Mr. Speaker, in essence this intervention is to urge the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans not to give away key federal powers.
Let me explain. Last week I asked the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans not to delegate to the provinces section 35(2) of the Fisheries Act. In brief, this section prohibits the harmful alternation, disruption or destruction of fish habitat unless authorized by the minister or under regulations.
If section 35(2) is delegated to the provinces it could no longer serve as a trigger for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The result would be less protection for our streams, our shorelines and wetlands when it comes to the environmental assessment process.
Instead the suggestion is being made that environmental assessment be carried out only on large projects, as some are proposing. I submit this is not desirable because dealing with large projects only means that the cumulative effect of small projects would not be taken into account.
In the past the government has, on occasion, delegated certain powers under the Fisheries Act to the provinces but it should be cautious and learn from experience. For example, in his 1990 report the auditor general points out that when powers were delegated to the provinces for monitoring and enforcement of mining effluent regulations under the Fisheries Act, compliance fell from 85 per cent in 1982 to 48 per cent in 1988.
This poor track record is now compounded by the fact that some provincial governments such as the Harris government in Ontario are deeply cutting their ministries of the environment and natural resources. These are the ministries that would be charged with monitoring and enforcing the federal powers such as the protection of freshwater fish habitat under section 35(2).
For example, the Ontario government is cutting 752 staff from the Ministry of the Environment and Energy and 2,170 from the Ministry of Natural Resources. Furthermore, with the implementation of Bill 26 and the repeal of the Planning Act legislation, the Harris government has effectively eliminated protection for environmentally significant areas in the province of Ontario.
In light of this massive dismantling of environmental regulations, can the minister of state responsible for natural resources assure the House that he and the government will not give away section 35(2) of the Fisheries Act and actually retain that section as a federal power so that the trigger offered by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act will not be lost and its benefits to the Canadian population and future natural resources not damaged?