. In a feverish attempt to sell nuclear reactors to China, the government actually loaned China the money to buy our reactors and wanted to evade environmental review. At the time I was with the Sierra Club of Canada, and I actually took them to court. Unfortunately, due to a number of procedural delays imposed on us by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, the matter never got litigated. However, the crux of it is this: when Canada deals with China, in my experience, Canada reduces its environmental reviews.

In this instance we have a tremendous number of changes that make no sense to Canadians. They make no sense to people who have worked in Fisheries and Oceans. They particularly make no sense to these four former fisheries ministers, nor to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which voted in an emergency resolution this week to seek to withdraw those changes.

What is driving it? It seems to me that the Prime Minister gave us a sense of that with two statements. One was on May 10 in the House in response to the hon. leader of the Liberal Party. On reducing environmental assessments, the Prime Minister said, “It is vital to the certainty of our investors”. At the same time, we know that the Prime Minister already promised the leadership in Beijing when he was visiting China that the Enbridge supertanker project would proceed.

Therefore, it seems to me that it is a very relevant question. Who is driving these changes, Canadians or investors in the Communist Party of China?

Randy Kamp: Mr. Speaker, the short answer to the question that the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands included in her question originally is that the latter is not true.

Let me provide a little more information. The Fisheries Act was originally established to protect Canada’s fisheries resources and define federal responsibilities for the management of fisheries and the related protection of fish and fish habitat.

The current habitat protection provisions of the Fisheries Act are broad in scope, requiring protection of all fish habitat, regardless of their value to Canadians. Concerns about the broad and even unintended scope of the application of the existing regulatory regime have been raised by stakeholders across this country. This country, not China.

Farmers and landowners have criticized the department for applying its mandate and resources to areas with low contribution for fisheries. In addition, significant risk to fisheries have emerged that are not appropriately considered in the Fisheries Act, such as those posed by aquatic invasive species.

Many stakeholders over the years have asked us to focus on the significant impacts to significant fisheries. Many stakeholders have also asked us to find ways to work more effectively with the provinces and conservation groups. They have asked us to apply our resources strategically to ensure that Canada’s fisheries can benefit Canadians today and for future generations.

In response to these challenges, the Government of Canada is proposing to renew and strengthen its current approach to management and fisheries protection through amendments to the Fisheries Act. These amendments would focus the government’s protection efforts on recreational, commercial and aboriginal fisheries.

It would also draw a distinction between vital waterways that support Canada’s fisheries and those that do not contribute to productive fisheries, such as drainage ditches in some cases and storm water management ponds.

They would identify and manage important threats to the fisheries, including direct impacts to fish, habitat destruction and aquatic invasive species.

Let me be clear that the rules will continue to protect Canadian fisheries waters from pollution, as they have in the past, and the proposed legislative amendments would provide additional clarity on the application of the law.

Proposed in Bill C-38 are a new suite of tools that help strengthen our protection of commercial, recreational and aboriginal fisheries. We will now be able to identify ecologically significant areas, such as critical spawning habitat for sockeye salmon and provide enhanced protection for those critical zones.

In addition, infractions under the Fisheries Act will now be aligned with those set out in the environmental enforcement act, which provides higher maximum penalties. This will ensure that those who break the rules are subject to stiffer penalties.

Through these amendments, we will also be able to establish new, clear, and accessible standards for projects in or near water. It makes good common sense that the government should be able to minimize or eliminate restrictions on routine activities that pose little or no threat to fisheries, while at the same time maintaining appropriate, reasonable and responsible protection for Canada’s commercial, recreational and aboriginal fisheries.

A renewed Fisheries Act will provide us with the tools to develop effective regulations prohibiting the import, transport and possession of live aquatic invasive species, such as Asian carp, which are threatening the Great Lakes.

The Government of Canada takes the protection of our country’s commercial, recreational and aboriginal fisheries very seriously. Given the importance of the fisheries from coast to coast to coast, we must focus our efforts on the effective protection of these fisheries. Their long-term sustainability and productivity are our priority.

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“This is a critical time in Canada.  Our environment is at serious risk of irreparable harm due to the gutting of environmental legislation contained in Bill C-38, which is being forced through Parliament.  If there were ever a time for the average citizen to sit up, take notice, and speak out, now is it,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May.
 
The Green Party of Canada has set up a dedicated website to educate Canadians about the damage being wrought by the omnibus bill, which the Greens have nicknamed ‘the Environmental Devastation Act.’
 
“The environment is not an abstract concept.  It is our home.  And sitting idly by while this legislation is being forced upon us is like watching TV while robbers invade your house,” said May.

Green point out that C-38 will forever change Canada’s natural environment with devastating effects on our future, and that of our children.

Citizens are invited to write a letter to their Member of Parliament, to their newspaper editor, and to sign a petition on the website: http://www.budgetdevastation.ca.

The Top 5 Reasons why C-38 will devastate Canada’s environment

1. It repeals the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and introduces a weaker version, without a single day of hearings before the environment committee.
2. It removes protection of endangered species and their habitat, when approving pipeline projects, by amending the Species at Risk Act and the Navigable Waters Protection Act.
3. It guts the Fisheries Act by removing provisions for habitat protection.
4. It repeals the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.
5. It eliminates the National Round Table on Environment and Economy.

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