Madam Chair, this amendment proposes a new section that would be found after line 36 on page 20. It doesn't replace existing language; it's new. Proposed subsection 35(2.1) would ensure that any time there was a “harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat resulting from the doing of anything that is authorized” by the minister, there would be an offset for the loss of fish habitat.
This bill, I think, does some really innovative things. We get to them later in clause 28 when we look at habitat banking.
However, this proposed subsection 35(2.1) would ensure that there would be a measure every time, so we would offset the loss of habitat. I'll just give the specifics from the amendment, “by, among other things,”—so it's not limited to these—“creating a new fish habitat, increasing the productivity of another fish habitat or maintaining productivity through artificial propagation.” The amendment makes it required of the minister to find, essentially, a habitat substitution or augmentation somewhere else if there is a harmful alteration, disruption, or destruction of fish habitat. In other words, the old HADD provisions would always require a no net loss provision that is consistent with the compensation for loss of fish habitat that's found in the DFO habitat management plan where the concepts of productive capacity and no net loss are well understood. The department has used those concepts for a long time.
