Madam Chair, given that this motion is the same as NDP-28, I'd like to speak to it. This is our final NDP motion.
We certainly appreciate the committee considering these amendments. It takes a lot of work to improve legislation, and there is good discussion both ways. I appreciate the government members' consideration.
NDP-28, which is very similar to PV-17, requires that the review of the act include these additional topics as part of the review by the committees: (a) a systematic assessment of the state of fish and fish habitat across Canada; (b) a list of all authorized fish habitat damaged during the relevant time period; (c) a list of all required habitat compensation during the relevant time period; and (d) summary statistics from the public registry.
I want to note that the West Coast Environmental Law Association provided a brief on Bill C-68, and I appreciated their input. All witnesses provided this committee with a lot of very detailed and helpful suggestions. Certainly the WCELA's brief was extremely helpful.
I want to mention what they said:
Monitoring of compliance and effectiveness of habitat restoration has been found to be unsystematic and therefore compromises the ability to assess whether proponents are meeting required conditions.
Regular reporting on the status of restoration and offsetting decisions, monitoring, and outcomes enables evaluation of whether objectives are being achieved.
In the United States, the National Fish Habitat Partnership, a coalition of anglers, conservation groups, scientists, industry, and state and federal agencies was formed in 2006 with the priority goals of preparing five-year comprehensive assessments of the condition of fish habitat across the US. These assessments have been produced in 2010 and 2015, and have identified key areas of degraded habitat and drivers of degradation.
We recommend amending section 92 which now says that a five year report to this Committee or the Senate Committee should be prepared on “the provisions and operation of this Act” to also mandate the preparation of a systematic report on the state of fish habitat, fish habitat damage authorized by DFO, habitat compensation required by DFO, and the status of ongoing monitoring efforts across the country.
I wanted to get that in before the fate of this amendment was voted on.