I was a little shocked, Mr. Langer, at your brief when you talked about the upper management of DFO, and I think the term you used was “not honest”. I have found the senior staff of DFO, both when I was on the government side and on this side, to be very forthright and very scientifically literate. I certainly enjoyed having them before this committee.
In terms of the habitat section, let's be very clear. There is a habitat protection section that remained in the new act. It says, “Serious harm to fish is defined as death of fish or the permanent alteration to or destruction of fish habitat”. Then it went on to a definition of fish habitat. It gets a little tiresome to hear that there are no habitat protections under the new Fisheries Act, which is clearly not the case.
A delegation from the Mining Association of Canada testified. These are people who actually have to deal with these acts. They said, “In the mining industry experience, 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”. They went on to say, “The amendments have encouraged greater attention to sound science and the purposes of the act”.
I'd like a simple yes or no answer. Do either of you work in industry, for example, for a mining company, a forestry company, or anything like that.