Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I move that Bill C-38, in clause 133, be amended by replacing line 5 on page 151 with the following:
to fish is the death of or adverse health effects on fish, including reproductive or developmental effects, or any adverse
We think this amendment is incredibly important to the budget bill. It is basically the result of a lot of testimony we heard at committee as well as a lot of what we've been hearing, quite frankly, in communities, in the news, and from our constituents.
The problem with the budget bill, the way the changes to the Fisheries Act are written, is that it actually removes the obligation to protect fish habitat. This is extremely serious, because the result is that the act won't say it protects fish. What it says is that fish can't be killed, essentially, but it doesn't say that fish can't be maimed or that their growth can't be stunted or that their ability to reproduce can't be affected or impacted. It also doesn't say that their habitat or the fish they rely on to eat or the other kinds of food they eat have to be protected.
I think this is very serious. This is exactly the issue we heard the former fisheries ministers come out against. And we've heard from a number of people who share that concern.
The Fisheries Act is one of the strongest environmental protections we actually have in Canada. We heard some incredible testimony, some quite moving testimony, I'd say, from Will Amos, at Ecojustice. He talked about the Fisheries Act, this part of the Fisheries Act, being part of the fabric of who we are as Canadians. It came about because of the sawmills on the Ottawa River. People living along the river realized that the sawdust from these sawmills was ending up in the river and was killing the fish habitat in the river. That was actually the genesis of this. He talked in such a moving way about how it's not just a piece of legislation; it is about who we are. It is about standing up for our environment and protecting our backyards—essentially this whole country is our backyard—and it is a very strong piece of environmental protection.
The other problem with the changes to the Fisheries Act we heard about was that the impact, as long as it's temporary, is fine, but we don't know what “temporary” means. What does “serious harm” mean? What do all of these things mean? It's very hard for us to figure out the definition of many of these terms in the new budget bill.
Would it be temporary to, say, in Halifax, give a licence to a developer to infill the Bedford Basin and build a condominium on the infill? As long as it's in the clause with a 99-year lease, and as long as the clause says “and the condo developer shall then return it to its original state”, is that temporary? Arguably, it is. Arguably, maybe that's not considered permanent.
When it comes to serious harm, we need to broaden the definition of serious harm to include the health effects on fish generally, non-permanent harm, and the destruction of fish habitat. What we're trying to do is encapsulate all of that in one amendment by broadening the definition of serious harm so that we take permanence into account. We take into account destroying the habitat, destroying the place where fish reproduce, and destroying the food they rely on to stay alive.
I'll wrap up with a little piece of testimony from David Schindler, who spoke at the finance subcommittee. He talked about the experimental lakes he was working on. They were actually doing testing on acid rain. He said they had an experimental lake set up where they tested the effect of acid rain on fish. They found that the acid rain didn't kill the fish, but it killed their entire food source, and the fish starved to death.
The way this budget bill is written, that can happen. If we're not going to protect fish habitat, we may see fish starving to death. We may see the next generation of fish being destroyed.
I'm hopeful that with the amount of attention this provision has received publicly, at committee, and in the media, government members will vote with us to broaden the definition of “serious harm”, because I think it's the right thing to do.