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.

Report Stage

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the member's speech. As always, it was delivered with a lot of rigour.

The member said that the government's policy is not based on science. How was removing protections in the Fisheries Act in 2012 a decision based on science? Was it really based on ideology, the ideology that all environmental regulations impede business and should be removed because the economy and the environment do not go hand in hand? How is that not an ideological position?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the member was actually listening to my speech, but that is not at all what I suggested.

The member has suggested that somehow the former Conservative government, in 2012, removed scientific protections. Nothing could be further from the truth. The changes that happened in 2012 were improvements to protection, which focused on what Canadians expect us to focus on, protecting fish. That is something the Liberals never could understand, and still do not understand. Today, they are taking a step backwards, again.

The changes in 2012 were all about applying science. The precautionary principle that the Liberal government is now introducing has nothing to do with science. It has to do with ideology and speculation. By its own definition, if we read the definition of the precautionary principle, it has to nothing to do with science. It is simply saying, “Better safe than sorry.”

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when my colleague was in government, the government commissioned Justice Cohen to study the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River. One of the recommendations, recommendation 3, was:

The Government of Canada should remove from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ mandate the promotion of salmon farming as an industry and farmed salmon as a product.

DFO continues to promote salmon farming, the industry and the product, but it also has the mandate of protecting our fish.

Even the Pacific Salmon Foundation, which I am sure the member would agree has been a great steward and advocate for wild fish in British Columbia, put out a release on May 9:

The Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF) believes that British Columbia and Canada must put wild Pacific salmon first and that a move to closed-containment salmon aquaculture is recommended.

It is clear that the Liberals have left this absent in this new legislation. The Conservative government, before, did not implement the recommendation of Justice Cohen. Maybe the member could speak to whether or not he supports this recommendation by Justice Cohen.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I never expected to get that question in this debate, but it is a good one. We were just talking about it.

I can tell the member that I am very familiar with the work of the Pacific Salmon Foundation. In fact, I recently spoke to Brian Riddell, the executive director of the foundation. We talked about that very issue, the recommendation Justice Cohen had made. We were looking at that very carefully.

Pacific salmon are iconic to the west coast. It is very clear that the salmon are facing significant challenges. One of the recommendations, not only coming out of the Cohen commission report, but now coming out of the Pacific Salmon Foundation, is to have a very close look at salmon farming on the west coast, understanding that the most recent science on it seems to indicate that in fact fish farms are contributing to wild salmon mortality and declining salmon stocks.

I can assure the member that we are looking at this very closely. I would be quite prepared to enter into further dialogue with the member on this.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to debate this very important bill, Bill C-68, which deals with changes to the Fisheries Act. I will point out that in general, the government's legislative agenda is floundering. It has clammed up. Liberals are trolling the bottom. They are trying desperately to get through as much legislation as they can, and they are doing it under repeated time allocation. I looked hard, and there are no pearls in this one. The government is putting forward these changes to the Fisheries Act in defiance of good sense.

Now, this bill is very important in my riding. Why do I say that? I represent a riding in Alberta, and there are not a lot of people who earn their living by fishing in Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. However, the framework that existed before 2012 with respect to fisheries protection and navigable waters protection is quite perverse. Members have spoken about this already. It is the idea that it was pretty easy to get almost anything designated as fish habitat. If my kids are out playing in the yard one day, they dig a hole, it rains, and it fills up with water, maybe that is a fish habitat. All of a sudden, that requires all kinds of processes, consultations, and changes. That obviously does not make any sense.

More seriously, there were issues with farmers, people who were building ditches for drainage, very simple normal activities. Things would fill up with water and all of a sudden get designated as fish habitat, which would invoke all kinds of different protections, regulations, and red tape from the federal government.

I do not think it is rocket science or even fish science to say that we should be thinking more rationally and strategically about how we protect our fish stocks. Rather than having this sort of proliferation of designation of fish habitat—and navigable waters was another issue that was drawing in similar kinds of over-regulation—we would try to be strategic about protecting fish stocks. We would think about what those critical points of protection were. We would have strong regulations in those cases, and, at the same time, we would not be protecting things in the wrong way.

On this side of the House, we favour rational, effective, and, as much as possible, surgical regulation; that is, regulation that does the thing it is intended to do, and the repeal of regulation that does not do what it is intended to do, that is not connected to a clear, rational objective. That is why, for instance, when Conservatives were in government, every time we introduced a new regulation, we developed a structure so that there would have to be a corresponding removal of regulation. Any time that ministers wanted to bring in new regulations, they also had to think about removing other regulations. That is a good approach, because sometimes government fails to think about repealing old, irrelevant regulations, trying to tighten up and smarten the rules. Again, it is not about not having those protections in place; it is about ensuring that those protections are rational and effective, and actually associated with the objectives that the regulation is in fact intended to serve.

In 2012, the previous government brought forward changes that shifted the focus from protecting fairly arbitrarily defined fish habitat to actually protecting and preserving our fish stocks. That was a good approach. It was widely supported by civil society. It was not supported by some voices, but, generally speaking, those who saw the practical problems and the practical need for improvement supported our approach. Some parties in this House waved the flag and said that fewer waterways were protected. We were effectively protecting vital waterways and assuring that the farmer's ditch, that hole that my kids dug in the backyard, did not get designated as a waterway. There was an appropriate level of protection for places where fish actually live, and there was no merit in applying those regulations beyond their usefulness.

Unfortunately, the Liberal government has sort of drunk their own bathwater when it comes to these talking points. They have bought into these lines about how they need to go back to the old regulatory system, which piled on unnecessary red tape and made it harder to do any kind of development, but with no discernible objective.

I did want to say if one wants to talk about what actually is harmful to fish and what is harmful to waterways, let us talk about the decision by the former Liberal mayor of Montreal to dump raw sewage into the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the approval he received from the environment minister to do that. Raw sewage and the environment do not go hand in hand. However, the government wants to make it more difficult to do science-based development. It wants to make life harder for the energy sector. It put all kinds of barriers in the way of energy development and pipeline development. It wants to make it harder for municipalities to develop by putting unnecessary regulatory burdens in front of them, unless one is a well-connected, former Liberal MP who is the mayor of Montreal. Then if one wants to dump raw sewage in there, go for it.

How did the fish feel when that happened? Do fish feel? I do not know, but it was not good for their health, is the point.

I know members across the way are excited about this point but they cannot get around it. Our approach was one that actually protected fish habitat, that actually sought to protect fish stocks. It was science-based, it was consistent, and it was safe and effective.

My constituents often ask me about the double standards they see from the government. On the one hand, it talks about the environment. On the other hand, the government's approach to environmental policy is totally disconnected from reality, such as the piling of hurdles on the energy east pipeline. Again, there was Denis Coderre's strong opposition to the energy east pipeline because there might be some spill, allegedly. That was his line associated with that. At the same time, the government was not thinking about the impact on the fish from raw sewage. This is a floundering legislative agenda, indeed. Someone has heard me repeat that joke. However, they are hearing it for the first time. That is good.

There are a few other provisions in this bill that I want to touch on, in the time that I have left. The bill raises transparency concerns and due process concerns. For one thing it allows the minister to withhold critical information from interested proponents. We have heard a lot of discussion from the government about transparency, about sunny ways, and about how sunlight is the best disinfectant. However, we actually see in reality a consistent refusal to apply this lofty talk on transparency in practice. We see that happening and that certainly is disappointing. Again, we see cases of that in this particular piece of legislation.

This bill, as I said, piles on additional unnecessary regulations. It fails the test of being surgical and focused on achieving any clear, discernible result. This bill allows also for the establishment of advisory panels. These have former Liberal politicians and soon to be former Liberal politicians salivating, I am sure, about the opportunities of joining advisory panels for which they will be, no doubt, richly remunerated. However, there is no clarity around the guidance they will be required to give or the limitations on the use of these panels, or the conditions that they will be subject to.

The government, in creating more opportunities for patronage appointments, is not thinking about the fish. It is only thinking about the well-connected Liberal insiders. At the time of clam scam, one would think that it would want to avoid even the appearance of this kind of problem. Alas, it has not.

There are many concerns that we have with the bill: the problems for development, the troubling mechanisms, and other points I have not had time to get to. In any event, I will be opposing the bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to give good news to my friend across the way. He can let his children go out and play in the yard, dig a little hole, and let water fall into it. He does not have to fear that the children are going to be in violation.

There has been a great deal of effort and consultation involving many different stakeholders. The department has done its job in presenting this legislation. In fact, there are more than just the government inside the House who support the legislation. On the other hand, there are the Conservatives, who have clearly demonstrated that the legislation does not matter. If they are against it, they will talk it, and talk it out. Their preference is to never allow it to see the light of day. That is one of the reasons why one ultimately has to bring in time allocation. We would never see the legislation passed if it were up to the Conservative Party.

My question to my colleague is, recognizing how Canadians want us to bring in progressive legislation such as this, why does the Conservative Party continue to be out of touch with what Canadians want to see when it comes to our waterways, our environment, and so on?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it will not surprise my friend across the way that I quarrel with the premise of the question. Indeed, his late-stage conversion to the merits of time allocation is fishy indeed. He spent 20 years in opposition, provincially and federally, but now that he is in government, he finally has seen the light. He has it. Suddenly he knows that time allocation is a great and necessary tool for overcoming the obstructionism of the opposition.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Members are clapping, and soon after 2019, they will lose that insight I am sure. I am sure a few months after 2019, the member for Winnipeg North will realize that maybe it was not such a good idea after all. There will not be as much enthusiasm from the member for Winnipeg North from his post in the private sector.

I may have gilded the lily a little with the example of my children in the backyard. I acknowledge that, and did acknowledge that in my remarks. It is not a lily that requires much gilding, to be frank though. There are many examples that my colleagues have brought up. There are cases where ditches have been dug by farmers, and they been designated as a waterway and fish habitat all of a sudden.

The member also pointed out that the government is not the only party that supports the bill. Congratulations; you have the even further left parties in the House that support your radical agenda to make development as difficult as possible. If we are the only party standing for common sense in the next election, I am very proud of the opportunity that will give us.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I want to remind hon. members that when they come back tomorrow and they are talking, they will want to speak through the Chair. I am sure the hon. member did not mean my, whatever it was he was talking about.

The House resumed from June 11 consideration of Bill C-68, An Act to amend the Fisheries Act and other Acts in consequence, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Fisheries Act

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, tonight I would like to focus my attention on the detrimental effects Bill C-68 would have on development. Before I do so, I want to point out to those listening at home that the government has once again moved time allocation.

When the Liberals were in opposition, they absolutely railed at the thought. They used every tactic in the book to disrupt and to stall debate. Now, however, it seems that every time the Liberal government House leader has a chance, she moves time allocation in an effort to limit our free speech.

This bill is completely unnecessary and, as the House has heard from my colleagues, this matter was studied in depth at the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. In fact, it was the minister himself, in 2016, who asked the committee to examine the lost protections in the Fisheries Act.

After months of debate, do members know how many witnesses testified on lost protections? It was none. Zero. Not a single one. Now the Liberals have brought forward this unnecessary legislation, which is already expected to cost close to $300 million to implement. I want to clarify that as part of our previous government's economic action plan of 2012 and in support of the responsible resource development plan, changes to the Fisheries Act were introduced and received royal assent in November of 2013.

The legislative changes we, on this side of the House, made to the fisheries protection provisions of the act supported a shift from managing impacts to all fish habitats to focusing on the act's regulatory regime on managing threats to the sustainability and ongoing productivity of Canada's commercial, recreational, and aboriginal fisheries.

Prior to these sensible amendments, all fish, and consequently all potential fish habitat, regardless of economic or social value, were covered under the Fisheries Act. This created a system that was impossible to manage, and created impediments to the most minor work on ditches, flood prevention etc. This creates an incredible amount of red tape for towns and municipalities, and means completely unnecessary hardship for Canadians trying to simply go about their business, and protect their property, a fundamental Canadian right.

The Liberals' approach to the legislative, regulatory, and policy framework governing infrastructure projects would cause a competitive disadvantage for all Canadian companies and would be felt by local governments across the country. I would also like to point out that the Liberal strategy of layering broad policy considerations into environmental regulations, such as Bill C-68 and Bill C-69, would lead to a marked decrease in investment and competitiveness for Canada's energy sector, as though it could possibly get any worse. This threatens the sector's sustainability and its contribution to Canada's future social, economic, and development objectives.

What the Liberals have done is put forward a piece of legislation with a bunch of “fill in the blanks” or “to be considered” slots, and asked Canadians to trust them. Unfortunately for business, this approach does not work and only serves to undermine industry.

In relation to the authorizations pursuant to the Fisheries Act, it is uncertain as to the types of projects that would require approval and potentially trigger an impact assessment pursuant to Bill C-69. Depending on forthcoming codes of practices and regulations, there could also be the need for additional approvals for low-impact activities, and the result would be a longer process with no different outcome than is achieved under the current legislation.

The unknown of the project specifics that would trigger approvals pursuant to the Fisheries Act is most concerning since it has a strong likelihood to impact all project development, not just those projects requiring assessment by the proposed impact assessment agency.

Former Liberal cabinet minister, the Hon. Sergio Marchi, who is now the president and CEO of the Canadian Electricity Association, has made it clear that he sees Bill C-68 as a missed opportunity. In its press release, the CEA stated:

...Bill C-68 represents one step forward but two steps back.

CEA is particularly concerned that the government has chosen to return to pre-2012 provisions of the Fisheries Act that address ‘activity other than fishing that results in the death of fish, and the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction (HADD) of fish habitat’. In practical terms, this means that virtually any action, without prior authorization, could be construed as being in contravention of this Act. Consequently, the reinstatement of these measures will result in greater uncertainties for existing and new facilities, and unduly delay and/or discourage investment in energy projects that directly support Canada’s clean growth agenda and realize its climate change objectives.

Bill C-68 is a missed opportunity for the federal government to anchor the Fisheries Act on a reasonable, population-based approach rather than focusing on individual fish, and to clearly define fisheries management objectives.

Regarding criteria for project designation, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans heard from the Pembina Pipeline Corporation and were told of a number of alternative measures that could be used to lessen any environmental impact. Unfortunately, it seems any suggestions fell on deaf ears as the committee refused all 20 amendments put forward by my colleagues.

Pembina is a Calgary-based pipeline corporation that has provided transportation and midstream services to North America's industry for over 60 years. Sixty years is not a small amount of time in the span of Canadian history. In fact, it has one of the best integrated pipeline systems in the entire world and transport hydrocarbon liquids, natural gas, and natural gas products all over Alberta.

In its brief to the committee, it highlighted that pipeline associated watercourse crossing construction practices and technology had in fact come a long way over the last few decades. These processes are state-of-the-art, and horizontal directional drilling is a perfect example of a technology that is widely used and eliminates environmental impacts of a pipeline crossing waterways.

I will not go into the complete detail on the briefing submitted by Pembina, but I will say that this bill is unnecessary. It would create more bureaucratic red tape and would only serve to hinder development. In fact, the legislation is so very ambiguous that Pembina cautions that the Liberal government is virtually ensuring future conflict among indigenous communities because it has not considered the complexity of overlapping traditional territories.

On this side of the House, we support the protection of our oceans and fisheries. Our previous changes to the Fisheries Act were enacted to support transparency in the decision-making process and provide a level of certainty to those invested in the act.

The Liberals have done the exact opposite with Bill C-68. As usual, what they say is not actually what they do. They have said that they are restoring harmful alteration or disruption or the destruction of fish habitat. However, they sidestep any obligation to uphold the HADD regulations in the legislation by providing the minister with the ability to exempt certain provisions.

I want to reiterate also that Bill C-68 seems to undermine transparency and due process by allowing the minister to withhold critical information from interested proponents, and this goes against the Prime Minister's commitment to openness and transparency.

There is no way the Conservative Party of Canada will support this burdensome bill that serves no purpose other than to check off an election promise from the Liberals' 2015 red book.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it has been entertaining listening to Conservatives talk about Bill C-68. On the one hand, the New Democratic friends say that the government should be doing more. On the other hand, the Conservatives' mentality is that any legislation on the environment is bad. We actually just heard that from the member.

It is much like the pipeline. TMX is going to happen. The previous Harper government failed at getting a pipeline to the market on the coast, but this government has not failed. Would the member not acknowledge that the economy and environment do in fact go hand in hand? We can see that with respect to the success of this legislation and the pipeline, which finally will be built, and not because of Stephen Harper but because we have a government that understands this

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is absolutely unfair to this side of the House that the Liberal government has attempted to make us wear an environmental record that is completely false and untrue, based upon our 10 years in government with Stephen Harper. In the member's commentary, I hear once again something that is the complete opposite of what the Harper government stood for. What the Liberals say is continuous virtue signalling, unknown decision-making, and speaking out of both sides of their mouths.

With the former Harper Conservative Government of Canada, we always did what we said we would do, and often this was standing up not only for industry but also for the environment.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, I was on the fisheries committee back in 2012 when the changes were made. I helped author them. I was also on the fisheries committee when the Liberal government tore apart extremely good legislation. I have also had the honour of being in the environment field for over 35 years and did pipeline assessments. My colleague is exactly right about how carefully pipelines are made these days.

Just as an aside, I would recommend my colleague get on the fisheries committee, she is so competent in this field.

I was also on the environment committee recently when we looked at Bill C-69, and the horror stories from industry are legendary. Chris Bloomer from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association said that Canada had a toxic regulatory environment. He talked about pancaking regulation on top of regulation. It is an environmental lawyer's dream. The lawyers are the ones who will to get rich.

Could my colleague talk about the effect of this and other acts on Canada's investment climate?