Thank you.
It's very important to make it clear, though.... People talk about lost protections. The amended act said that “serious harm to fish” was defined as, “the death of fish or any permanent alteration to, or destruction of, fish habitat”, with “fish habitat” defined as spawning grounds and any other grounds, and so on. The point that the new Fisheries Act caused habitat protections to be lost is simply not true.
The Mining Association of Canada, which talked to us at the last meeting, said in its testimony:
...the 2012 changes to the Fisheries Act have in practice broadened the circumstances in which the section 35 prohibitions apply and increased the circumstances in which an authorization and offsets are required.
Industry practitioners, who actually had to deal with the new Fisheries Act, pointed out that, in terms of the projects they were involved with, our changes to the act—and I use “our” because I was part of the old government and on the fisheries committee—actually increased habitat protections.
Ms. Fuller, I have a question for you. Can you point to any example of damage to a fish population or a fish habitat in Canada caused by the changes that were made to the old Fisheries Act? I want a specific example.