Bill C-68 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Fisheries Act and other Acts in consequence

This enactment amends the Fisheries Act to, among other things,
(a) require that, when making a decision under that Act, the Minister shall consider any adverse effects that the decision may have on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, include provisions respecting the consideration and protection of Indigenous knowledge of the Indigenous peoples of Canada, and authorize the making of agreements with Indigenous governing bodies to further the purpose of the Fisheries Act;
(b) add a purpose clause and considerations for decision-making under that Act;
(c) empower the Minister to establish advisory panels and to set fees, including for the provision of regulatory processes;
(d) provide measures for the protection of fish and fish habitat with respect to works, undertakings or activities that may result in the death of fish or the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat, including in ecologically significant areas, as well as measures relating to the modernization of the regulatory framework such as authorization of projects, establishment of standards and codes of practice, creation of fish habitat banks by a proponent of a project and establishment of a public registry;
(e) empower the Governor in Council to make new regulations, including regulations respecting the rebuilding of fish stocks and importation of fish;
(f) empower the Minister to make regulations for the purposes of the conservation and protection of marine biodiversity;
(g) empower the Minister to make fisheries management orders prohibiting or limiting fishing for a period of 45 days to address a threat to the proper management and control of fisheries and the conservation and protection of fish;
(h) prohibit the fishing of a cetacean with the intent to take it into captivity, unless authorized by the Minister, including when the cetacean is injured, in distress or in need of care; and
(i) update and strengthen enforcement powers, as well as establish an alternative measures agreements regime; and
(j) provide for the implementation of various measures relating to the maintenance or rebuilding of fish stocks.
The enactment also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Motions in amendment

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-68 would restore lost protections, including the HADD protections, and it would strengthen the role of indigenous communities.

When I was first made Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, one of the things I did in my first summer was make sure that I went out and visited as many indigenous communities as I could get to. Most indigenous communities had not had a parliamentary secretary or a minister of fisheries and oceans visit for maybe one or two generations, if at all.

This legislation would strengthen the role of indigenous communities. It would provide an increased role in decision-making, policy-making, and monitoring. It would go right alongside our investments in indigenous communities, including $250 million to give more indigenous communities access to the fisheries. That is going to cause generational changes that will be very positive for all Canadians, especially indigenous communities.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to be one of the British Columbians to whom my friend referred. It seems this is a fully British Columbian night.

I am proud to speak in support of Bill C-68. I want to salute the enormous work and contribution made by our fisheries critic, the hon. member for Port Moody—Coquitlam. This bill goes a long way toward restoring lost protections to the Fisheries Act and introducing some modern safeguards.

We believe that the legislation to restore the HADD prohibition, which is the prohibition against harmful alteration, disruption, and destruction, should have been introduced immediately following the last federal election. Then we could have been working together to modernize the act from there. However, we did not see that from the Liberals. Therefore, the modernization that we could have supported earlier took a bit of time to get in place, and of course we still have to enact it. I believe that Bill C-68 is okay, although it could have been a lot better, for reasons I will explain.

We introduced a series of amendments to further strengthen the Fisheries Act. Although we were successful in seeing a couple of them pass, the ones that were defeated were also important, for reasons I will come to. They would have strengthened the act and had positive impacts on the health and sustainability of the fish populations and their habitats for generations to come.

Bill C-68 restores much of what was lost under the changes made by the previous Conservative government in 2012, and it introduces a number of positive provisions that we support. I would like to talk about those before I come to some of the deficiencies, in our view.

First, returning the prohibition against the harmful alteration, disruption, and destruction of fish habitat, and its applicability to all native fish and fisheries, as well as the prohibition on causing death of fish by means other than fishing, were critical. The fact that they were restored is an excellent feature of this bill.

Second, including in the act key provisions to strengthen how it is interpreted is important, such as a purpose statement, along with considerations for decision-making and factors to inform the making of regulations under this bill that reflect key sustainability principles.

Third, the bill introduces provisions that address the rebuilding of depleted fish populations. We talked about that earlier.

Fourth, it would establish a public registry to support the assessment of cumulative effects and to enhance the transparency of decision-making.

Fifth, strengthening provisions with respect to ecologically significant areas would move us from concept to action, at last.

Sixth, there is greater recognition of indigenous rights and knowledge, particularly in light of the historic commitment of the House in Bill C-262 to enshrine the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Finally, the fact that there is going to be a statutorily mandated review every five years is also an important evergreen provision in this bill.

The bill was amended at committee. One of the important amendments was the rebuilding of fish stocks section, because the core function of Fisheries and Oceans Canada is to manage our fish populations for the long term so that we have a sustainable fishery. That is what this is all about. If they are not at a sustainable level, we will not be able to allocate the fish because we will not have the fish to allocate. That is obviously important. For the first time in 150 years, Bill C-68 recognizes the importance of rebuilding overfished stocks by creating a legal duty to develop plans aimed at moving stocks out of a critical zone. I think that this is really important, if, as I suggested earlier, regulations are actually made to do the work that is necessary.

These are welcome and long overdue. I think we have to be sober about the state of our fisheries. Since 1970, over half of the biomass of our fisheries has disappeared. By some estimates, only slightly more than one third of our stocks are still considered healthy in this country. At least 21 of Canada's fish stocks are in the critical zone, and our fishing industry is precariously balanced on the continued abundance of only a few species.

Therefore, these changes are important, and I salute the government for bringing them in. However, I also have to flag some concerns. First, the minister can make exceptions to these requirements under certain conditions. We have to make sure that this discretion to exempt fish stocks does not get abused. Second, the law only applies to what are defined as “major fish stocks”, a phrase that will only be defined in future regulations. This creates a situation in which the government could circumvent the intent of the legislation by dragging its heels indefinitely on adding fish stocks to the regulations, thereby not requiring sustainable management measures or a rebuilding plan. These concerns were raised by my colleague at the fisheries committee, and I want to put them on the record again this evening.

The NDP introduced a number of amendments to Bill C-68, 22 of them to be exact. A few of those improvements are still valid. First, the NDP submitted amendments to broaden the information base so that the public registry captures all projects, and to ensure compensation for the residual harm to fish habitat caused by small or low-risk projects. Those amendments, unfortunately, were defeated.

Second, explicit protection for environmental flows and fish passages was an issue, and we proposed amendments to strengthen those provisions for the free passage of fish and for securing the environmental flows needed to protect fish and fish habitat. I am happy to say they were passed at committee and are part of the bill.

Third, I have already alluded to the recognition of indigenous rights and knowledge. The committee heard testimony, for example, from Matt Thomas of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. New Democrats believe that reconciliation should be a part of all legislation. A true nation-to-nation relationship with Canada's indigenous peoples, consistent with our Constitution, should be fully embraced and reflected in the Fisheries Act. The amendments along those lines were defeated.

Fourth, on measures to increase transparency and accountability, the committee heard eloquent testimony from Linda Nowlan from West Coast Environmental Law, who made some great suggestions to increase transparency and accountability. The NDP made amendments to that effect, but they were all defeated.

Fifth, provisions to apply owner-operator and fleet separation policies to all coasts were proposed. Some of the most compelling testimony we heard was from young fishers from the west coast, and yet the section in the act talks about an independent inshore commercial fishery as being in “Atlantic Canada and Quebec”. Canada's New Democrats fully support putting owner-operator and fleet separation policies in the Fisheries Act, but we wonder why we did not do the same thing for our Pacific coast. First nations and independent fishermen on the west coast want the same policy as Atlantic Canada. New Democrats moved an amendment to open that door, but the door was closed and the amendment was defeated.

I want to make one further point before I conclude. We support the bill. We recognize the need to protect fish habitat, but I cannot let the opportunity go by of talking about the impact that the Kinder Morgan, now Government of Canada, tanker project will have, and the possibility of its destroying, with a devastating spill of diluted bitumen, the essential habitat and aquatic ecosystems that our fish depend on.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member his thoughts on enforcement. As he knows, the government is putting in more than $280 million to go along with the amendment to the Fisheries Act. A portion of that would go to enforcement. We heard that the previous government felt that the reason investigations into illegal activities on our waters had gone down by 80% was because of how efficient they were. I thought it might have been because of the cuts in the 94 full-time enforcement positions that were taken out under the previous government. I am wondering if my friend opposite has an opinion on that.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my friend the parliamentary secretary raises an excellent point. Supporting the amendments with $280 million is important, and enforcement is a critical aspect of any of these sections. As an example, the habitat alteration, destruction, and disruption section is central to protecting fish habitat, because without fish habitat, we do not have fish. Logging and other industries on the west coast n particular can devastate a stream on which salmon depend for rearing, and if we do not have people on the ground prepared to enforce those sections, we will never have any benefit from them.

Therefore, I could not agree more with the principle, but what it takes is not money as much as political will. Neither the current government nor the last government has shown itself ready to take the steps. Our environmental laws are replete with sections with large fines and great political commitments, but if we do the statistical analysis and see how often they are actually applied, the answer is pretty devastating: rarely, if ever.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague indicated, last week the Liberals voted for a piece of legislation, Bill C-262, to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In that bill, they made very specific commitments, especially around article 19, under which laws of general application would receive free, prior, and informed consent from first nations.

Does my colleague believe that the Liberals, in turning down those amendments, were living up to the spirit of the vote that took place last week?

I also want to note that there is another member from British Columbia in the chamber tonight.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to also recognize my friend from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo for completing the cast of British Columbia characters tonight. We need a token non-British Columbian in this debate, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps you could arrange that later.

On article 19 on free, prior, and informed consent, it is interesting that the bill we passed probably does not have retroactive effect, but that does not mean that a bill like this, which is not yet enacted, should not be read, interpreted, applied, and implemented in the spirit of the historic declaration that this House made. That declaration, if properly applied, could be as important as section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, for Canada's indigenous people, but it will take political will and a commitment to the spirit of reconciliation that is reflected in that document. I just hope the government puts its money, its enforcement action, and its policy where our collective mouth is as we pass this important legislation. If we do not do it, it will just be another bill on the shelf.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to complete the B.C. roster this evening.

I used to be the regional manager for southeastern British Columbia in the Ministry of Environment. When I first became regional manager, there were four federal fisheries officers working in southeastern B.C. The plan was to have 12, six biologists and six enforcement officers, but by the time the Harper Conservative government was done, there were zero fisheries employees of any kind in the southern interior.

I would like to ask my colleague whether he is hopeful that, along with this bill, new resources will be coming to British Columbia to better manage our fish in the interior as well.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to note the member for Kootenay—Columbia. We have completed the geographic sweep of the province now—north, south, east, and west, and a little urban as well—so I am very proud to be here not only as a Canadian but also as a British Columbian participating in this debate.

There is absolutely no doubt that the Harper government gutted the enforcement of the Fisheries Act. It took out the sections we talked about, which were so central, and then it took away the people who could apply them. The Liberal government has enforcement money, but does it have the political will?

Justice Cohen, in his historic report on the fisheries, talked extensively about the failure to enforce environmental legislation such as the Fisheries Act. I salute the government for putting money in place, but we really have to make sure that it is prepared to also put in place legal resources and other tools so that we can get convictions and get the big fines that are contemplated, and do the kind of planning that is so necessary for cumulative effects, rebuilding the stocks, and all of the other things that have promise in this bill but will only be implemented if money and political will are in place.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Victoria asked, and as the good book says, “Ask and you will receive.” We have a member from Alberta here, standing to represent another province in this great debate.

I hope members will indulge me while I quickly mention my friends and colleagues, Andrea Khanjin, Lindsey Park, and David Piccini, who won their seats this evening in the Ontario election. It was a pleasure serving with them in Ottawa and knowing them as friends. I am very proud of them tonight, and I want them to know that.

I rise to speak on Bill C-68, an act to amend the Fisheries Act. For my whole life, from the Fraser River all the way to Ontario's Rideau Lakes, my passion for fish, fishing, and preserving and sustaining fish stocks is very important to me. I am passionate about preserving and sustaining fish and fish habitat, but I see little reason to support Bill C-68, a flawed bill that will over-regulate and would solve a problem that does not really exist.

Canada has strong protections in place to ensure the preservation of fish and fish habitats, but there is always room for improvement. However, the Liberal government has rejected any amendments from the committee, amendments that would ensure the best legislation for Canadians.

The government introduced Bill C-68, which introduces a number of changes to the Fisheries Act. However, it ignores some of the major findings from a report from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans that was presented to the House of Commons in February 2017. On September 19, 2016, the fisheries committee, including Liberal members, agreed to the following motion. They would:

...review and study the scope of the application of the Fisheries Act, and specifically the serious harm to fish prohibition: how the prohibition is implemented to protect fish and fish habitat; the capacity of Fisheries and Oceans Canada to deliver on fish and fish habitat protection through project review, monitoring, and enforcement; the definitions of serious harm to fish and commercial, recreational, and Aboriginal fisheries; the use of regulatory authorities under the Fisheries Act; and other related provisions of the act, and provide its recommendations in a report to the House.

The committee convened 10 meetings in Ottawa, from October 31 to December 12 in 2016, before presenting this report to the House of Commons in February 2017. Overall, the committee heard from 50 different witnesses during the study and received over 188 submissions and briefing notes. It was a comprehensive study, which, if the government were truly committed to strengthening the role of committees in this Parliament, would have formed the basis for Bill C-68. However, Bill C-68 essentially ignores the committee's report, including one of the most important recommendations contained in the report. This recommendation stated:

Any revision of the Fisheries Act should review and refine the previous definition of HADD due to the previous definition’s vulnerability to being applied in an inconsistent manner and the limiting effect it had on government agencies in their management of fisheries and habitats in the interest of fish productivity.

Following testimony from 50 witnesses and briefing notes from more than 180 associations, groups, and individuals, it was agreed that a return to HADD was undesirable and that should the government return to HADD, it needed to be refined and further reviewed. However, Bill C-68 ignores the recommendation completely and introduces a return to HADD.

Now HADD is referred to in subsection 35(1) of the legislation, which states, “No person shall carry on any work, undertaking or activity that results in the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat.” Essentially this means that any sort of development that is harmful, alters, disrupts, or destroys any fish habitat could be stopped or not approved by the government.

I have friends who have personally experienced the overzealous regulation of the Department of Fisheries in its enforcement of HADD. A dear friend of mine, who has played a senior role in the air cadets in western Canada, told me of how much trouble he had dealing with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans a number of years ago before the Conservatives made reforms. My friend needed to renovate a firing range for the air cadets. This was a public range that was used by private individuals and the air cadets to practice. He was required by new government regulations to renovate this range in order to make it live up to the codes that the government had set for it.

In the process of dealing with this one set of government regulations, he quickly ran afoul of another set of government regulations. Every spring, during the snow melt, a small stream would form and run straight through the range. For 10 months of the year, one could hardly tell that a stream existed. There was no water, as it would dry up. However, once DFO officials got involved, they discovered traces of a common fish that could have been in the stream. They immediately halted the renovations to the gun range, which had operated for decades, because of the possibility that a fish habitat existed on the range. It could only have been there for less than two months of the year, because that is the only time there was water.

Because they were not able to renovate the range because of these old DFO regulations the Conservatives had removed, they were unable to recertify the range. Effectively, they shut down the range, depriving air cadets and private individuals of a facility necessary for their training and improvement.

That is a personal story of how some regulations, although they are intended to do good things, can really impact the everyday activities of Canadians in a way that does not really achieve the accomplishment. That is why we need to review and make clear what HADD really means.

As the committee report noted, this section was applied inconsistently and was oftentimes very unclear. Developers were often bogged down in battles over what constituted fish development, and it was an inconsistent roadblock for projects. Therefore, in 2012, the Conservative government removed HADD provisions and replaced them with the following:

No person shall carry on any work, undertaking or activity that results in serious harm to fish that are part of a commercial, recreational or Aboriginal fishery, or to fish that support such a fishery.

That is a very broad way of putting it. It captures a lot of the environmental effects, but it also introduces a certain level of judgment. There is a balance between the environment and the economy, and when we have that judgment, we just cannot have something that says that nothing will be done if it does any harm to fish. We need to look at whether it is a serious harm or not. When we introduce that level of judgment, it allows us to get to the best decisions.

This previous Conservative law had a very clear and more universally accepted interpretation. It was accepted, and it struck an important balance between development and conservation. I submit that this is the right balance.

The committee report we did together with the government recognized this by cautioning against a return to HADD provisions. However, although the Liberals want to talk a big game about empowering committees, they ignored this recommendation.

The consultation was done for the government. As I said earlier, there were more than 50 witnesses at the committee and more than 180 submissions. All the Liberals needed to do was read the report, and they would have seen in black and white that a return to HADD provisions was not favourable among stakeholders. Not one single individual or organization was able to present the committee with any scientific proof of harm that resulted from the elimination of HADD in the 2012 legislation. Therefore, I think we must assume that the 2012 legislation was working quite well.

The government refused to listen to a committee and rejected all the amendments. The government's approach to legislative, regulatory, and policy frameworks governing infrastructure projects, from a gun range to the way local farmers manage their property, will cause competitive disadvantages for Canadian companies across Canada and a massive regulatory headache for everyday Canadians.

We will not have a chance to make the necessary adjustments on this side of the House, but I urge our colleagues in the other place to take a long, serious look at Bill C-68 and make any necessary recommendations to this flawed legislation.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech intently, particularly the story about the gun range. We heard similar stories about fields and drainage ditches and the like.

We know that industry wants certainty on their timelines and on their requirements. We also know that we have to start addressing cumulative effects, because we know that the effects of many small projects can be just as significant as the effect of one large project. To balance this, we have developed what we call codes of practice. Does the member opposite support the codes of practice as laid out in Bill C-68?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we have to be very clear. We are not always talking about industry. It is like a dirty word when we say industry, but the example I gave was clearly a person who is a volunteer who runs an air cadet squadron and was trying to make the community a better place, and the government is putting in these regulations, oftentimes regulations that conflict with each other and result in nothing getting done.

I would not support the codes of practice, because in this case, they are just a further regulatory burden that gets in the way of everyday people trying to move on with their lives and help their communities.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Mr. Speaker, during the member's speech, he stated that they were able to find no scientific proof of harm. Of course, it is hard to find scientific proof if they have fired all of the scientists, or they are muzzling the scientists they do have so they cannot even report what they are hearing in their own research.

Does the member opposite support the $197 million that our government invested in hiring new scientists within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I note that I am answering a second question from the hon. member. That said, the government has been in power for over two and a half years. If the Liberals could find the science on this, then surely they have scientists they are not muzzling, or, at least, that they are claiming they are not muzzling. They have scientists they are claiming they are funding. Why can they not find the research from these scientists? If they cannot find that evidence, I submit that the evidence is not there to be had.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping to address this topic as well in a later speech. I do want to point out that there are many more people in this House who are interested in discussing this than simply those from B.C. We have Ontario. I can understand why the Liberals and New Democrats tonight would not want to talk about Ontario, because we have just seen what happened in Ontario. I want to congratulate Premier Doug Ford for his victory.

My question for my colleague is regarding the HADD provisions that this bill addresses, and the inconsistency with how those rules were applied before by DFO officials, which created a huge problem for those who were trying to get approvals done. I wonder if my colleague could speak more to that issue.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the HADD provisions in the legislation just put an entire blanket over everything and created a level of fear where things could not get done. That is why we had to introduce, as Conservatives in the previous government, new legislation that introduced a certain level of judgment, that there would have to be a reasonableness test: Is this this fish stock really at risk? Is there a significant impact on this?

They have to weigh the costs and benefits of these things, and that is what we need in this legislation.