Sure. I did a paper on the Fisheries Act for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy way back in 2002. The Fisheries Act defined habitat extremely broadly, so basically any puddle or any little drainage ditch were all considered fish habitat. Second, it talked about the factors that not only affected fish but had the potential to affect fish. What that did was make basically every single water body a fish habitat.
When the fisheries officers descended upon rural communities—and, of course, always carrying side arms, which we found very strange in a farmers' meeting—they were very much meddling in the private activities of private landowners and their farming activities.
I recall a study that we did at the fisheries committee—I was also on the fisheries committee for nine years—and we were in opposition at the time. We had a look at the changes we made to the Fisheries Act. One of the witnesses was a Mr. Ron Bonnett. Mr. Mazier knows him. At that time, Mr. Bonnett was president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. He was scathing in his critique of DFO's having descended on farms. He said that the enforcement was inconsistent, that it didn't work, and that it actually inhibited him from doing fish habitat programs.
The other reason we changed the Fisheries Act is that we actually wanted to focus on fish. Fish habitat is supposed to produce fish, so we focused on fish production.
Regarding the Navigable Waters Protection Act, it was a similar kind of thing to the Fisheries Act. Every little water body that could float a canoe was considered navigable. The act was promulgated in the 1800s when water navigation was prominent and important in Canada. It has become much less so because of railroads and trucking. At the time, we created the Navigation Protection Act, with the point being to protect navigation on those waters that are actually being used for commercial navigation.