Madam Chair, good morning and forgive me but I need to put on the record that if I want to exercise a right I would ordinarily have at report stage, that right was removed by the motion this committee passed which requires me to be here at clause-by-clause if I want to put forward amendments. I don't move the amendments, so it's a difference from the original sketching out of the rules. I'm in a very different position in that all my amendments are deemed to have been moved. I can't withdraw them; I can't do anything about them. I get to speak to them. These are the terms of the motion, and it's identical in every committee, which has the effect of restricting my rights, and it increases my workload—that's just a side complaint—because I also have Bill C-69 for the rest of today.
Let me put this forward very quickly, because I do believe this is a good bill and I hope we'll pass it expeditiously, but it can be improved.
My amendment PV-1 is to respond to a number of witnesses who we heard at committee, particularly West Coast Environmental Law, whose brief looks at the importance of the concept of environmental flows and water flows, and expands our understanding of what “habitat” means by replacing, under the purposes of the act, subsection 2(2) with the following:
For the purposes of this Act, the quantity, timing and quality of the water flow that are necessary to sustain the freshwater or estuarine ecosystems of a fish habitat are deemed to be a fish habitat.
I note, Madam Chair, that my friend, Mr. Donnelly, has a similar amendment, but either one of them would be great.